Many of us are unaware that we have power over our degree of happiness. It’s easy to blame other people or events for your dissatisfaction; nevertheless, it’s your reaction, your way of thinking about the person or scenario, that causes you to be dissatisfied.
You may train yourself to think about your thoughts.
Pleasure vs Happiness
Pleasure is a short-term feeling of enjoyment or satisfaction that is often associated with physical or sensory experiences, such as eating a delicious meal, listening to music, or experiencing sexual pleasure. Happiness is a more stable and long-lasting emotional state that is characterized by a sense of contentment, satisfaction, and fulfillment.
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Pleasure can be also defined as experiencing pleasure in anything that comes from outside of oneself, such as eating, getting a massage, or smelling a rose. It is only transient and sporadic.
We would ultimately find the stimulus unpleasant or even painful if we sustained the outside stimulation that generates pleasure for a prolonged duration.
Happiness is a condition of our brain that we cultivate, and we influence how happy or miserable we are. Varied people have different ways of expressing their joy.
Peace, pleasure, happiness, and fulfillment are all feelings that some people experience. Others may describe it as a feeling of being energized, connected to the world, thrilled, passionate, and purposeful.
Comparison Table
| Parameters of Comparison | Pleasure | Happiness |
|---|---|---|
| Permanence | It is only temporary. It’s similar to the sensation of eating ice cream or drinking booze. | It has a long lifespan. It’s comparable to the sensation of completing a college or marathon. |
| Mainly felt | It has a visceral quality to it. It is possible to feel it when drunk or high. | It is Ethereal. You can It might be felt as a sense of peace and satisfaction. |
| How to get it | Taking a substance can provide you with pleasure. | Giving a substance can bring pleasure. |
| How it is experienced | It’s something you can do on your own. | It’s based on personal experience. It’s also possible to share it with a group. |
| At extremes | Addiction develops as a result of extreme pleasure. | It’s impossible to become hooked to happiness. |
| As a functional Neuro-transmitter. | It causes dopamine to be released in our brain. | It causes Serotonin to be released in our brain. |
What is Pleasure?
Pleasure refers to an extensive variety of mental experiences that people see as good, enjoyable, or worthwhile. Although pleasure pushes us to replicate enjoyable events and circumstances, we generally do not always settle on what makes us happy.
Pleasure is influenced by external factors such as situations, things, and people. Minor annoyances typically do not bother you while you are pleased. When you’re dissatisfied, you may feel as though the world is conspiring against you.
You may try to compensate by eating chocolate and sweets, which provides you pleasure, but you remain sad. Pleasure is associated with pleasurable sensory experiences and nice things occurring.
Pleasurable experiences can make us feel happy for a short time, but this happiness is fleeting since it is contingent on other events and experiences.
To feel pleasure, we must continue to have positive experiences — more food, more money, more stuff. countless people get hooked to these external sensations, desiring to feel a fleeting sense of euphoria more and more.
Genuine pleasure is impacted by circumstances, but not determined by them. To put it another way, pleasure is ephemeral and externally motivated.
What is Happiness?
“Optimistic or enjoyable feelings extending from satisfaction to extreme joy” is what happiness refers to. It’s a topic that’s been studied since the 1960s and has a wide range of applications, including psychology, science, medicine, and economics.
When we talk about intellectual or emotional states, usage, meaning, and culture, happiness is a hot topic of dispute. While we may all agree that happiness is essential in our lives, we cannot always agree on what makes us happy.
There is a desire for happiness from the time one is born, and a never-ending quest to achieve it. It is regarded as the most advantageous characteristic. When you examine your behaviors, you’ll notice that they’re all geared toward happiness in some manner.
Everyone wishes to be content and happy. You are pleased when conditions and occurrences are to your liking, and you are sad when they are not.
This is especially beneficial if you find yourself becoming agitated.It’s often beneficial to be furious about something because the feeling offers us the motivation to make a difference, but we must distinguish between what we can affect, what we can control, and what we have no control over.
Main Differences Between Pleasure and Happiness
- Pleasure is only for a short time whereas Happiness lasts a lifetime.
- Pleasure is visceral whereas Happiness can be termed as ethereal.
- You can experience Pleasure by taking something, whereas You can experience Happiness by giving something.
- Pleasure is generally experienced alone, whereas Happiness can be experienced in social groupings.
- Whether it’s chemicals or habits, extreme pleasure generally leads to addiction. But generally, you cannot get addicted to happiness.
- https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1933-1592.2001.tb00072.x
- https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/BF00354361.pdf
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Emma Smith holds an MA degree in English from Irvine Valley College. She has been a Journalist since 2002, writing articles on the English language, Sports, and Law. Read more about me on her bio page.
