I am going to interview Kindo Jones about his views about happiness and how he has or has not experienced happiness. Kindo is my college colleague and friend. Though we do not have tight relations with him, I know him fairly well as a Soccer fan and player. We used to go play together in childhood and his family and our family are well conversant with each other.
Interview with Kindo Jones
Question: Hello Kindo? Kindly explain what is happiness to you and in your own words?
Response: Hello. Happiness is a conditional state that depends on a number of factors such as health, emotional well being and contentment of an individual. It is a state of joy with no after effects which is rational and reflects on a person’s values and actions. It’s a kind of a freedom that is thriving teamed up with pleasure and opulence.
Question: Have you perception and definition of happiness changed over time, and what are some of the factors that have influenced it?
Response: Yes my definition and perception has grown and changed over time. Growth and development from one stage to another has changed my understanding about happiness. Education and insight through comprehension has helped me to come into terms with the kind of happiness I experience when engaged in an activity. This is because the happiness I enjoyed when playing soccer in my kindergarten level has changed from just scoring goals to spreading goodwill and promoting youth in sports.
Question: Finally, what can someone do to attain happiness?
Response: To be happy one needs to be persistent in satisfying his needs and desires and appreciating every moment. Creating a free world where one is able to do what he desires is almost impossible, but being content is the best freedom as one tackles the challenges hindering his desires.
According to the above interview, happiness is a growing concept that keeps on changing when various needs and desires are met. It’s a cycle of meeting ones joy by attaining what makes on free, comfortable and in complete control over what he wants. Happiness is therefore a freedom attained when one is satisfied with what he/she is doing and is about to do (Veenhoven, 1994a).
Happiness come with discovering that which we are not and exploring our outer limits which allow us to let go of things within ourselves that hold back our happiness. This is through constant learning, changing and evolving ourselves. This is through career change, finding new interests and hobbies. Taking a light note of our reactions, thoughts, desires and feelings help one become happy by taking things less seriously. Happiness also involves living life fully by working on our dreams wholeheartedly (Santas, 1979 & Saris,1996).
In my second interview, I will interview Mrs Carolina Gitore. Mrs Carolina is 41 years old, married with two teenage boys, and she works in her own green grocer. I found Mrs. Carolina having a hearty chat with a customer on my way to the supermarket and decided to interview her.
Interview with Carolina Gitore
Question: Hi Mrs. Carolina? In your own understanding and life experience, explain what happiness means?
Response: Hi to you. Happiness refers to continuous fulfillment process where one desire is fulfilled after another. Then these fulfilled desires are strengthened by growing them in a satisfactory way. This is a challenge since when seeking fulfillment of multiple needs, one encounters obstacles and restraints. Happiness to me is freedom to do what one desires that means being without limits and living luxuriously.
Question: Do you consider yourself happy and how do you know when you are happy?
Response: I will say my happiness depends on what I have achieved and the challenges am facing. When I make more sales, I get happy but when I make loses, you do not expect me to be smiley. I must admit however that am happy in hope and expectations of a better tomorrow which is predicted by the gradual fulfillment of each day’s target and roles.
In the two interviews, happiness keeps on growing rather than changing. This is founded on the roles and responsibilities that individuals come across in life. For Mrs Carolina, happiness grew from being and intellectual in school where happiness was about passing well, to being an independent woman where happiness included being self reliant. The struggle for happiness continued into marriage where seeing my husband happy and taking care of him become part of my happiness desires. Rearing my two boys, taking good care of them and making sure they make the best choices have been another feather in her happiness hat (Veenhoven, 1994a).
In the interview with Mrs. Carolina, happiness is being free in whatever objectives that one has set. This means seeking new desires when old ones are fulfilled to strengthen ones values and happiness. Happiness is not a fixed state and it means continually evolving in happiness and as thus peoples’ levels of happiness may vary. The ease of fulfilling a certain desire determines the intensity of happiness; the less the struggle, the less the happiness (Irwin, 1995).
Happiness is tied to independence and independence is tied to freedom. So if a person is independent and free, that is a happy person. Happiness starts with the realization that we cannot control some things in our lives. This leads to one pursuing things that he can control rather than the incontrollable ones which kick away one’s happiness as they are frustrating. (Cooper, 1999).
References
Cooper, J. (1999). “Socrates and Plato in Plato’s Gorgias.” In Reason and Emotion. Princeton New Jersey: Princeton University Press,
Irwin, T. (1995) Plato’s Ethics. New York: Oxford University Press
Santas, G. Socrates (1979). Philosophy in Plato’s Early Dialogues. Henley: Routledge & Kegan Paul
Saris, W.E., Scherpenzeel, A.C., Veenhoven, R. & Bunting, B. (eds) (1996) A comparative study of satisfaction with life in Europe Eotvos University Press, Budapest
Veenhoven, R. (1994a) Is happiness a trait? Tests of the theory that a better society does not make people any happier. Social Indicators Research, vol 32, pp 101-160
