Adam Block Reflection #1 Pursuit of Happiness Response College Writing "The search for happiness is one of the chief

sources of unhappiness" -Eric Hoffer "Happiness is a butterfly, which if pursued, always eludes your grasp, but which, if you sit quietly, may just land upon you."- Nathaniel Hawthorne In "The Pursuit of Happiness", Mark Kingwell heavily criticizes geneticists along with Hawthorne's and Hoffer's quotes about happiness for being conservative and pessimistic. In Hoffer's and Hawthorne's passages, they were basically saying that you shouldn't try and pursue something that you think will make you happy because you will end up unhappy in the process of pursuing it, rather let the happiness come to you. I think this view of happiness is snobbish and naive. If you try to pursue something that you think will make you happy and fail, there's nothing wrong with that and it's perfectly normal. Although there probably is a period of unhappiness as Hoffer would say, I think it's better to try than not to try at all.