Individual Seminar Prep: Happiness and Meaning
Part 1: Synthesis of Project Content and Essential Questions
Essential Questions:
1. What is the purpose of your existence?
2. What is happiness and what makes one/you happy?
3. What does it mean to live a meaningful life?
1.I believe finding the true purpose of your existence comes through different experiences and different times throughout your life. The answer to this question doesn’t come easily and for many people, it takes a lifetime to answer. It is a confusing and scary question that some people are in the midst of discovering while others will never truly know. An example of this struggle to find the purpose of an individual’s existence is in the reading called “Franny”. This reading is about a girl named Franny who is struggling with finding the purpose of her existence. She begins to recognize the meaninglessness of some people and the things they do. She struggles with the fact that everyone seems to be the same and do the same things.
Quotes:
“Listen, don’t hate me because I can’t remember some person immediately. Especially when they look like everybody else, and talk and dress and act like everybody else” (Pg.30)
“I’m just sick of ego, ego, ego. My own and everybody else’s. I’m sick of everybody that wants to get somewhere, do something distinguished and all, be somebody interesting. It’s disgusting…it is, it is. I don’t care what anybody says.” (Pg. 32)
2. I strongly believe that each individual defines happiness for himself or herself. There are many ways in which and individual can find happiness. For example, in a TED talk called “How To Buy Happiness” it talks about research showing that people who spent money on others rather then themselves, were found to be happier people.
Quotes:
“It was found that people who spent money on others tended to be happier.”
“In almost every country in the world, people who donated to charities and or to other people were significantly happier than those who spent money only on themselves.”
3. My view on a meaningful life is a mix between my opinions on the previous essential questions. I feel that finding meaning for your life is hard and that it could take a long time. More importantly I also think that only you can define meaning for yourself. You have the power to choose whether your life and what you do within your life is meaningful or not. In a TED talk by Mike Rowe, he explains that people must define meaning for themselves. He does this through traveling around the world seeking out people who do “dirty jobs”. He explains that while to some people these jobs seem meaningless, to the workers, they are meaningful and lead to happiness. He also explains that sometimes a meaningful life or job comes from bringing your passion along rather than following it completely.
Quotes:
“While I felt successful, I felt like it wasn’t really meaningful.”
“ You don’t follow your passion, you bring it with you.”
Part 2: Ted Talk Selection and Response
Chosen Talk: The Power of Vulnerability
Main points:
I thought that this TED talk was interesting and easy to relate to. I found that once I got into it and listened to what she had to say, I could easily relate it to how I have felt at times. I felt that this talk made me understand the key points behind vulnerability and ways that we can control and lessen our feelings of vulnerability.
Question:
What are some things that have made you feel vulnerable? Why?
Part 1: Synthesis of Project Content and Essential Questions
Essential Questions:
1. What is the purpose of your existence?
2. What is happiness and what makes one/you happy?
3. What does it mean to live a meaningful life?
1.I believe finding the true purpose of your existence comes through different experiences and different times throughout your life. The answer to this question doesn’t come easily and for many people, it takes a lifetime to answer. It is a confusing and scary question that some people are in the midst of discovering while others will never truly know. An example of this struggle to find the purpose of an individual’s existence is in the reading called “Franny”. This reading is about a girl named Franny who is struggling with finding the purpose of her existence. She begins to recognize the meaninglessness of some people and the things they do. She struggles with the fact that everyone seems to be the same and do the same things.
Quotes:
“Listen, don’t hate me because I can’t remember some person immediately. Especially when they look like everybody else, and talk and dress and act like everybody else” (Pg.30)
“I’m just sick of ego, ego, ego. My own and everybody else’s. I’m sick of everybody that wants to get somewhere, do something distinguished and all, be somebody interesting. It’s disgusting…it is, it is. I don’t care what anybody says.” (Pg. 32)
2. I strongly believe that each individual defines happiness for himself or herself. There are many ways in which and individual can find happiness. For example, in a TED talk called “How To Buy Happiness” it talks about research showing that people who spent money on others rather then themselves, were found to be happier people.
Quotes:
“It was found that people who spent money on others tended to be happier.”
“In almost every country in the world, people who donated to charities and or to other people were significantly happier than those who spent money only on themselves.”
3. My view on a meaningful life is a mix between my opinions on the previous essential questions. I feel that finding meaning for your life is hard and that it could take a long time. More importantly I also think that only you can define meaning for yourself. You have the power to choose whether your life and what you do within your life is meaningful or not. In a TED talk by Mike Rowe, he explains that people must define meaning for themselves. He does this through traveling around the world seeking out people who do “dirty jobs”. He explains that while to some people these jobs seem meaningless, to the workers, they are meaningful and lead to happiness. He also explains that sometimes a meaningful life or job comes from bringing your passion along rather than following it completely.
Quotes:
“While I felt successful, I felt like it wasn’t really meaningful.”
“ You don’t follow your passion, you bring it with you.”
Part 2: Ted Talk Selection and Response
Chosen Talk: The Power of Vulnerability
Main points:
- The people who have a strong sense of love and belonging believe they are worthy of love and belonging
- The hard part of the one thing that keeps us out of connection is our fear that we are not worthy of connection
- The people who found themselves to be worthy had these things in common: courage, compassion and connection. They had the courage to be imperfect, the compassion to be kind to themselves first and then to others, and they had the connection as a result of authenticity. They were willing to let go of who they thought they should be in order to be who they were. The other thing that they had in common was the fact that they fully embraced vulnerability. They believed that what made them vulnerable made them beautiful
- They didn’t talk about vulnerability being comfortable nor did they really talk about it being excruciating, they just talked about it being necessary
- They talked about the willingness to do something where there are no guarantees
- The way to live is with vulnerability instead of trying to control and predict
- I know that vulnerability is sort of the core of shame and fear and our struggle for worthiness but it appears that it is also the birth place of joy, creativity, belonging, and love
- We numb vulnerability
- We live in a vulnerable world
- You cannot selectively numb emotion
- When we numb bad feelings, we end up numbing all feelings
- One of the things we need to think about is why and how we numb
- We make things that are uncertain certain
- When we believe that we are enough, we stop screaming and start listening, we are kinder and gentler to the people around us and we are kinder and gentler to ourselves
I thought that this TED talk was interesting and easy to relate to. I found that once I got into it and listened to what she had to say, I could easily relate it to how I have felt at times. I felt that this talk made me understand the key points behind vulnerability and ways that we can control and lessen our feelings of vulnerability.
Question:
What are some things that have made you feel vulnerable? Why?