Janie Beyer

In john ciardi’s essay “What Is Happiness?”, he talks about what society is shaping the word to mean. He shows happiness as being an industry run by advertisements. John believes that people thirst for owning whatever is new because they think it’ll make them happy. But people are continuously falling short of this joy because it is simply unattainable. There will always be something new coming out and advertisers stay on top of their jobs. They do a fantastic job of getting in people’s heads to force them to believe that they need their product in order to be satisfied. When in reality, worldly things will never satisfy our desires. People chase after possessions that will ultimately fail them.

But in other ways John shows there are people that simply believe if they want nothing then they won’t be upset when they don’t have anything. So they learn to live away from what most people desire. Which leads them to their own happiness. John’s whole point of the essay is to make the reader think about how a commonly used word or idea is extremely hard to define. He refers to some people’s happiness as an illusion because it’s honestly difficult to even see what happiness is in others. One small word that I’ve used since I was a toddler suddenly becomes very complex. And that’s exactly the point John wants the reader to reach.

I definitely see what John is saying between all of his examples. Happiness is an interesting concept. As John showed, it can mean two completely opposite things for separate people. So then the word becomes a more personal idea. I agree with what the people in his examples were viewing happiness as. Happiness is very shallow. It comes from worldly things. Joy on the other hand is an eternal feeling that you cannot get from a secular item or person. Joy comes from Jesus Christ and the excitement that comes with being a believer and knowing you are always in good hands. That is pure joy. But happiness is on a completely different level. It goes hand in hand with what society sees. Like I said it’s much more shallow. Happiness is always fleeting. You can be happy one second and be completely depressed by the next one.