Ryo- cahpter 8 response

The topic this week is about the well-being in each nation. People from indulgent societies are more likely to remember positive emotions although people from restraint societies are likely to feel the bad emotions especially.

According to the readings’ definition, Indulgence stands for a tendency to allow relatively free gratification of basic and natural human desires related to enjoying life and having fun. Restraint reflects a conviction that such gratification needs to be curbed and regulated by strict social norms.

I personally believe that happiness is the most important in our lives. However, we are likely to forget to feel happy since we are surrounded by many tasks or restricted by the social norms. We restrict what we really want to do by ourselves or social norms, and as a result we feel pressure or stressful. To put it the other way, the relationship with others, community or society is considered important unconsciously since we sometimes value them other than our personal desire. We cannot live without the relationship with others, we share the food, money..etc.

At the same time, we originally have the natural desire as human beings or animals. I believe that this is the conflict point; value society to live as one of the members or value our natural desire to pursue our ultimate happiness or pleasure.