I was too naive to study happiness. Now I am not happy at all. Those complicated and theoretical literatures on happiness baffled me so much that I have no idea where to start my review at all. Most of the classical theories and explanations on happiness are more than hundreds years old, they still make sense nowadays though.

Yet I think they are sort of highbrow arts and literatures to most of us. what does happiness mean to us in 21st century? Who can explain it in a nut shell and in an approachable way?

I think for most of us who are not going to devote themselves to the academic life, we only want to be enlightened by some wise and smart sentences that rock our mindset.

Today I read a piece of crispy essay about happiness in a magazine, and it made me finally understood the topic a little bit better–after I banged my head against brick wall for those obscure theory books these days.

The author argued that we are living on a cultural soil perfectly suited for depression. Here is a checklist for happiness blockers: materialism, perpetual discontent, over-complication, hyper-competition, stress, rage, boredom, loneliness and existential confusion(what does existential confusion mean by the way?). We are less happy because we`re removed from nature, married to work, adrift from family and friends, spiritually starved, sleep deprived, physically unfit, dumbed down (what does dumbed down mean again?) and enslaved to debt.

I was so worried about myself because I realized that five out of ten symptoms mentioned above fit me to a certain extend, espcially in this hectic second semester. But I don`t think I am unhappy by and large. Why?

The author answered my question in the middle of the article, saying total satisfaction can actually be a major bostacle to happiness; people who have it all must learn the art of flirting with deprivation. Ha, it seems that I don`t have this problem, because I don`t have it all. No wonder I don`t feel unhappy even when I am always worrying about lots of stuff in my life.

In search of happiness makes me painful, but it makes me wise as well, although it can`t necessarily make me happier in future.

One smart sentence I learnt in the essay: Keeping paradise at a distance, yet within reach, is a much better way of staying alive. ( Don`t push yourself too hard. )