Negative emotions are crucial to feeling true happiness and not the type that you can buy from a shelf or from a catalog. Sadness, fear, and anger are necessary to experience what humans have labeled the ultimate enlightenment. Ever since history began, people have been pursuing true happiness, but what does it mean to be happy, and is it really okay to be happy? Through science and personal bias, multiple opinions and studies have been formed and analyzed in order to provide an answer to this never-ending crisis. Then, other questions were created that changed the perspective on the issue entirely; are the negative emotions only holding oneself back from reaching true contentment? If so, how does one rid himself/herself of these pessimistic
…show more content…
Yes, one can live a comfortable life without them, but it is impossible to be truly content if one excludes the unfavored feelings. It is human instinct to resent something labeled as negative, but looking past the label, one realizes that it is a necessity to incorporate these negative feelings in order to lead a full and healthy life. A study conducted on Americans in 1994 resulted in 30% of people were diagnosed with some type of mental disorder, while the other 70% were not happy, but leading comfortable lives. From this study, scientist concluded “‘happiness’ is a condition over and above the absence of unhappiness.” (Seligman et. al 1379) Once one experiences negative feelings, he/she cherishes the idea of positive emotions. As individuals, humans are inspired to reach enlightenment, but people are simply mislead. Happiness is just a nice feeling until you feel an unfavored emotion. When one has a bad feeling, it seems impossible to reach happiness and the feeling that comes along with it. Because of this, humans have created a nonexistent, higher level of happiness that seems harder to reach. The emotion of joy is below this euphoria, so once an individual experiences happiness one ask oneself how to become
Yes, one can live a comfortable life without them, but it is impossible to be truly content if one excludes the unfavored feelings. It is human instinct to resent something labeled as negative, but looking past the label, one realizes that it is a necessity to incorporate these negative feelings in order to lead a full and healthy life. A study conducted on Americans in 1994 resulted in 30% of people were diagnosed with some type of mental disorder, while the other 70% were not happy, but leading comfortable lives. From this study, scientist concluded “‘happiness’ is a condition over and above the absence of unhappiness.” (Seligman et. al 1379) Once one experiences negative feelings, he/she cherishes the idea of positive emotions. As individuals, humans are inspired to reach enlightenment, but people are simply mislead. Happiness is just a nice feeling until you feel an unfavored emotion. When one has a bad feeling, it seems impossible to reach happiness and the feeling that comes along with it. Because of this, humans have created a nonexistent, higher level of happiness that seems harder to reach. The emotion of joy is below this euphoria, so once an individual experiences happiness one ask oneself how to become