Proposal with annotated bibliography - Research Paper Example

The Role of Luck in a Person’s Quest for Happiness Happiness seemed to be a very elusive feeling or emotion for people living in a very fast-paced world. The more a person earns and learns, the more the person wants out of life. Advancements in the various fields in the world make it harder for a person to achieve the elusive emotion that often is the only dream of an individual. Too much unhappiness is being brought about by worldly possessions, greed and envy. As Russell addressed the concern, “…what can a man or women, here and now, in the midst of our nostalgic society, do to achieve happiness for himself or herself? (17)” With the statement expressed, another question comes into mind.

Does the society helps individuals find their worth and happiness? Or does the society destroy the individuals because of a number of reasons? Luck is often associated to things or events that bring out happiness or success to an individual. If success is based purely on luck, there is no place in a lifetime for intelligence, skills and capabilities. There is no such thing as luck or its presumed opposite, bad luck. Every person has his own will to decide and act on where he would want to go and explore.

In de Botton’s Status Anxiety, the author expressed that:Our status also depends on a range of favorable conditions that could be loosely defined by the word luck. It may be merely good luck that places us in the right occupation, with the right skills, at the right time, and little more than bad luck that denies us the selfsame advantages. (88-9)” When an individual says success often this is being misinterpreted as happiness. Others may refer to happiness as possessing things like realties, automobiles and gadgets.

However, this is not real happiness. These are worldly happiness which a person can lose at any given time. Happiness is also at times being perceived as contentment. When a person is not contented with the way his life is going, the person concludes or states that he is not happy with the way life is happiness. However, happiness is not truly attached to any possession or material things which are gained via financial or social status. It is not the money, the social status, or political power that can bring the person his true happiness.

As Russell put it into context:The man who is only interested in himself is not admirable, and is not felt to be so. Consequently the man whose sole concern with the world is that it shall admire him is not likely to achieve his object. But even if he does, he will not be completely happy, since human instinct is never completely self-centered, and the narcissist is limiting himself artificially just as is the man dominated by a sense of sin. (20-1)Happiness does not need to be something which is concrete and can put one in the list of the most famous people in the world.

Most of the times, happiness is brought by the smallest gestures given by a person to another. Happiness is found within with the help of the society. Man can never be happy being alone.Works Citedde Botton, Alain. Status Anxiety. New York: First Vintage International. 2005. Alain de Botton showed in this book the insights of people as they would want to climb up the ladder of success, whether it would be in the professional field or in the social aspect. Anxiety of achieving goals often makes people unhappy or a bit envious of those people who already belong to the social group they would want to be a part of or those people who already have in their possessions the belongings the former would want to require.

Russell, Bertrand. The Conquest of Happiness. USA: Liveright. 1996. In this book, Bertrand Russell discussed factors that affect the mind-setting of people that gives them the idea or the notion that they are happy. Not all of the factors that Russell enumerated are the factors in achieving genuine happiness. The author also described what will happen to people when these factors are exploited. There are also explanations as to how these factors became connoted with happiness.