A Man Called Ove Analysis

Finding Happiness Through Adaptation Bountiful theories have been developed overtime by students, journalists, scientists, and more on how to find joy. Some argue that you can’t force happiness while others insist that it is a feeling to be made. Whether happiness comes naturally or must be made depends on the temperament and perspective of each person who seeks it. When obstacles are thrown into peoples’ paths some get hung up while others brush them off as temporary eyesores in an overall wonderful picture. Through study of publishings by professionals and the life of Ove in Fredrik Backman’s A Man Called Ove, it is clear that the extent to which one is happy is largely determined by his or her ability to adapt to external stimuli using …show more content…
Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert introduces this concept in his TED Talk. To sum it up, when a person is stuck with one situation as opposed to the originally desired one, he or she begins to effectively convince his or herself that the relevant situation is favorable to the originally desired one (Gilbert). We see this in Gilbert’s example of Harvard students reporting greater satisfaction with artwork they can’t switch out versus artwork they can. This version of happiness has the same affects as true happiness (Gilbert). About this, Gilbert states, “Our longings and our worries are both, to some degree, overblown because we have within us the capacity to manufacture the very commodity we are constantly chasing when we choose experience” (Gilbert). I, personally, can attest to this. Sometimes when I create an after-class schedule and dive deep into homework or studies I tell myself that it’s because I’m choosing to do it and I care about my success rather than because my professor assigned it. It always helps to a certain degree. Gilbert also uses an example of how, a year after the big events, a lottery-winner and a paraplegic have the same level of happiness. This is because money can only go so far to help with emotion and the paraplegic utilizes her ability to accept the situation she’s in and make the most of it adaptationally …show more content…
Money can be helpful be a helpful tool for happiness when used correctly, but it is never a stand-alone source. Psychologists and sociologists of the 2011 documentary Happy mention many studies that show that poor people can be jubilant while rich people can be miserable. One of the most heart-breaking segments in Happy is when a woman speaks of the death of her husband by Karoshi, or being overworked. The family could have survived if he had a lighter job, but Japan’s culture pushes the notion of a life of minimal downtime and much work to have the biggest net worth possible. This is why Japan is statistically one of the least happy places in the world (Belic). Japan is juxtaposed to the Namibian tribe in Africa, where the indigenous people barely have material to cover their bodies and live on dirt floors. These people are immensely happy, because they choose to put their focus on simply being together (Belic). Ove doesn’t place importance on wealth, but on the other hand, his knack for strictly following a traditional and simple life hurt him. One must work to find a