According to Epictetus, philosopher of the Stoic school, “There is only one path to happiness, and that is to give up things that do not depend on our will . » Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why violent video games should not be banned"? Get the original essay Happiness suggests, through its Latin etymology (bonum augurium, "good omen"), the idea of ​​"luck", of “luck”, as if it did not depend on us to be happy. But happiness also seems to be the result of a voluntary and reflective process, in which reasoning seems to be involved. There is indeed in the notion of “happiness” the idea of ​​“fullness” and “stability”. Happiness is defined as a state of lasting satisfaction that we seek to achieve through our actions and according to our personal idea of ​​it. But then, does it depend on us to be happy? There are many things in our life that do not depend on us. We. Indeed, we cannot control everything. You can lose loved ones, get sick. Happiness can therefore rest more on what we think about the circumstances that befall us. Even in adverse circumstances, we can achieve happiness because of how we approach these events. What to do for a friend who is going through a difficult time? We try at all costs to comfort him, to reason with him so that he can envisage a possible future happiness beyond his immediate sadness. We want him to rise above all his problems. If we do it for others, can't we do it for ourselves? We are used to believing ourselves powerless in the face of the blows of fate. But it is not the events that we must force in our favor to be happy, it is ourselves that we must do violence to force ourselves to see what is positive where sadness prevails. Once the shock and sadness of bereavement have passed, for example, we can consider being happy if we do not concentrate on what we do not have or no longer have (irreparable loss of what we cannot afford). can do nothing), to concentrate on what we cannot do. we have (the memories that remain of the deceased for example, the memory that we carry of him). To be happy, you must only give a price to the present. The past is no longer in our power and we cannot act on the future. By living fully in the present, we fully progress toward wisdom. Seneca says in the Letters to Lucilius: “Hope and fear come from the fact that instead of adapting to the present, we project our thoughts into the distant future.” However, our happiness also depends mainly on circumstances and is based on an element of luck. that we do not control. Wisdom helps us avoid falling into unhappiness, but it does not make us happy on its own. For Machiavelli, happiness depends on fortune. He argues in The Prince that happiness does not depend solely on us. You also need a little luck to be happy. Having a healthy body, living a period without wars,.... It depends on many factors that are beyond our reach. Happiness therefore fluctuates. If happiness depends on luck, it can come and go. We experience this often. In The Prince, Machiavelli compares fortune to a powerful current. A torrent can fertilize the plains, be a source of prosperity, but it can also carry away everything in its path. In the same way, fortune can bring happiness, but it can also take it away. Happiness presupposes lasting and continuous satisfaction. The book Happiness by Frédéric Lenoir, French philosopher, is a revelation on the philosophical and authentic meaning of this most sought-after feeling in the world. There is no recipe for a perfectly happy life. There,.