I believe that the reading Feeling good. The best things in life: A guide to what really matters (Hurka, 2010) is the most important reading as it shows how modern happiness today is one that is individualistic, in line with my belief that happiness is based on our own unique perspectives.

The perspective of the individual, on how one perceives situations happening to and around them can help them attain happiness. The author has mentioned about how there are four types of pleasures as he describes it: discrete pleasures, pleasures pervading the consciousness, pleasures regarding an object and pleasures with an extended object. (Hurka, 2010) These various pleasures are experienced by the individual by either physically experiencing a form of pleasure or through their emotions and thought process can they feel pleasure. To gain pleasure from emotion or a thought process you do require some level of intelligence, the intelligence is required to have an intricate thought process where more abstract feelings of pleasure can be felt (Hurka, 2010). This is in line with my personal view, I do believe more complex forms of pleasure requires the individual to have a certain level of intelligence and thought process for a point of view to be made you can then perceive whether certain situations bring happiness.

Also, I would like to mention how this individualistic perspective helps manifest each other bringing in an enhanced version of happiness (Hurka, 2010). The manifestation of pleasure is also an indication of perspective, you need to be able to determine that the following events that happen after one another are pleasures to you. Therefore, you can use those recurring pleasures to bolster themselves with each other. “Sometimes one blends into another, and they regularly reinforce each other, so having one type of pleasure encourages you to have others” (Hurka, 2010, 24). In line with my beliefs, to be able to allow happiness to bolster one another, you need to have perspectives on what happiness is to determine if they can even bolster one another.

Positive qualities in an individual will allow one to change their perceptions, thus enabling them to attain happiness (Craig, 2019) Everyone has their own perspectives to happiness, it is imperative that perspectives are in play when it comes to happiness. To conclude, I believe this reading can show how perspectives are required for happiness and thus is the most important reading.

Reflection

I think that the most difficult part of the reflection was finding my idea on what happiness was, to then find one reading that was in line with what I feel. I think that most readings are not very explicit with their views on happiness, so I need to draw points from them that I feel will be in line with my view. The reading focuses a lot on how the individual feels towards different situations which is in line with my belief that happiness is based on how we choose to perceive situations, that is why I chose this reading. What I struggled with was making the article persuasive while having a word limit, to counter that problem I chose to add in evidence on my main thesis from supporting texts outside of the book for more credibility.

Reference List

1. Hurka, T. (2015). The Best Things in Life: A Guide to What Really Matters, New York: Oxford University Press.
2. Heather Craig (2019, February 14) The Psychology, Theory and Science of Happiness (+ 16 best articles) [Web log post] Retrieved September 10, 2019 from https://positivepsychology.com/psychology-of-happiness/