https://www.ted.com/playlists/4/what_makes_us_happy
Please add an intelligent comment (minimum 5 sentences) in response to opinions of the linked videos on happiness. What stylistic or rhetorical devices did the speaker use in his/ her speech? Be sure to use a minimum of one quote in your response. Optional: Comment on a classmate's post in a second post (minimum 3 sentences) *Use only your first name, last initial and class period.
The TED talk I watched was called “The Paradox of Choice”. The psychologist Barry Schwartz explained his theory that in affluent western society, too many choices cause us to feel less happy. He believes we feel worse because we make the wrong choices, in our minds, and can never be fully satisfied because of it. Schwartz said that we have too high expectations, leading to our inevitable disappointment. The key to happiness, he stated, was low expectations. He also explained his talk did not apply to poor nations who have too few choices, contributing to their problems. I liked his basic theory of lowering high expectations, but I do not believe this is always a beneficial mindset for people. Lowering expectations can lead to unhappy relationships, failure in school and work, and causes people to accomplish less. By having low expectations people will have mediocre goals, causing them to contribute little to the world in their life. Having high expectations causes people to be ambitious and accomplish things others doubted they would ever succeed in.
ReplyDeletePeriod 6
Caitie Perricone
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ReplyDeleteThe TED Talk I watched was "Want to be happy? Be Grateful." David Steindl-Rast explains how to live gratefully and not just take a few moments in life to be grateful. He explains how we constantly make ourselves look at the scarcities in life and not at the bigger picture. Every event in our life is something we can be grateful for. Maybe not war, oppression, unfaithfulness, death, etc. but living gratefully makes us happy. If we aren't grateful, we'll always be greedy for more things and to have more in life. He claims that we need to take a second and to appreciate what we do have. He claims you need a stop sign in your life. He says, "Stop. Look. Go." This is how you look at gratefulness. You stop at the moment, you look at whats in your life and then you go. He claims that by being grateful, we open our hearts to opportunities and to enjoy this opportunity. As Steindl-Rast says, "If your grateful you're not fearful and if you're not fearful, you're not violent." Thus he claims that this changes this power pyramid. Instead of a pyramid, this will become a network. This is a non violent revolution and eventually this world will have joyful people. These joyful people will be grateful. He claims how to transform the world into a happier world and a more pacifist world. He tells us continuously to "Stop. Look. Go" and to be aware of our surroundings. Thus he influenced me to take a moment and be grateful for my life, to be open hearted and enjoy what i do have at the moment. He has taught me to stop. Look at what I have and what opportunities await and then go after them. Steindl-Rast's TED talk makes people think and definitely has influenced me to be grateful and made my mindset happier.
ReplyDeleteMiranda S.
Period 6
Just last week, my grandmother had come up to visit from Virginia. She does this every year, although usually it's during the later half of the summer, rather than the first burst of spring. When she comes up here, she spends most of her time sitting out on the front steps, "having a butt," or she'll be on her tablet in the family room. Her favorite activity, though, is shopping. The moment my mother mentions a shop, whether it's a trip to christmas tree, or just going to check out the plants at a local flower shop, she's up for it.
ReplyDeleteWhat she does at these shops though, is she meanders through the aisles, inspecting the products with slightly squinted eyes, and she comments to my mother, "Oh, Johnny would /love/ that." And she ends up buying a lot of things at these shops, all gifts for my cousins back home in Virginia. She derives a happiness from doing this, and so, is in sync with the ideas of Michael Norton's video "How to buy happiness" on TED talks.
The gist of it is, spending money on yourself might not make you happy, but "spending on other people has a bigger return for you than spending on yourself." Which she does, and seems pretty happy doing it.
The TED talk "What Makes Us Happy" is all about the effectiveness of "synthetic happiness." Synthetic happiness is what our minds make of the situations where natural happiness can't be acquired. In the talk the speaker mentions a few situations. One was where a man was sent to prison and spent 37 years there but then was found not guilty by dna tests. When they asked him about his experience he replied "I don't have one minute's regret, it was a glorious experience." Most people would probably think this guy is crazy how can it be fun to be in prison and then be told it was for no reason? But this is an example of how our minds can recreate the feeling of happiness from a situation that would be thought to be unhappy or not fun. I find this idea really interesting because it is very true and real but it is also something you never think about. Happiness really does depend on what you are thinking and its really a subjective matter rather than objective.
ReplyDeleteJessica M. Period 6
The TED TALK titled "What Makes Us Happy" covered the use of synthetic and natural happiness and w it all relates to us. The use of synthetic happiness is very important in our own lives because it could help make a bad situation good when things don't go according to plan. The speaker had pointed out that synthetic happiness is just as real as natural happiness, the difference between the two being that synthetic happiness is making the best of a situation that is not ideal and natural happiness being when one gets what they had wanted. What interested me about his presentation was that he had done studies that show when students are happier with their choices when they know that they cannot take them back rather then if they are given the option of reversing them. His study showed to have very unexpected results because the frontal lobe in our brain has trouble predicting the long term effects of happiness.
ReplyDeleteShoshanna Longo
Jackson M
ReplyDeletePeriod 6
The TED Talk "Less stuff, more happiness" argues an interesting point, that having less stuff can lead to more happiness. He offers that we follow his three rules, 1) Edit Ruthlessly, 2) Think Small, and 3) Think Multifunctional. Through these rules we can increase our happiness, reduce our debt, lessen our stress, and lower our carbon footprint. Being environmentally friendly is not the same as being happy, but it is just as good in my opinion. He uses multiple ways to keep the audience interested. He starts off with a box, to lure the audience in, and then at the end explains that he doesn't need what's in the box, it is just a symbol for the useless junk we hold onto. He also offers up a personal anecdote, sharing his experience in cutting down on superfluous items. Lastly, he gives statistics. He lets us know that since the 50s we have 3 times as much space, but for some reason there is a $22 billion industry in storage units. He makes a good argument for why "less is more".
Michael C. Period 6
ReplyDeleteI watched the TED Talk, "What make us happy?" This video was very interesting because it touched upon technical topics such as the psychology of happiness and what makes us, as humans, more satisfied with our lives. The primary point that I would like to bring up is the idea of synthetic happiness. This is the type of happiness that allows humans to recreate any type of situation and form into something that makes us satisfied with a situation. The experiment that was done by college students in regards to pictures was a perfect example of how reversible and irreversible happiness works. The students who couldn't switch out their photo were completely satisfied with it while the students who could switch out ended up being in a constant state of paranoia about what to do. Thus, they were unhappy as a result. The speaker said this happens, "... because the irreversible condition in not conducive to the synthesis of happiness." This basically means that one cannot create an ideal situation when the possibilities of outcome are varied. Also, Dan Gilbert used a variety of methods to accurately portray his point. He used comparisons, analogies and logical situations to back up his claims. In all, I totally agree with the speaker in the sense that people are generally confused when it comes to their overall happiness. It all depends on one's individual way of thinking.
I watched the TED talk "Flow, the secret to happiness", and I found it very interesting, he started it out by saying how when he was young and caught in the middle of world war two he noticed how many of the adults around him were unable to live a happy life when they no longer had their job, money, security had been destroyed; and this is what caused him to want to learn what makes a life worth living. He tried to get involved in things like art and religion and philosophy to find the answer but he didn't in these, then he studied psychology to try and understand the root of happiness. He shows a graph that I find interesting that shows how since 1956 the percentage of Americans who say they are very happy with their life has stayed generally the same, even though personal income has doubled, almost tripled. So he says that it seems to be that after the point of being a few thousand dollars above the poverty level, money and possessions doesn't seem to affect happiness. He then goes on to talk about ecstasy, talking about a description of composing music that a composer gave where he describes it as a feeling like ecstasy, and that it just seems to flow out of him. Then he continues with talking about different interviews of people, like a writer, a figure skater, a CEO, and they all describe the same type of ecstasy and just flowing feeling that comes when they are doing their job. So to me he is saying that happiness in life, and a life worth living comes from finding that one thing that you can do so easily, that flows from you and gives you that feeling of ecstasy, finding that and being able to put your life into that gives you a life worth living.
ReplyDeleteLeah B Period 6
I viewed Ron Gutman's "The Hidden Power of Smiling", which made a lot of surprising scientific claims about how smiling physically betters our lives. I'm not sure I can believe all of his facts, such as the point where he said baseball player's lifespans could be predicted using the size of their smiles on baseball cards, but I can certainly relate to his points where he talks about how smiling makes us happy as much as being happy makes us smile. As he stated in the talk, Charles Darwin once said, "Even the simulation of an emotion tends to arouse it in our minds." It's similar to how people say looking at yourself in a mirror and smiling makes you feel happy, no matter how terrible you are feeling. The more important thing to note during this whole talk, however, was indeed the use of rhetoric to convey the importance of smiling. Gutman manages to say each smile is worth hundreds of chocolate bars, or 25,000 dollars. The relationship seems to make no sense, but it made the people listening smile, which was the point of the whole talk. He also appeals to our logical reasoning when he explains, in depth, the physical benefits of smiling, particularly smiling's relationship with hormones. Gutman's ability to explain the real scientific benefits to smiling whilst making the audience smile is great execution as far giving a speech about smiling goes.
ReplyDeleteThis Ted talk connected scientific research to happiness we think we make for ourselves. I liked how Dan Gilbert compared the happiness of a lottery winner and a paraplegic. I was surprised to find out that although one would assume that a lottery winner would be more happy, it turns out that after one year they are both equally as happy. The speaker used a real life connection to help surprise and provoke curiosity from the listener . An interesting statement that was also made by Gilbert was, "We synthesize happiness, but we think happiness is a thing to be found." As humans our common goal is to find or seek happiness. I've always thought that although happiness is synthesized we can take steps to find happiness in our lives. This TED talk helped me to separate the scientific and fictitious happiness we experience.
ReplyDeleteCassidy M. Period 6
The TED talk "What Makes Us Happy" discusses the differences between synthetic happiness and natural happiness. Synthetic happiness is described as something that we as humans create in our minds to provide satisfaction in a situation. In other words its like making the best of any situation. On the other hand natural happiness is described as being getting exactly what you want or getting the outcome that you most desired in a situation. One example of synthetic happiness shown in the video which i found remarkable was a man you was found innocent of a crime that he didn't commit after spending 37 years in a prison. When asked about the situation he said, "I don't have one minute's regret, it was a glorious experience." While most people would be furious after wasting such a big part of their life in jail, he looked at his situation in the most positive light possible which for him provides a bit of happiness. Its interesting to think about what happiness truly is and what is means to each individual and what I took away from this TED Talk is that happiness is not so much based on the situation but on how we perceive everything that happens in our life.
ReplyDeleteHannah Beatty
I watched "What make us happy?" This video was very interesting because it talked about what actually makes someones happy and more satisfied in life. There is a type of happiness that allows humans to change any type of situation and form into something that makes us satisfied with a situation. I also agree with the speaker, that people are confused when it comes to their overall happiness. His study showed that happiness really comes from what you make yourself believe.
ReplyDeleteRachel C per 6
I find it absolutly mind boggling that "One year after winning the lottery and losing their legs, the two groups of people are equally happy." This appeals to the audiences logic, using the rhetoric of Logos. It makes it mark, not because it seems logical, but because it is illogical. The author, in my mind is a genius as people ALWAYS remember the shocking facts more. For example, if your friend tells you they won 5 dollars on a lottery ticket, you will think to yourself, "so what, everyone does." However if your friend wins 500,000,000 dollars, you are not likely to forget it soon, due the shock.
ReplyDeleteBack to the article, I guess the quote makes sense. Our society is so geared twords financial happiness that we don't understand the differences between that and actually being happy. Im sure we all have heard of the garbage man who "Won the lottery, and within a year he was broke because he spent all of his money on women, drugs, and more lottery tickets." This man won, and people probably speculated that he was the happiest man alive. However, a year later, it was as if nothing happened. That life changing victory was nothing but a memory.
Ben G
Per 6
Dan Gilbert talked about why we are happy. I thought it was really interesting that a major event like winning the lottery or losing your job has no long-term effects on your happiness. It doesn't matter what happens, our brains find a way to be happy. If we get what we want, we feel happy, what Gilbert calls "natural happiness." If something bad happens, we create our own happiness, which he calls "synthetic happiness." He brings up a good point when he says, "We believe that synthetic happiness is not of the same quality as what we might call 'natural happiness.'" It should be of equal quality because happiness is happiness, regardless of the source. He argues with logic (logos), explaining that this is why material products really don't bring happiness. And he argues with pathos as he appeals to our emotion, showing us how people can be happy no matter what happens to them. Jessica L. Period 6
ReplyDeleteIn this is TED talk of "what makes us Happy" the edge between natural and "true" happiness was compared to synthetic happiness. Natural happiness comes along at times when someone may just smile at you and you smile back because you are good friends, or maybe spending quality time with a special someone and you just get that warm feeling on the inside. However when we cannot find this kind of natural born happiness we as humans simply won't tolerate that kind of situation. So, what do we do? We create synthetic happiness, this is kind of happiness is born from our own minds to make any situation seem like its a fantastic time. We create the scenario in our subconcious that THIS is what I want to be doing and THIS is great, (whatever the this may be.) One such example was the man in prison who stated "I don't have one minute's regret, it was a glorious experience." In no way shape or form could spending almost 4 decades in jail be a great time. Sure you could make friends and get along well but it is jail. In his mind he worked out the thought that he was enjoying it even though in reality he probably hated it. Again its human nature to not want to accept failure and wallow in misery, so when we're sad we are going to create artificial happiness to pull us out of that rut, its just the way we are and I can accept that.
ReplyDeleteSonny G. Pr.6
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ReplyDeleteI watched the TED talk "Daniel Kahneman: The riddle of experience vs. memory". Where he talked about the difference about how remember things and how really experience things. So say you have a wonderful time at a party but on the ride home you got into a car wreck you would remember that whole night as a horrible thing. Because the "story" ended with you getting hurt. He also talked about how our experiencing self and our remembering self are two different parts of us. How we can experience something as one way but if something over shadows it at the end the how memory of it can change its tone. He talked about how we forget most of our lives because our remembering self doesn't think the moments are not important to us. See to everyone who has studied the brain this is not knew news it is what the brain does it deletes unneeded information so you can store others stuff that is qualifies as more important. I think people only "find happiness" (wow i hate that term) when they realize that they have to stop replaying the bad stuff. Al the guys examples were negative endings as if the people had only remember them because they were horribe experiences. If we start to look at the good in even the bad experiences we will have "happier" lives.
ReplyDeletesam period 6
I enjoyed watching the TED talks. They are full of information and they really help you appreciate life more. I would love to see one live and really get involved with his discussions because they are so relate able.
ReplyDeleteTeagan