There’s more to life than being Happy-Emily Esfahani Smith-TED.COM,talks

You can watch the original talk at the following TED.COM, link

If we were to sum up the whole talk in a sentence, the speaker talks philosophy after a full tummy. The dictionary defines happiness as a State of contentment and satisfaction. In other words, if you say you are happy, it would only mean that you are contended with the things you have.

Clearly from the opening sentence of the speaker we can understand that she has just confused Greed with Happiness. The ideal job, the perfect boyfriend, that beautiful apartment, clearly all of these will never bring Happiness to an individual, for the very fact that these are traits of an narcissist behavior for when there are millions dying from hunger and homelessness, you bask yourself in with the best of the housing and with a job to pay them all. Of course, you can never become Happy, why? For the simple reason that your life is self-centered and it is clearly visible from the very introduction that you had put forth, your “I” occupies the priority of this talk.

Of course the path to happiness is Success, without success, America wouldn’t be what it is today. Starting off as one of the youngest nations with meager means in a world dominated by the European powers, Success being the sole fuel that propelled America to stardom. The reason being the simple fact that all those immigrants who landed on its shores during the 18th Century, did not prefer a life of existence but a life of substance.

How would a Graduate school define Happiness ?

The irony is, the speaker decides to join a graduate school to find out what makes people Happy? Foremost, there is a huge problem with this statement. For at the very beginning, the speaker starts off by saying, “ I used to think the whole purpose of life was pursuing Happiness’, and now we hear and see that she joins a grad school to find out what truly makes people happy? Are you not contradicting your very own self here, madam?

Why do we say this ? For, if you had clearly known that your very thought was wrong at the very first place, in other words, life was not about pursuing happiness, then why would you have to join a Grad school to learn, what makes people happy?

It is the universal truth, that aspirants invest in their education for the mere fact that Education offers them the Opportunity to change their lives. Education is the key factor that would determine the lengths and breadths of one’s journey on this Planet. It may not be so in Mars or Jupiter, but on Earth, without Education the individual is all done. Now again, why should a person does go great lengths to attain education? For Success. Why aspire for Success ? Because, Success makes oneself Happy.

For life merely offers two choices, Happiness or Sadness. You have the privilege to choose. If Lebron James, misses that all important opportunity to ensure that his team wins, for sure he is never going to Happy for the entire season. If Usain Bolt, misses his 100 m, Olympic gold to his challenger, for sure, he is not going to be happy for the next 4 years. Have you’all ever wondered, as to why all of top mentors say one common thing when they talk to youngsters, “stay in school”. The reason being simple. They won’t end up in a cell. For merely staying at school, will offer an opportunity for them to seek and enjoy Happiness.

Speaker’s introduction is highly contradictory

Now this takes us back to the introduction that the Speaker gave, according to her, she had the best job, the perfect boyfriend, and a high class apartment, and then on we hear the speaker say that she joins Grad school to pursue, Positive Psychology.

This prompts us to question the Educational background of the Speaker, was she a Post Graduate at the very first place ? if she is not, then how was it possible for her to claim that she had the best job? For these days, companies would want their Employees to hold at least a masters degree in their area of Specialization.

And what is more appalling is the fact that someone who starts off by confusing the meaning between, Greed and Happiness, now decides to find what makes people happy which according to her could only be possible by joining a Grad school, majoring in Positive psychology.  Does it not sound funny? Pathetic it does.

Can there actual exist such a Data?

Next, we hear the speaker mentioning that according to the data obtained, all those who are in the pursuit of happiness eventually become unhappy. Is that so? Then the vital question here would be to find the data source that made such an audacious claim. When every thing from Personal greetings to corporate accomplishments have the word, “Happy”, as its prefix, here we are hearing a revelation that People who seek happiness often end up being unhappy.

Incorrect DATA reference

The speaker then mentions that the suicide rate has hit a 30 year high in America and the reason being most people have become empty inward cause of pursuit of Happiness.

According to, Jill Harkavy-Friedman, vice president of research at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, “I don’t think there’s a one-size-fits all reason since there’s almost never a single cause of suicide”. These are his own words and here we have a speaker spilling out irrelevant and misinformed information.

A Successful life is what makes a Meaningful life, and it is not the other way around

Then the speaker follows it up by adding another careless conclusion, that, according to research, the feeling of despair is not due to the lack of Happiness but lack of having meaning in life.

The speaker quoting the words of Martin Selgman, according to who, to have a meaning in life, one ought to develop the best within oneself. This is an acceptable definition.

For all external developments and achievements is a mere reflection of one’s internal self.

But this definition won’t make the Speaker, happy. We hear the speaker taking a wild swing at the American culture, by commenting that the culture is being obsessed with happiness. What the speaker fails to understand here is the fact, that happiness is merely a byproduct of one’s efficiency in realizing his or her true potential.

In all fairness, we wish to know what the speaker is aiming to achieve through this talk, for all we see is contradiction, contradiction and more contradiction.

If you are not interested in the pursuit of Happiness so be it, then why would you seek to study what makes people happy, then quote words of Martin Selgman and then superimpose your flawed view that seeking meaning in life is the more fulfilling path, when in the first place, you have no clue as to what constitutes a Meaningful life.

It is imperative to understand that it is the Pursuit of Happiness that makes one to have a Purposeful life, and subsequently with a purposeful life, comes a meaningful life.

The speaker is talks about living a meaningful life, and then sum up saying that those that have a meaning in life are more resilient, do well at school and even live longer. This is what we call, a confused a Speaker. Is Bill Gates not living a meaningful live, and he is currently among the top rich people in the world, is he not successful? Is he not happy? Is Obama not living a meaningful life? Is he not successful? Is he not happy?

The bottom line is, all Successful people live a meaningful life, and all of them are really happy.

The speaker then talks about the 4 pillars that would make an individual to live a life of meaning.

According to the speaker, the first pillar is belonging and true belonging comes from love, well, we see a huge Plagiarims of concepts here. Jesus, on his sermon on the Mountain, mentions, that the greatest of all is love, love your neighbor as thyself.

We see the speaker takes the concept and looms a story out of that, citing cases of her friend, Jonathan;s interaction with the newspaper man. How at one instant, though, Jonathan, doesn’t have the right change, still he insist on paying the newspaper man with a big bill. But apparently the speaker concludes, that the Jonathan has rejected the love of the Newspaper man by not accepting his gratitude of walking away with the paper without paying. If Jonathan were to do that everyday, soon the Newspaper man would have to have a blanket spread at the subway station, asking people for alms. You don’t call this a love, you call this as, taking advantage of the weak…To be Continued….