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-Lesson 8:     Does happiness have a role in people’s professional and personal success in your opinion?

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-Lesson 8:     Does happiness have a role in people’s professional and personal success in your opinion?

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In my opinion, the role played by happiness in both personal and professional areas is evidently remarkable and is in stark contrast to the risk of alienation from one’s work while contributing to giving a sense of meaning and direction, which is what we mostly strive for in life. Indeed, knowing what makes us happy can be a catalyst to transform a transactional job into meaningful work, a life mission that will reward our efforts. The relation between happiness and professional success is never unidirectional, the two areas interpenetrate each other but they are generally considered separate areas. A society based merely on a productive logic splits work and leisure, ending up seeing the latter only as a function of the former - a break today for a better job tomorrow. I believe that the idea of attaining happiness as possible only in the absence of work could be a dangerous trap, potentially deadly, for our mental health. For these reasons, I would advocate making our work more desirable, almost an integral part of us, not totally separated from other spheres of life but immersed in the continuum of personal existence. As Joseph Conrad said: “How do I explain to my partner that I am working when I look out of the window?”.

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-Lesson 14:    Face saving strategies: what they are and how my friends and I use them

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-Lesson 14:    Face saving strategies: what they are and how my friends and I use them

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According to Goffman’s concept of face, social identity is something to be preserved. An individual can have their secrets that, even if shared with someone else, they are not to become public. Hence, the social identity must appear clear and clean to others’ eyes, a way of being considered a moral and respectable person, someone to be trusted. Losing face is only possible through a public act. The remarkable thing is that it is enough to believe that our face is safe for it to have a real effect, but if the act is a public rite there is total denigration of the face (social identity) and its recomposition becomes very difficult.

Face rescue strategies can be passive (try not to harm the other by paying attention to what you say or do) and active (protect the other face with accountability). The use of these strategies depends on the composition of my group of friends. If the friendship group is close and intimate, losing face could also be considered a game and as a way to not take ourselves too seriously, while, often, the most private things remain hidden. The situation changes when some external subject enters the group; in that case, we are careful not to be excessively overbearing or bossy among us, are more polite when exchanging requests, and avoid embarrassing topics of conversation.

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-Lesson 12:     My interactive communication style

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-Lesson 12:     My interactive communication style

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My communication style is variable and contingent on the target audience I’m interacting with. Often times, during a conversation, I try to see the topic of discussion from the other’s perspective, however it is certainly not always easy; at times, misunderstandings arise but remain unspoken of out of politeness. So, over time, I have learned to use more examples in order to clarify the words I might use, so as to have better comprehension. I often think, while speaking, that other people have a similar background to mine and this can be a problem given that it is not realistic, so I try to be polite and respectful whenever I talk to someone. I am always open to clarifying my opinions, in fact, I don't consider them universal laws but as local productions that make sense to me in their context. I try to be modest and honest and don’t take too much time to make an argument. The time of conversation, with regard to its sequence, is a matter of deference - the monological conversation is not appreciated, as Goffman recalls when arguing about the rituals of interaction: there is a time for each sequence of speech in which to saturate the content of an argument and then move on to another. This is a way to show respect to our interlocutors. Regardless of how interesting the topics are, if there are no conditions to appreciate them, in the end, the interaction does not work so well.

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-Lesson 11:    Meeting people from different cultures: what I do and how I behave

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-Lesson 11:    Meeting people from different cultures: what I do and how I behave

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This is an interesting topic. Encountering others, especially from different cultures, is a way to reflect on our assumptions, on things that we usually consider normal or taken for granted. For example, closed questions during a conversation, even when asked in a polite way, could be problematic because words do not share the same meaning in all cultures and answering with a direct no to a question can be perceived as rude by some but not by others. My Japanese friend once told me that if I were to ask “Can I close the window?”, he would answer yes every time, but if I asked “In your opinion, is it a good idea to close the window?” he’d feel inclined to say no. So, now when I meet someone from another culture, I pay more attention to the language I use and try to have more flexible thinking not to be biassed by my preconceptions. This is advantageous because, in this way, I can avoid an early, and potentially negative, judgement based on my Western cultural categories of belonging. In my opinion, it is a good way to understand and accept others’ ideas about reality. So, I believe it is useful to be polite; interpret situations, customs and practices; and to try, even with great difficulty, to suspend our judgements when interacting with people from different cultures.

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-Lesson 6:   Where is your happy place? Why is it your happy place?

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-Lesson 6:   Where is your happy place? Why is it your happy place?

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My happy place is not necessarily a physical space. I believe that it is linked to the context of an experience of happiness; in that sense, probably every place could be my happy place. It is also true that some places, in my life, have been more important than others. For example, I’ve ‘felt at home’ at rock concerts or clubs in Berlin more than I have in my hometown or with family. The reason for this was the sense of community and spontaneity I felt with people - I experienced intense and emotional moments that were not motivated by a specific self interest, but only by the volition to have a human and direct contact with others. These could be described as moments in which people were socially the ‘same’, where there were neither status symbols to show off nor behavioural norms to oblige to, where one would feel freer to express themselves compared to how they would at work, for instance. Hence, my happy place is not only a place of possibilities but also a perspective from which I can see and understand my conduct and myself better. I think these moments and the memories of them are my happy place.

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-Lesson 9:   Can the context affect children’s and young people’s idea of happiness? How? Why? 

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-Lesson 9:   Can the context affect children’s and young people’s idea of happiness? How? Why? 

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The contextual space, within which people grow up, plays a relevant role in the creation and permanence of any kind of idea of happiness. Indeed, if happiness is a universal emotion, the reasons behind it are cultural and idiocultural forms; everyone could be happy in different ways and for no ordinary causal relations. It seems there are some consolidated patterns for a wider range (Italians, South or North, Westerners) that have a stronger deterministic component compared to local patterns because they socially construct the cultural ends and the functional modalities to reach them. This is, however, just one element of the reasoning. It appears that ways to feel pleasure and the relative intensity of an experience are connected to our learning process, which is linked to the primary familiar groups. These groups could be, for children and the youth, only an extension and reproduction of general models; hybrid forms; or totally oppositional (the rarest case). In any case, however, these significant groups of reference influence the idea of what the categories of  “natural” and “normal” are for us. Therefore, our context of development has remarkable relevance to the construction of our interpretative categorization and the ways to sense and feel, which also comprehend the reasons to be happy.

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-Lesson 3:    Friendship in my life: what I do to cultivate the relationships I care about and the role they play in making me happy

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-Lesson 3:    Friendship in my life: what I do to cultivate the relationships I care about and the role they play in making me happy

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Friendship has a primary role in my life because I believe that living without friends closes doors to better self-knowledge. The reason is simple: a real friend can lead us out of our ‘ego’. When a friend does something questionable, I think we ought not to be compliant because sincerity is a fundamental pillar. It is not sufficient to spend time together, go to the same places or have the same interests; in fact, if the only foundation of a friendship is a shared interest, that might not be long-lasting due to their mutable nature. Hence, in my opinion, sincerity and disinterestedness are requirements for a solid and mutually satisfying friendship. Anything honest you say to a friend, as long as it is done respectfully and with kindness, will strengthen the connection. That is what I try to do to cultivate the relationships I deem significant. A friend can help us detach from our solipsism or idealistic construction of objectivity, and might allow us to explore other visions of reality and this entails a direct effect on personal happiness.

As Cicero said, “ there is no redemption for those who are unwilling to hear the truth from a friend, so it is typical of a noble soul even to openly hate rather than hide personal thoughts behind the veil of insincerity”.