Chapter 12

"Aristotle believed the function of government was to provide happiness of each citizen" (Janaro & Altshuler 2017)

Everything we do in life is focused towards making us happy, it can either be to be happy in the moment or happy later, government run by the people are successful in the aspect of happiness usually as people vote towards causes that change their lives in a positive way and make them happier than they were before. This quote is interesting as maybe it is the reason "the pursuit of happiness" is one of the inalienable rights mentioned in the Declaration of Independence. Bringing up incarceration is in fact a contradicting idea as people loose their freedom and that is directly correlated to one's happiness.

"If you want to be happy, be." -Leo Tolstoy (Janaro & Altshuler 2017)

To first make my point I must explain my theory of happiness. In short, all happiness relative, for the same event the happiness that it provides deteriorates with repeated exposure to the entertaining feeling. Its the reason that challenges are so fun, it keeps you stimulated by providing more difficult events that leads the pursuer to think or do things that he or she has never done before or do it in a different way, a way that has not had its repetitiveness drained yet. The closest exception I would make is the mind of a collected individual as I believe one can form the outline for what being "happy" is to them. As for myself, I have found myself in a ever consuming void of happiness, mostly due the fact that my mind has decided itself that it is happy, most of the time."