*As you can see at this point Im a couple pages short and have not cited anything, and

I also

have to add support, and flesh out many of the paragraphs and individual ideas still, so I am

looking for big picture feedback. Im wondering for example if my paper at this point seems

to be cohesive or not, does it have a strong thesis that is supported throughout in a way that is

not confusing or all over the place, etc. But really anything will be useful at this point.

Thanks.

Jessie Haas

Professor Lisa Fitzgerald

English 1

6 December 2017

Essay Four Draft

Despite our societys obsession with happiness, many people are looking for it in the

wrong places. Somewhere along the way the idea entered the public consciousness that

happiness lies in external validation, whether it be the admiration of your peers or the amount

of money you have in your bank account, or in contriving superficial substitutes, such as

social media and lifestyles completely disconnected from nature, for the things that have

historically been crucial to human well-being. For the people who chase these false ideals,

their current efforts for well-being are a massive waste of time and resources. There is a

tendency to overcomplicate, when happiness is actually found in simplicity, in things we use

to consider self-evident to a fulfilling life, have somehow abandoned along the way.

Americans have been sold an artificial view of happiness which keeps us in a never-ending,

exhausting race to accumulate superficial achievements, despite very little, if any, benefit on

our well-being, because well-being actually correlates to simplicity over materialism, nature

over urbanization, community over social media, and self-actualization over high-status. You
can create your own happiness by weaving these things into your life, even if you cannot

commit entirely to these ideals.

To look at the how our societys values have shifted you dont have to look further

than the rampant materialism in America, the race to have more stuff than your neighbour,

and more stuff than you had last year, but these materialistic goals are not only detrimental to

your well-being, but distract from that which can bring fulfilment: anti-consumerism and

therefore simplicity. The accumulation of stuff is often passively accepted as being a key

component to happiness. Stuff doesnt make you happy, and assuming that it does is the

easiest way to get stuck on the Hedonic treadmill, trapped in an endless cycle of desiring a

purchase, the purchase itself, adaption to said purchase, and then desiring a new purchase,

and so on. While frugality for the sake of frugality doesnt make a person happy, people who

live materially simplistic lifestyles, such as those in the Voluntary Simplicity movement, a

group of people who have chosen to reject materialism and consumerism, have higher levels

of happiness than the general population. On the extreme side of the spectrum, communities

that have rejected modernity almost completely, such as the Amish, enjoy higher life-

satisfaction than those of us squarely in the twenty-first century. While you dont have to

cancel your electricity and throw out your television, adopting a maxim of less is more and

placing less importance on material possessions is a seemingly small change that can make a

big impact. It is perhaps not that the act of rejecting materialism brings fulfilment, but that in

the absence of materialism, you are able to focus on other things in life, things that correlate

to genuine life satisfaction.

This trend of the abandonment of simplicity can be seen on a larger scale, with the

total societal shift from rural living to urban living, but our well-being has suffered as a

result, indicating the need for going back to nature, at the very least in small amounts. Our

status as a developed country often rests on our civic achievements; big cities and
urbanization are seen as necessary advancements for a prosperous society and therefore

prosperous individuals, but people who live in cities are actually consistently less happy than

those who live in the suburbs, and those who live in the suburbs are consistently less happy

than those who live in rural communities. Although city parks are an improvement, as a

persons well-being tends to increase when they have access to parks, people are happier in

actual nature than in parks. Since not everyone can abandon cities, as they are where the

majority of the jobs in our society are, either utilizing city parks or using any extra spending

money on trips to nature, such as national parks, is one way to implement these values into

your life. There is a second part to small rural communities apart from rural though:

small communiteis, and this is another important part of the puzzle.

We live in an age where everyone is connected: you can talk to someone in Senegal

easier than you can buy a carton of milk, yet we are ironically not connected in any

meaningful way, as social media contributes to the cheapening of relationships through

oversaturation and voyeurism, and the distraction from that which actually brings fulfilment:

small communities. For most of human history we as a species have lived in small

communities, and often the center of socialization was churches or the equivalent. Although

our society, ever since the nineteenth century, has become increasingly more secular and

these centers for socialization have been abandoned, our nature as a hyper-social species has

not. There is perhaps no other animal as dependent on its fellow species for survival as

humans, and we are the only species to form relationships with people outside of our families

(meaning, friends that arent related to us). To neglect this part of ourselves is to cripple

ourselves emotionally. These days it seems we overcompensate with social media, sometimes

having hundreds of friends, many of whom you are barely acquainted with or in some cases,

have never even met. Whether it is scrolling through hundreds of different newsfeed stories

of people you barely know, or reading hundreds of comments from people you will never
meet, we are overcrowded in our social pursuits. Anthropologist Robin Dunbar famously

predicted that the largest amount of people a community could have before individuals could

not form stable relationships was 150 people, and this theory has been tested and held up in

experiments and research relating to everything from social media to Roman legions. There

are different levels within this number, your most intimate acquaintances will only make up a

small amount, but the total number that a community should have to maximally benefit the

individual is about 150 people. The way that we live, all crowded together in huge numbers,

either in real life or on social media, goes against our nature. While we cannot all go out and

live in small rural communities, the solution may lie in forming smaller communities within

our large communities. Interact directly with a smaller number of people on Facebook rather

than scrolling through hundreds of posts, if you are passively scrolling through your news

feed you are not truly interacting with people, you are practicing voyeurism. And this is

conductive to unhappiness- people who use their social media in this way are consistently

less happy than those who do not. An easy fix, therefore, is to activity engage in your news

feed, reaching out and making connections with the people on your social media, being an

active participant in their stories and letting them be an active participant in yours.

Additionally, join a community, and cultivate the friendships and relationships that you do

have. While not everyone with strong social ties is happy, it seems to be a crucial element to

happiness: everyone who is happy has strong social ties. It is important to consider that our

social medias and our large, anonymous communities might be directly detracting from these

social ties. Ironically, in the age of connectivity, we seem to be more disconnected with each

other than ever. It is therefore important to find these ties again, and prioritize them.

As we prioritize reaching our full potential with other people, we should also

prioritize reaching our full potential inside ourselves, but this cannot be done artificially

through validation from others or the attainment of high status, it is self-actualization that has
to come from within yourself. Many people feel they will be happy if they are admired, or

have achieved a high level of status, but extrinsic validation has no correlation with genuine

well-being. Indeed, some people achieve self-actualization and the fulfilment of their true

natures in complete isolation, completely removed from the opinion of others, such as monks.

(I have a lot to add here about Maslows hierarchy of needs and Csikszentmihalyis idea of

flow as indicating reaching your full potential, self-actualization.) Focusing on becoming the

best version of yourself, even if that seems like it would fall short by some arbitrary societal

standard. Focusing on self-actualization and honing your own unique talents are more

important than having high status in society.

The good news is that the things that actually make us happy in many cases are easier

to achieve than the things we falsely believe will make us happy. Simplicity, nature and

community can be the easiest things in the world to implement into your life. Although self-

actualization takes effort, it is something that everyone can do, as you do not have to rely on

anyone but yourself to do it. There is no need to overcomplicate the pursuit of happiness. The

challenge lies in letting go of your long-held myths about what you think will make you

happy. Nearly everyone, barring extreme circumstances, can implement these ideas into their

lives. The key is to live intentionally, and not get caught as a passive contestant in the race for

status and stuff.