The Pursuit of Happiness | Alexander Lam | TEDxHarkerSchool

good afternoon everyone and thank you so

much for coming I wanted to start off

today’s talk by examining these two

well-known Olympic athletes base it yeah

sorry based on these pictures alone can

you tell which of these women is a

bronze medalist and which is a silver

medalist as it turns out Chinese swimmer

foo you aren’t we here on the left

actually earned the bronze medal while

American gymnast mckayla maroney here

earned the silver medal so why is it

that the bronze medalist the Chinese

swimmer here looks so much happier

despite achieving less Cornell

University’s thomasgillam vich set out

to investigate the strange paradox and

his stutter and his study entitled the

bizarre psychology of the bronze medal

winner and over a hundred interviews and

independent evaluations of the athletes

facial features and reactions to

initially winning their medals professor

Gil evicts strangely discovered that

silver medalists seemed consistently to

be less happy than their bronze medal

counterparts professor Gil evict

reasoned that while bronze medalists

often are grateful and happy to receive

award at all the silver medalists often

constantly compare themselves to what

they could have done to achieve the gold

now in this way we can see that

happiness truly is a mindset more than

anything else and when we approach life

with this mentality our happiness

becomes independent of our

accomplishments and accolades but rather

a product of our state of mind that’s

exactly what I wanted to talk about with

you all today how we can all position

ourselves to better be happier

individuals in our everyday lives now to

begin I believe its first important to

understand the ancient underpinnings of

the philosophy of happiness and don’t

confuse this with a perfunctory exercise

or just a dry philosophy lesson because

in my opinion it’s important to analyze

in order to gain a deeper understanding

of what happiness is it’s important to

analyze what the great thinkers who

first analyzed the human psyche thought

indeed classical philosophers set out to

expand on this rapidly growing school of

thought focused on human flourishing and

his famous work Nicomachean ethics for

exam

Aristotle articulates the concept of

eudaimonia which are which translates

into human flourishing greco-roman

authors wrote prolifically about how to

achieve this enlightened state of being

and how to be happier in their everyday

lives during this metaphysical quest

these riders expanded on lots of

literature and produce many great works

of art and in the end these classical

thinkers seemed to distill happiness to

two essential pillars the first of which

was virtue Aristotle and vision virtue

as the highest human trait that of moral

excellence arguing that people have

innate admiration for those who can

carry out acts of moral beauty glasgow

philosophers agreed and asserted that

all people have an equal ability to

accept virtue and lived by its tenets

and out and have a virtuous life stoic

philosopher Seneca for example wrote

that virtue is the same in a rich man as

in a poor and the sickly man as the

sound and in a strong man as in a week

using these dichotomies Seneca taught

that virtue as oak as universal and open

to all of us we can all accept its

tenets and live by its fundamental

teachings however philosophers such as

Plato and Marcus Aurelius pragmatically

pointed out that not all of us fall over

to you as a as a guide for life even

though all of us may possess a small

green event within ourselves so

ultimately it’s only when we tap into

this undiscovered and latent reservoir

of character within us that we elevate

ourselves to a higher state of moral

excellence equally important to

classical thinkers and the pursuit of

happiness was this idea of the value of

friendship and its work day on mekia for

example Cicero posits that friendship is

the ultimate relationship we as humans

can achieve calling it an agreement of

all things divine in human joined with

kindness and affection Cicero argued

that while other aspects of human life

such as riches health power and honor

are all dependent on the capricious

nature of fortune true friendship is

steadfast and unwavering Seneca even

argued that a true friend can represent

an extension of oneself saying that a

friend is an eye a whore

a tongue a hand at all distances so here

we see this bold idea that friendship is

as essential to humanity as literal body

parts are to human existence so to

briefly summarize what we see coming out

of this classical era with regards to

the philosophy of happiness are these

two equally powerful ideas of virtue and

in friendship which collectively embody

the spirit of mastering both the self

and virtue and mastering our personal

relationships and our interactions with

others within friendship but now that we

understand a little a little bit about

the philosophical roots of happiness the

question becomes how do we achieve

happiness and seeing that countless

poets playwrights authors and

psychologists have tackled this question

for millennia now it would be foolish of

me to profess that I somehow hold the

ultimate secret to happiness or I’ve

even come close to unraveling all its

mysteries rather as a senior I wanted to

share with you all my personal

experience of growth and realization

throughout my high school journey so

without further ado here’s my story the

first step in my transformation was

understanding that the the need for

recalibration we live in a world

dominated by scientific and economic

progress yet how is it that more and

more of us feel so empty indeed the

Dalai Lama articulated that the great

paradox of our times is that we spend

more but have less we have bigger houses

but smaller families we have learned how

to make a living but not how to make a

life similarly why is it that we care

more about our gross national product

instead of our gross national happiness

for example John F Kennedy observed that

the gross national product does not

account for the health of our children

the quality of their education or the

joy of their play it does not include

the beauty of our poetry or the strength

of our marriages and measures neither

our wit nor our courage neither our

wisdom nor our learning it measures

everything in short except that which

makes life worthwhile so in light of

these profound contradictions i

discovered the need for us to

recalibrate and perhaps revert to more

ancient definitions of happiness

less focused on materialism but more on

the aspects that make us as human beings

flourish and thrive like virtue and

friendship now the next the next part of

my journey was understanding that the

key to recalibration lied in

introspection now I dumala G

etymologically the word introspection

comes from the Latin prefix intro

meaning within combined with the Latin

verbs spectro SPECT re which means to

look so at its core introspection is the

process of looking within oneself this

process of self-examination is critical

to recalibration because it enables us

to engage in ourselves in a deeper

capacity and on a deeper capacity as

well if we neglect this inward looking

process we lose sight of what matters in

life and the bigger picture of course as

Socrates famously stated the unexamined

life is not worth living and

surprisingly I’ve personally found that

the place is most conducive to

introspection aren’t necessarily always

these spectacular gems of nature

completely devoid of human touch rather

I’ve witnessed that tremendous beauty

can be seen all around us if we simply

take the time to stop and notice it a

couple of weeks ago for example I was

waiting here on campus at six-forty-five

just waiting for my dancer or so to

start with so few friends on campus at

that time I decided to go to davis field

and lie down putting my phone and

computer away and just watching the sky

and gazing at all the clouds in the sky

after a while I felt the shouts

emanating from the JV water polo game

and the clamor of construction softened

to a dull murmur as I found myself lost

in the blueness of the sky and

intoxicated by the wild air as thorough

would say during this opportunity to

seemingly stand outside the world for a

brief moment of time among the

exigencies of schoolwork and the demands

of extracurricular activities I

relinquished my mind to the forces of

imagination and contemplation it’s in

quiet moments of liberation like this

that I’m reminded of a much more simple

definition of happiness and while the

process of introspection will

undoubtedly lead to different thoughts

and musings for all of you it’s still

important nonetheless

to consciously make that decision and

step back and examine ourselves indeed

Aristotle wrote that the life of

contemplation is the highest form of

human activity since it promotes

individuality and self analysis so my

challenge to you is to once in a while

put your phone and computer away for

just 30 minutes and simply spend time

just by yourself all alone whether that

be watching the sunrise in the morning

or just walking through your local

neighborhood and this way we can all

start to recalibrate and live the more

examined life as the classical classical

philosophers would have advised us to do

and equally important as what we do with

our own time such as introspection is

how we treat other people which is why

we need to embrace empathy and kindness