I am in the SUU honors program. I absolutely love being a part of this wonderful program at the school I have fallen in love with. Last semester I had to take an Intro/Foundations to Honors class for the program. I enjoyed this class a lot and made some great friends because of it. One of the first weeks we made a fort that represented the Allegory of The Cave, and I just got to laugh and mess around with my small class of 15 other college freshmen. The biggest assignment of the class though was to choose a big question to focus on for the semester. The question my class chose was: “What is Happiness?” Since deciding this I have been thinking a lot about that question. We conducted seminars to look at a way to answer this using different perspectives and disciplines. We looked at the social, literary, scientific, economic, and cultural perspectives. My notes from the seminars looked something like this (I have edited a bit for the sake of others reading this):
Social perspective:
We like to feel included, it is human nature. We need to set clear priorities for important things. Good relationships are very important. Serving others can make you happier. Being introverted is okay, but there should a balance since we need social interaction. Find what is personally best for you and run with that to help build happiness. This helps us to talk about how social interactions are heavily related to our happiness and well-being.
Literary perspective:
Make time to read! We can express ourselves when we write. Authors write both for themselves and for readers. Happy endings give us hope. We can remember more and have an easier time remembering when we write more. Reading can cause joy and happiness. Writing helps us sort out emotions and express ourselves creatively. Hope can help with happiness and so when we read a happy ending we can feel that hopefulness and happiness. Overall this seminar just helps us know how reading and writing can help us be happier.
Scientific perspective:
Emotions are the frontal part of your brain mainly. Left is more happy emotions as well as logic and analysis, right is more sad emotions as well as artistic. Your brain releases happy hormones such as dopamine and endorphins. Oxytocin comes from touch and builds up relationships and trust. Love languages can connect to happiness. Serotonin has to do with respect and success, but it can make you unhealthy because you are constantly looking for reassurance and fishing for compliments. Exercise makes you happy because you get endorphins. Even faking happiness, like forcing a smile, can make you happier overall. This perspective also looked at how relationships help with happiness, because of oxytocin. Hormones are really what give us those biological happy feelings. Exercise relates to happiness and gives you a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction and because of the hormones released from exercising.
Economic perspective:
Acknowledge what you have versus what you want. Rich people still get depressed and commit suicide so money does not equate to happiness. The middle class is a good balance as far as wealth goes. We have this idea of money being linked to happiness because of our society. Learn how to evaluate your desires. Desire can be a sickness if it is not used as a way to work towards being better and helping others or even yourself. Your desires will shape what you do with your life. Greedy desires often lead to unhappiness. Money can help you feel satisfied, but once you feel satisfied you do not need anymore, that is when more unhappiness can creep in. Memories are more worthwhile than material. Having a purpose will bring you more joy.
Cultural Perspective:
Different cultures prioritize different things. The role of money in culture affects happiness levels. Having a more uniform society that prioritizes community can add to happiness. How relationships and money affect happiness. The way your culture and the attitudes surrounding those can affect happiness.
Now I am aware that those notes are awkward, but that’s because with how abstract
happiness is it was really hard to try and define it within each perspective. Those are brief summaries of what I got from each seminar. This also made me think a lot about how to me happiness relates to peace, I feel happy when I am with people who bolster up my energy rather than drain me. People who I feel comfortable with and can be myself around. I love a good book with a nice cup of herbal tea and honey. I love to write and think of fun new ideas and perspectives. I have an album on my phone of positive quotes that calm me down and make me happy. I love warm, comfortable socks and being wrapped in a giant, fluffy blanket. I prefer wearing sweaters and leggings over most of my other clothes. I love being comfortable and at peace. I love being around people who just help me feel better even if we spend hours hardly saying a word to each other, but just enjoying one another's company. I love the serenity of nature and the mountains. They are not necessarily what defines happiness, but they definitely make me happier. When I really sat down and thought about happiness though, every single thing came back to the Church, I just keep thinking about Christ and my Father in Heaven and his plan and gospel. Since I cannot very easily go up in front of my secular class and share my testimony without getting disapproval from my professor or annoyance from the classmates I am in a group with, I have decided to put these thoughts and feelings here. The seminars discussed being selfish and serving others as well. Serve others and serve God. We discussed the importance of being kind and showing love to those around us, the prophets command us to love our neighbor. Which is exactly the work the Savior did. No one served more or was as selfless as him. The Word of Wisdom reminds us to take care of our bodies, it encourages eating well, sleeping enough, and even exercising. This helps to keep our temporal bodies nice, blessed and healthy. Since I learned that being healthy can also lead to scientific benefits of happiness I was amazed that God
would give actual scientific benefits for keeping this guideline. Then there is the temple which is the most peaceful place I can think of. Not only is it peaceful, but the work done in the temple is service and the buildings are absolutely beautiful. I cannot think of many things much happier than that. It was so interesting to me that we all seemed to relate happiness to good relationships. Relationships with family, friends, roommates, significant others and even ourselves. I like to add God and the Savior in there as well. If we have good relationships, we seem to be better, happier and overall more satisfied. It has been so fascinating to see that we all think we need balance, finding things that make us happy, being around those who make us happy and spending time with ourselves building up our self-relationship. These balances help us be happier. To me, this is exactly what the scriptures and prophets say. The prophets have often told us to be careful with our time and use it for good. We are taught the importance of good friends and having good family relationships. To me, happiness is the gospel and my family. These things bring me peace and joy. They are what get me through my struggles and challenges. When I feel my lowest and just want to give up I rely on those two things and I feel okay again. The things discussed in my class are such huge themes in the Gospel that I couldn’t help but notice how amazing Heavenly Father is and the plan he made for us, The Plan Of Happiness. I love his plan and know that it is truly the definition of happiness and the easiest way for us to be happy.
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