The Journey of My Beautiful Question Project

1. The Journey of My Beautiful Question Project Melissa Lichtman

2. My Original Question: “What Does It Mean To be Truly Content?”

3. The first step of my research: Definitions (As defined by Merriam Webster Dictionary) • Happy- adjective- feeling pleasure and enjoyment because of your life, situation, etc. • Content- adjective- pleased and satisfied: Not needing more • Satisfied- verb- to cause (someone) to be happy or pleased

4. The Evolution of My Question Defining these words and preliminary research showed me: • Happy and content often show up in research side by side • They somewhat define each other My New Question: “How does being content relate to being happy?”

5. My View at this Point: • Being content is not the same as being happy • Content • Long Term • Comfortable • Can contribute to happiness • Happy • Can be short term or sporadic • Excitement • Joy

6. Academic Research • Key Words: • Content Contented • Confusion between content the noun and content the adj. • Happy • Happiness

7. Academic Research Findings • No studies have directly compared being happy to being content • The two overlap in certain studies: “New Measures Of Well-Being”- A study offering content and happy as options in the same grouping “Happiness”- a scholarly description of happiness describing a state of being contented

8. Next Step Of Research… Popular Sources • Magazines • Newspapers • Websites • Blogs • Google

9. Popular Research Keywords: • Content • Happy • What does it mean to be content? • Is being happy the same as being content? **Commonly found excerpts from religious materials: bibles, prayer books, etc. Interesting…but not what I wanted to look for in my project. I wanted more common popular culture sources

10. Findings of my Google Search Am I content with my life? Results…. So many quizzes about happiness!

11. Findings of My Google Search Click Here to take the quiz for yourself! Oprah. Com “The Are you Happy Quiz” But I never searched the word happy?

12. My Results to “The Are You Happy Quiz” on Oprah.com Congratulations? Why? How do they really know? How accurate is this?

13. Findings of My Google Search • More Quizzes!! • Teennick.com, “How Happy are you with your life?” • CLICKHERE TO TAKE • Doctoroz.com, “ How Happy are You?” • CLICK HERE TO TAKE And many more, all quizes on determining whether or not you are happy

14. My View at this Point: • Both popular sources and scholarly research and writing seem to consistently correlate being happy and being content. • There is limited indication of differences or where/why this overlap occurs • Does this mean that they are the same thing? How are they related? • Time to conduct my own research and find out!

15. My Own Research • What Would I Do? • I decided to create a survey using surveymonkey.com • Who Would be Surveyed? • I used social media to gather random participants and ended up with 25 completed surveys • What Questions Were Asked? • I Asked 10 questions that were: Multiple choice, short answer, and ranking questions

16. Question One: Do you believe that being content and being happy is the same thing? • Yes • No • Think about YOUR answer before moving on!

17. Question One:Results Do you believe that being content and being happy is the same thing? Yes 1 Response 4% No 24 Responses 96%

18. Question One:What Do I Think? Do you believe that being content and being happy is the same thing? • Yes • No My answer to this question would be no. I believe that being happy and being content are two different things.

19. Question Two: Which do you value more, being content or being happy? • Being content • Being happy • They are the same thing • Neither is important • Think about YOUR answer before moving on!

20. Question Two: Results Which do you value more, being content or being happy? They Are The Same Thing 1 Response 4% Being Content 5 Responses 20% Being Happy 19 Responses 76% Neither Is Important 0 Responses 0%

21. Question Two: What Do I Think? Which do you value more, being content or being happy? • Being content • Being happy • They are the same thing • Neither is important My answer to this question would be that I value being happy more. I would say this because I think happiness contributes more to quality of life.

22. Question Three: How would you define being content? OPEN ENDED QUESTION • Think about YOUR answer before moving on!

23. Question Three: Results How would you define being content? “Pizza without extra cheese” “Having coffee without the sugar” “Satisfied” “Being okay with what you have…” “Being Okay” “Settling with what you’ve got” “…stable and satisfied” “Being satisfied with life”

24. Question Three:What Do I Think? How would you define being content? “To feel comfortable and secure, to be okay”

25. Question Four: How would you define being Happy? OPEN ENDED QUESTION • Think about YOUR answer before moving on!

26. Question Four: Results How would you define being Happy? “Pizza with extra cheese” “Being pleased and excited about life” “Excited about life” “Joyful” “Yaaayyyy” “Having coffee with cream AND sugar AND caramel swirl ” “Enjoying life” “…everything is perfect”

27. Question Four:What do I think? How would you define being Happy? “A spontaneous sporadic feeling of overwhelming joy and satisfaction”

28. Question Five: Do you believe that you can be content if you are not happy? • Yes • No • Think about YOUR answer before moving on!

29. Question Five: Results Do you believe that you can be content if you are not happy? No 1 Response 4% Yes 24 Responses 96%

30. Question Five: What Do I Think? Do you believe that you can be content if you are not happy? • Yes • No I would answer yes to this question because I believe that it is possible to be content even if one is not happy. I do think that happy can often follow being content.

31. Question Six: • Do you believe that you can be happy if you are not content? • Yes • No • Think about YOUR answer before moving on!

32. Question Six: Results • Do you believe that you can be happy if you are not content? Yes 8 Responses 32% No 17 Responses 68%

33. Question Six: What Do I Think? • Do you believe that you can be happy if you are not content? • Yes • No I would answer yes to this question because I believe that it is possible to feel the emotion of happiness even if you are not content. However I do believe that being content can help contribute to happiness.

34. Question Seven: • How important do you feel it is to be content? • Not Important at all • Somewhat Important • Important • Very Important • Think about YOUR answer before moving on!

35. Question Seven: Results • How important do you feel it is to be content? Number of People who responded

36. Question Seven: What Do I Think? • How important do you feel it is to be content? • Not Important at all • Somewhat Important • Important • Very Important I would answer that it is important to be content, I feel that being content has value and is a high priority, but not the highest priority.

37. Question Eight: • How important do you feel it is to be Happy? • Not Important at all • Somewhat Important • Important • Very Important • Think about YOUR answer before moving on!

38. Question Eight: Results • How important do you feel it is to be Happy? Number of People who responded

39. Question Eight: What Do I Think? • How important do you feel it is to be Happy? • Not Important at all • Somewhat Important • Important • Very Important I would answer that being happy is very important because it is an emotion that I feel people crave and gain their drive and motivation off of in daily life.

40. Question Nine: • On a typical day how content are you? • Not content at all • A little content • Moderately content • Mostly content • Extremely content • Think about YOUR answer before moving on!

41. Question Nine: Results • On a typical day how content are you? Number of People who responded

42. Question Nine: What Do I Think? • On a typical day how content are you? • Not content at all • A little content • Moderately content • Mostly content • Extremely content I think that on a typical day I am mostly content. I feel pretty comfortable with where I am in my life, there are occasionally some things that I would want to change but for the most part I consider myself to be content.

43. Question Ten: • On a typical day how happy are you? • Not happy at all • A little happy • Moderately happy • Mostly happy • Extremely happy • Think about YOUR answer before moving on!

44. Question Ten: Results • On a typical day how happy are you? Number of People who responded

45. Question Ten: What Do I Think? • On a typical day how happy are you? • Not happy at all • A little happy • Moderately happy • Mostly happy • Extremely happy I consider myself to be a mostly happy person. I am happy a majority of the time and I like to be happy so I find that I seek out certain situations that make me feel this way. Even though I am happy most of the time I do not think that I am happy all of the time.

46. My Final Answer… • Being content and being happy are two different things • They may overlap and relate to one another • Happiness is an emotion brought on by and abundance of excitement and joy • Being content is a state of being where one does not need more, they are just “okay” or “fine” with where they are. Thanks For Watching!!