Cockerham 1

S. Nicole Cockerham
Deborah Jizi
University Writing
1 February 16

Double Entry Journal

Citation: Parfitt, Matthew. Pursuing Happiness: A Bedford Spotlight Reader. Comp. Ed Diener
and Robert Biswas-Diener. Place of Publication Not Identified: Bedford Bks St Martin'S, 2015.
Print.

Source: Quote (Page# or Paragraph #)

Responses

When you think of money and happiness,

you probably recall all the things money can
buy- a nice house and car, fun vacations,
and a good education for your kids. Pg 160

I think many people, including myself, would

agree with this statement. Happiness is seen
as just a word that vacates a spot for material
items. Until I entered this university writing
class, I saw happiness as all of these things.
Now that I have had time to sit down and
reflect on what makes me happy, materialistic
things hardly touch my list of happy triggers.
My family makes me happy, and I cant buy
that. Spoiling my English bulldog puppy with
love and attention cant be bought. Although
money can buy things that make a normal
person happy, they cannot buy the
sentimental things.

As the income gap between right and poor

widens daily, it makes sense to wonder
which economic group-the rich or the pooris the greater inheritor of happiness. Pg 161

My LBST class just watched a video on this

same subject. The poor make up over a half
of the world, and the money scale similar to
the one we watched in our UWRI class, is just
unbelievable to see. The gap is definitely
increasing between poor and wealthy, and is
something that needs to be addressed more
often in the news and in the upcoming
presidential election.

Where the extremely wealthy happy, or

were they anxious and dissatisfied? pg 162

The few VERY wealthy people I know are

happy, but very, very anxious. I feel like I
would be too if I were in their position. My
friends Harry, who inherited a lot of money

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from his dad who was a brain surgeon that

passed away, is 27 and single because any
girl that dates him is in it for the money. They
dont take time to get to know him, and
neither do many of his friends. It is a sad
sight to see, but the money only puts him in a
more difficult situation than if he didnt have
any money at all.
According to the participants in this study, it
wasnt money that bought their happiness.
Pg 162

I would agree that money cannot buy

everlasting happiness: relationships, family,
and a healthy social life create happiness
whether we want to admit it to ourselves or
not.

Indeed, the wealth of nations is one of the

strongest, if not the strongest, predictors of
the life satisfaction in societies. Pg 163

We take advantage of the American Dream,

but in fact it is a real thing. Living in North
America means wealth to a lot of people.
Depending on where you live determines a
lot of peoples success and income amounts.

In other words, rich nations are, on

average, satisfied, and very poor nations
tend not to be. Pg 164

This can be debatable. I think you could find

many, many exceptions to this statement.

Im quite happy with my lot. Im a happy

chappy. I can make any situation happy.
You dont have to have money to be happy.
Pg 165

I have a friend named Chapman, and

coincidentally, she is just like Viv Nicholson
(the religious one, after the downhill spiral
from the lottery win). She is ALWAYS in a
happy state of mind, no matter what. She
makes a bad situation good again, she
hurdles through the barriers of life with flying
colors and never seems to miss a beat. She
is happy chappy!

People receiving small to medium windfalls

were clearly happier, and this effect
persisted over time. Pg 166

I feel like this pertains to me. Smaller

rewards of happiness go a longer way
because there are more of them. The
problem with one big windfall of happiness is
that nothing ever compares to it, so we
demand more from a situation. For example:
id rather receive $2 a month for a year rather
than $25 at once for the whole year. I know
this isnt a good example, but it takes more
and more to satisfy a person when the
happiness is bigger.

Finally, we know that materialism can be

toxic to happiness. Pg 166

Materialism has corrupted America,

especially the young.

In short, this research indicates that,

I understand the research, but I feel like this

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overall, being extraordinarily poor has a

negative influence on happiness, but that
some very poor individuals are, in fact,
somewhat satisfied, and even extremely
poor people are usually not depressed. Pg
167

could be different from poll to poll. It sounds

very neutral I thought it would have been
skewed one way or the other.

What they found was surprising: the

amount of money a person made only
modestly predicted whether or not she was
satisfied with her income. Pg 170

I can understand and see this piece of

research. Money I believe can buy a
reasonable amount of happiness, depending
what you spend it on.

The lesson here is that no matter how

much money you earn, you can always want
more, and feel poor along the way. Pg 171

Agreed. This is me. I feel poor all the time

and I blow through my paycheck.

Thus, the merest hint of money led to a

tendency for folks to feel confident, but also
to feel more distant from others. Pg 173

Money does make very many people happy

nowadays. America and greedy and money
oriented. People will cut themselves off to
everything in order to gain the financial status
they want, or one that will help them, fit in in
society.