TEXT C When we think about
happiness, we usually think of something extraordinary--and those pinnacles of
sheer delight--and those pinnacles seem to get rarer the older we get.
For a child, happiness has a magical quality. I remember making hide-outs
in newly cut hay, playing cops and robbers in the woods, getting a speaking part
in the school play. Of course, kids also experience lows, but their delight at
such peaks of pleasure as winning a race or getting a new bike is
unreserved. In the teen-age years the concept of happiness
changes. Suddenly it’s conditional on such things as excitement, love,
popularity and whether that zit will clear up before prom night, I can still
feel the agony of not being invited to a party that almost everyone else was
going to. In adulthood the things that bring profound
joy--birth, love, marriage--also bring responsibility and the risk of loss.
Lover may not last, sex isn’t always good, loved ones die. For adults, happiness
is complicated. Psychologists tell us that to be happy we need a
blend of enjoyable leisure time and satisfying work. I doubt that my
great-grandmother, who raised 14 children and took in washing, had much of
either. She did have a network of close friends and family, and maybe this is
what fulfilled her. If she was happy with what she had, perhaps it was because
she didn’t expect life to be very different. We, on the other
hand, with so many choices and such pressure to succeed in every area, have
turned happiness into one more thing we "gotta have." We’re so
self-conscious about our "right" to it that it’s making us miserable. So we
chase it and equate it with wealth and success, without noticing that the people
who have those things aren’t necessarily happier. While
happiness may be more complex for us, the solution is the same as ever.
Happiness isn’t about what happens to us--it’s about how we perceive what
happens to us. It’s the knack of finding a positive for every negative, and
viewing a setback as a challenge. It’s not wishing for what we don’t have, but
enjoying what we do possess. With the example of her great-grandmother, the writer ______ psychologists’ definition of happiness.
A.agrees with B.disagrees with C.questions D.supports