Happiness

David Myers and Michael Wiederman both write about happiness. They agree on some things but mostly they do not agree about what make people happy.

Myers says that there are two things that make people happy and those two things are relationships and faith. He argues that the two kinds of relationships that are important are friends and marriage. Friends are important to all people. People who do not have friends are not happy. Married people are happier than not married people. This is proven according to Myers. According to Myers faith is really important for happiness. Faith makes people have hope. After the life they can go to heaven. Faith also helps them in the problems of the life because they can pray to God and they think that God is listening to them and helping them.

Wiederman says that the things that make people happy are personality, achievement and flow. Personality is something inherited. This means that if parents are depressed they will have depressed children. People have a based line of happiness. This means that everyone has a level of happiness that does not change. A happy person will be sad when someone he loved died but after he will go back to the kind of happy person he is. A depressed person will always be depressed. Maybe if he wins the lottery he will be happy a bit but soon after he will be depressed again. These are personality things that he talks about. Wiederman really believes that happiness comes from achievement. If people have goals and try to get them they are happy. Working hard at something make them happy. The idea of flow is that the person who is happy does not think about the past or the future all he thinks about is right now. That is what makes him happy.

Myers and Wiederman agree that money does not give happiness and that genetics are important to happiness. Both of these writers say that research proves that money is not important for happiness. They say that people need the basic amounts of money. They need enough to pay their rent, buy food and clothes and keep warm. After that the amount of money has nothing to do with being happy. There are as many rich people who are unhappy as there are poor people who are unhappy. Also the rich people and the poor people are equal in happiness.

Myers and Wiederman have very different ideas about happiness. Myers says that the relationship and faith are important for happiness. He believes in personality, achievement and in flow.