english HW

What have we learned so far?

Benjamin Wallace, “The Price of Happiness”: How does the price of something affect your level of happiness? Conflicting, contradictory. You seem to usually enjoy it more if you spend more money on it.

Michael Norton, “How to Buy Happiness”: Money can buy you happiness, but not when you spend it on yourself, but when you spend it on others.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, “Flow, The Secret to Happiness”: Money is not really a motivation in people and it’s not a cause for happiness. A state where you’re in the zone, you are working for the sake of working. The work itself is motivating. Your work is something that makes you happy. There’s the diagram of challenging/skills.

Barry Schwartz, “The Paradox of Choice”: Barry does say choice is good, but highlights the numerous bad implications of choice. Choice can make you not satisfied because you’ll think you made the wrong choice, regret. Low expectations really help you make a choice.

Dan Gilbert, “The Surprising Science of Happiness”:

Nancy Etcoff, “The Science of Happiness”: Happiness is a lot more complicated than we thought it was 50 years ago. She brings up lots of different studies on happiness to “update” the audience on happiness. Babies are hardwired to detect pleasure and happiness. People are hardwired to experience unhappiness and discomfort more than happiness. Unhappiness is often medicated.

Malcolm Gladwell, “Choice, Happiness, and Spaghetti Sauce”: He says we need people to help us figure out exactly what we want so they can market something for us. Howard “democratized” food and beverages, this is what expanding choice did.

Sunstein, C.R., “What You Can Learn from the New Science of Smarter Spending”:

Chan, M., “Here’s How Winning the Lottery Makes You Miserable”:

Begley, S., “Happiness: Enough Already”: Sadness and depression and anxiety are okay. They can lead to productivity.

Brooks, D., “What Suffering Does”: He lists benefits to suffering, as opposed to just being happy.