Torrey Braman

March 3, 2011

Phil. 1012 - Intro to Philosophy

Dr. Mehring

Reflection Paper #6: Evaluation of Lincoln’s Statement

President Lincoln once believed that “People are only about as happy they make up their
minds to be.” I can heavily relate to his belief, as I too think the same. But, there is an extent,
rather a limit to which we can control our happiness.

I believe that we have the ability to make about 90 percent of “bad events in our life not
so bad. In other words the way we are impacted by “bad” events is determined by our own
personal outlook. For many things in life such as a car accident, death in the family, broken nail,
or bad grade, we almost always have the choice to take it in a good way. We do not need to stick
around and complain about what happens, rather we can think about it, possibly take a small time
to mourn, but ultimately use it to become stronger and move on. Here in America, we believe in
chemicals to balance our emotions, and possibly give us our “highs” and “escapes”. But in the
east, they have a much stronger reliance on philosophical methods of exploring the mind and
eliminating lifes problems through things such as meditation. However, we are all human beings
and prone to events that are beyond our emotional control.

When we are overcome by things such as clinical depression (not just the usual sadness,
but the irrational sadness that may cause the loss of ones life), or other diseases that may
completely impair the logical parts of our brains, that allow us to use “mind over matter”
methods of happiness. I will use the example of my mother. She was a very strong person who
had been diagnosed with Huntington ’s disease. There was no cure and this disease would most
likely cause her death by age 50. As far as I know, she kept strong throughout and even after
giving me up for adoption was able to keep most of her happiness. But as her disease began to
take over she lost most of her control to her body movements and eventually to her cognitive
control. She had, by then, been virtually lifeless.

We have the ability to live as happy individuals as long as we maintain our basic health;
with good health, and little money, and little possessions we may still live very happy lives. It
isn’t until the lack of items or items themselves causing health problems that we unable to
maintain happiness in our lives.