Vlog 2: Happiness (Outline)

The Transcript will be posted in a little bit, but I figured I would also share the outline for my Vlog. These are the things I physically read from while talking.

Happiness

• Intro:
  • Greetings, introduction of topic: Happiness
  • Video will be split into at least two parts.
  • Do Troll thing quickly

• Simple vs Meaningful
  • Simple: Delighted, pleased, or glad as over a particular thing.
    • Things: Love, Family, Job, Money
      • Some things are more “solid” than others, money is ephemeral and can easily be lost, which is why we say “money can't buy happiness”. Things like family are more lasting and less conditional.
  • Meaningful: An abiding satisfaction with life.
    • Type of Happiness: Satisfaction
      • Satisfaction is not glee or or cheerfulness. It's not like the adrenaline rush you get from playing a game or the “cloud 9” feeling after a great date.
      • Thing: Life. Life is the most solid of things, when you no longer have it, you're not going to care whether or not you're happy. If you believe in an afterlife, you're still “living” and death is merely a transition.

% Should be roughly 2 minutes

• Example: Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
  • Disclaimer: Philosophical, not Psychological
  • There are levels of needs, with the bottom needs needing to be satisfied before other needs will be looked at.
  • Meeting a need leads to satisfaction
  • Realizing a need leads to dissatisfaction
  • Difficult for Developed/Wealthy vs Undeveloped/Poor
  • Three Tiers of Needs: Physiological, Psychological, and Self-Fulfillment
    • Developed Nations have the bottom 2 needs met almost by default, and are thus focused on meeting the more elusive psychological and self-fulfillment needs.
  • There are three “elusive” needs: Love, Esteem, and Self-Actualization
  • Each need builds a more solid foundation upon the others, so that, if you reach your need for “esteem” for instance, then if you lose someone you love, or a friendship breaks, you're better able to deal with that loss and maintain your esteem.
  • Love is the easiest of the three to meet, it's often given to us unconditionally, and even the most “loner” type of individual can generally find a group of friends to be with.
  • Esteem is a need our society forces us to realize and is one of the largest causes of unhappiness. We generally meet our need for love, but don't feel worthwhile, and thus, dissatisfied.
    • Esteem is a huge issue, and it's not easy to get to that point. If we rely on others for our Esteem it is mostly just an extension of Love needs and if we lose that support then we fall back, it's not “true” Esteem in that sense.
    • Support from others IS important though, we just have to learn how to internalize that support, believe it, and work with it to build our own Esteem so that we can meet that need.
  • Esteem is often the ceiling for happiness for many people, once they feel worthwhile they often don't realize the need for self-actualization and continue on with their lives unaware.
    • This is a good thing and a bad thing, if their esteem is never lost or they never realize the need for self-actualization then they can have a deep, abiding satisfaction with life.
    • However, if they lose their esteem, either because of a significant failure, or if they have a sudden realization of self-actualization (mid-life or quarter-life crises) then they suddenly become dissatisfied again.
    • Such happiness is dependent on esteem, which is less solid than self.
• Conclusion
  • Keep watch for part 2 of the Happiness segment
  • Thank you!