Wednesday, October 22, 2014
Friends
In going off the discussion we had in class about friendship, an interesting point that was brought up was regarding the question, "do our friends determine our happiness?" This was an interesting question for me as I argued in the recent essay happiness is individually determined. However, I believe here that friends play a great role in determining our happiness. This question was kind of passed over but this question really ties into what we have been discussing the entire semester. So, what do we think? Can you be happy with miserable friends? Can you be happy with no friends? Can you be miserable with great friends? I'm very curious what you all think!
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I think that our friends definitely determine our happiness daily. For me, happiness can be “contagious”. I know if my friends or roommate is in a great mood, I’ll feel somewhat happy as well. I believe this happens not only because we are happy to see our friends so content, but also because we are striving to achieve the same state of happiness as those around us. In the same way, I know if my friends are having a bad way and are miserable, my mood will be altered as well, realizing stresses I may have not acknowledged when I was not influenced by the negative attitude. This makes happiness socially determined as it is strongly influenced by friends.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Jackie. When I’m around people who are happy, then I’m happy. However, if there is something wrong, such as sadness or anger, being happy is difficult, even if I have to be strong for a friend who is in a difficult position.
ReplyDeleteI argued that happiness is a community-driven construct in the recent essay. This point is further emphasized by the question you ask. Obviously, people like counselors and parents have to be happy or strong for others on the outside when others are unhappy, but it seems difficult to say that someone is definitely happy on the inside based on external cues.
In terms of being happy without friends, I know Aristotle mentions that the happy person would find life better if he “[spent] his days with decent friends than with strangers of just any character. Hence the happy person needs friends” (148). What I took from this is that sure, a person can be happy, but he says that humans are “political animals” and that since we, as humans, crave social lives, we must have decent friends, if we are to have any at all (148). I think in practice this might tie into selfishness. If our friends can help determine our happiness, can’t we affect others to make them happy through our happiness? It seems selfish to have all this great happiness reserved only for ourselves.
I also agree. In a complete friendship where we are emotionally involved with another person our happiness is connected to theirs. In a complete friendship we obviously care about that other friend and their well-being. If that friend is not happy then that should cause concern, if they actually are a close friend. When we care about people especially friends who we are in a close relationship with, our happiness is dependent on their happiness. Our friends are who we are around and who we talk to all the time because there is an emotional connection, and if they are unhappy they are not pleasant to be around. But since we care about them we try to make them happy.
ReplyDeleteI somewhat agree with the previous comments that happiness can be determined by our friends however, I look at from a slightly different angle. For instance, if I am in a great mood because something good just happened to me I will most likely not be very affected by a friends bad mood. I am not saying that I would just overlook their emotions, but it is would probably be a different kind of feeling. I may feel sadness for them, but my overall happiness most likely would not be affected because something good, not bad happened to me. This may sound like a selfish attitude or mindset, but I think a good number of people would agree that the situation of a friend or someone else may briefly affect you, but not completely alter your state of being.
ReplyDeleteJackie, Aristotle relates and individual’s happiness to those of his friends under the assumption that the friends are considered “friends of excellence”. If we were solely benefiting people that were just friends of utility or friends of pleasure, I do not believe that would bring us happiness because that is more of a superficial sense of providing something for the other. In terms of the excellent individual having excellent friends, they should essential both strive and both gain happiness from one another being that they are able to share experiences together and provide a sense of goodness for the other in hope of helping the friend to achieve his goal. Lastly your question about can one “be happy with miserable friends” , though relating it back to the excellent individual, the one who he considers his “excellent friends” would not be miserable, but rather they too would be striving for happiness in their own way. If you can consider an individual to have miserable friends I would say that individual would become miserable as well, because his happiness is dependent on those around him .
ReplyDeleteAgreeing with the other comments, I do believe that my friends have the ability to influence my happiness. But I find the question of "can you be happy with miserable friends" quite interesting. As we talked about in class, friends are an extension of ourself, so if we surround ourselves with miserable people, we too will become miserable if we are not already. I think it is important to note that friends are some of the most influential people in our lives, just after family. Parents are influential in that they teach you basic morals and provide you with what you need to form your own opinions and grow as a person. Friends can influence you because oftentimes we spend extended times with these people and pick up their opinions and views on life and claim them as our own. My good friends and I share similar opinions on things, some of which were influenced by them. Therefore, if my friends are miserable I would consider myself to be miserable too because they have the ability to influence me and my attitude. That's why it's always important to surround yourself with people who make you want to be a better person.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I agree with the above comments, I stand by my original belief that happiness is individually and internally determined. We must have a basis for happiness within. With that being said, I do believe our momentary happiness is affected by outside factors; an important one being companionship. As humans, we crave companionship. Feeling as though someone cares about you is an important aspect of happiness.
ReplyDeleteI agree with everyone's opinions that happiness is contagious. I would like to point out, however, that this is only true with true friends. If we see others happy when we are feeling down, it can sometimes make one feel worse. If someone reaches out and includes you in their happiness, however, then this can affect your happiness.
I argued in my past essay that happiness is socially determined so I do think whether our friends are happy or miserable affects us. I think this is why it is important to surround oneself with positive people. I do not mean we cannot be friends with someone who is going through a rough period, but overall they should bring us joy. When I think of how a friend can affect our own mood, I think of going to a concert to someone who is outspokenly not enjoying its. Their displeasure often brings down the vibe, and thus I myself am not longer enjoying it. I think this same idea translates to happiness. If my friend is not happy, I am then going to be upset because I care about their wellbeing.
ReplyDeleteI think that our friends are able to influence our happiness but they do not determine it. For example, I'm sure that we have all experienced a time when a friend is having a bad day because of a bad grade or similar event. We might feel pity for our friend but our own happiness isn't affected. Some influences could be big, however, in the case of a life altering event such as a death.
ReplyDeleteI think that our friends could potentially influence a present happiness, but I don't think they can determine any sort of teleological happiness. If that were the case, then we would only have to have one friend that we with which we would spend the rest of our lives. This starts to sound like a romantic relationship and we've already decided that friendship and a romantic relationship are two different categories.
ReplyDeleteLike Jacqueline, I argued in my recent essay that happiness is individually determined. I still believe this, however, I think that friends can play a role in temporary happiness. We surround ourselves with people who we share morals with, and people that we enjoy spending time with. It is likely that we will surround ourselves with people who provide us with momentary happiness, as opposed to surrounding ourselves with those who will bring us down. Although real happiness is relative to the individual, complete friendships can provide day to day, temporary happiness.
ReplyDeleteI too argued that happiness was individually determined in my essay and I still believe this is true. Similarly to Molly, I think that having good friends plays a role in our ultimate happiness; however, I still believe it is up to each individual to decide whether or not they are happy. For example, different people have different friends depending on what personality types make them happy. If one individual has completely different opinions than another, those two people would most likely not be friends, unless their difference of opinions made for a dynamic, enjoyable friendship. I think this is the reason why certain people get along with some people and not others. If peoples' personalities match up well and both sides of the friendship enjoy each other, both will be happy. In this case, the mutual friendship is a source of happiness but one's state of happiness is determined by that person alone.
ReplyDeleteAll of the above comments really emphasize the fact that we are social beings and our feelings are closely linked with our environment. Often we look to our friends to validate our feelings of happiness or another kind of emotion. It reminds me of that saying, “misery loves company.” Well from our discussion and Aristotle’s point that we are political animals, it also seems that happiness loves company. As we said in class today, sharing an emotional connection with someone is a necessary component to friendship. Although I believe one has to find happiness within oneself first, I think friends can be secondary sources of our happiness and share in our individual happiness.
ReplyDeleteSimilarly, I argued that Happiness was individually determined. With that being said, I do believe that our human nature tends to look elsewhere for validation and comfort in our decisions of what make us happy. For example, if getting tattoos and multiple piercings made me genuinely happy, but my best friends or mother were to approach me and express their discomfort and disappointment with my choices, I would feel awful and probably reconsider those decisions I had made. Ideally, we would like to think that our decisions only affect us, but in reality they do not, we do not live in an ideal world. Thus, I would feel obligated to consider my friends and family when making certain decisions, and moreover their approval or disapproval weighs on my present happiness.
ReplyDeletePart of me wants to say that happiness should not be entirely reliant on another person, that you need to learn to be happy and not give so much control to other people. Yet at the same time, I don't think you can be truly happy all alone. Friendship is one of, if not the most important thing in life. Unfortunately, I know what is it like to loose friends and I would be lying if I did said that it had no impact on my happiness.
ReplyDeleteI personally believe that the source of our happiness lies somewhere in between the individual and world around us. I think ultimately you need to be happy with who you are as a person to be truly happy but I would think that having friends has some input in our happiness. Our friends provide some sort of support and feedback for us that may influence how we evaluate ourselves, and by extension, our happiness. I was particularly struck by Aristotle's idea of having a few excellent friends. I believe it is possible that we could be very unhappy with a large group of people that we call our friends but who are actually more like acquaintances, and conversely be extremely happy with only a few good/true friends. Ultimately we are social creatures and to having quality friends is bound to influence our notion of our own happiness.
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