In Selfish Pursuit "In Selfish Pursuit" is a short story in which Anthony Brandt, the author, presents his definition of happiness according to his life experiences. Brandt discusses the most common view of happiness, which is defined by materialistic possessions. According to him, happiness is unobtainable. Also, the author uses a lot of techniques and devices in this short story, such as cause and effect, comparison and symbolism.
At the beginning of the story, the author uses a pattern of cause and effect. He makes a very pessimistic statement “You notice that the happiness is composed half of relief, half of self-satisfaction; the latter half makes you distinctly nervous, and you fall to chewing on your achievements, discounting them. This then comes up becomes the spur to more achievements, more happiness, more guilt.” I completely agree with Brandt. When we arrive at our goal, we are satisfied for a brief moment. However, we have an even greater hunger to achieve that overcomes our satisfaction. We succeed, and as a result, we tell ourselves that we do not really deserve it. Thus, we end up in a vicious circle in the pursuit of happiness. …show more content…
“Oh, I love it, make mistake, but the pursuit of happiness feels to me sometimes like a dog chasing its tail and half of me thinks that we have made a giant mistake, that the American way is little more than the exaltation of greed”. In other words, we can never truly be happy. We will chase after it for our whole life. In fact, we do not chase the right things. Happiness is an extremely widespread concept. It differs from one person to the other. To rephrase this, everybody defines happiness
At the beginning of the story, the author uses a pattern of cause and effect. He makes a very pessimistic statement “You notice that the happiness is composed half of relief, half of self-satisfaction; the latter half makes you distinctly nervous, and you fall to chewing on your achievements, discounting them. This then comes up becomes the spur to more achievements, more happiness, more guilt.” I completely agree with Brandt. When we arrive at our goal, we are satisfied for a brief moment. However, we have an even greater hunger to achieve that overcomes our satisfaction. We succeed, and as a result, we tell ourselves that we do not really deserve it. Thus, we end up in a vicious circle in the pursuit of happiness. …show more content…
“Oh, I love it, make mistake, but the pursuit of happiness feels to me sometimes like a dog chasing its tail and half of me thinks that we have made a giant mistake, that the American way is little more than the exaltation of greed”. In other words, we can never truly be happy. We will chase after it for our whole life. In fact, we do not chase the right things. Happiness is an extremely widespread concept. It differs from one person to the other. To rephrase this, everybody defines happiness