Bud Fox In Wall Street Analysis

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Congel, Matt Humanomics 9/30/11 Through the progression of our Humanomics class, more and more questions have piled up in my head. During discussions, I find myself pondering a plethora of inquisitions in a very small amount of time. Despite this mental mayhem, I almost always wind up back at the same question: What should be the more important human motive: the pursuit of happiness, or the pursuit of success? As we’ve seen and read, people have differing views on this topic, i.e. Carl Fox vs. Bud Fox in Wall Street or the land lords vs. the farmers in The Grapes of Wrath, even Ridley touches on the topic briefly in the first chapter of his book, but nobody has given a straight response to the question. After careful research though, the words of Chip Conley at the 2010 TED Conference have fostered my response. After a seventeen minute speech on the benefits of GNH (Gross National Happiness) over GDP and the success of Bhutan (the country which started GNH), Conley stated that “[w]e don’t have to choose between inspired employees and sizable profits. We can have both. In fact, inspired employees, quite often, help make sizeable profits.” If what Conley says is true, then happiness and success can actually be tied together for the betterment of society.…show more content…
In The Grapes of Wrath, many characters are seen putting success before happiness, such as the tractor driver and the reluctant landlords. Through determination to succeed beyond those around them, they’ve distorted the true sense of happiness, which concerns the greater good rather than individual gain. Yes, that may sound somewhat idealistic, but the former will always affect the latter. Our problem as a society is that we’ve placed success before happiness, therefore changing our interpretation of happiness something only skin
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