Response to Aristotle's Quote on Happiness

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Desmond Jarman English Sec 012 09/22/ 2013 Response to Aristotle’s Quote on Happiness “Happiness is prosperity combined with virtue.”(Aristotle 983) This quote by Aristotle gives his simplistic outlook on the sum of happiness. While the wording of this quote is simplistic, Aristotle is actually implying a lot more than what he seems. The two concepts Aristotle mentions are achieving prosperity and upholding virtue. I agree with what Aristotle says but I also believe that both prosperity and virtue can take quite some time to obtain and happiness isn’t so simple. A life that achieves prosperity has no clear-cut line. A person must find his or her own way. However, It is quite possible that a clear mind is the best medicine for sadness and the first step to happiness. As a person who battled doubt and guilt my whole freshman year of college, I know this all too well. In my very first year of college at Morehead State University, every time I would get a moment to think to myself I’d find that only troubles were waiting to reappear. I would constantly do things to try and keep my mind occupied. As if I could consciously distract myself. Needless to say, I wasn’t happy. I ran into the first these problems shortly after I graduated from high school. I was an engineering major that had just lost a scholarship to West Point, the third best engineering school in the country. I was a great athlete in high school and in addition to my extra-curricular activities, maintained well above average grades. Despite all of that, somehow I ended up at a small, non-scholarship school that someone with half my abilities could of ended. On top of all this misfortune the institution did not even have my major. After all this, I found myself asking, “Were all those years of hard work for nothing?” I kept trying to get out of the way of all my thoughts but never could. I lacked the

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