EssayHappiness is not easy to define. A good life has one characteristic: happiness. Happiness can be defined as pleasure, joy, contentment and satisfaction. The understanding of how to be happy has changed throughout history. Aristotle, who lived in 4th century BC in Athens, and Schopenhauer, a 19th century German philosopher, have contrasting understandings of happiness. In this essay, I will argue that Aristotle and Schopenhauer provide accounts of happiness that are useful to contemporary society. The reason is that happiness is universal and the ways people achieve it have not changed greatly over time. Aristotle’s word “eudaimonia” is translated into English as “happiness.” The notion “Eudaimonia” belonged to the theory of virtue. Understanding this theory will provide a better understanding of what he meant when he used the word “eudaimonia”. Aristotle, in his “Nicomachean Ethics”, believed that happiness is not a goal, but that it goes hand in hand with certain activities. He uses the example of food. When a person does not eat enough, he or she is not satisfied. When a person eats too much, he cannot enjoy the taste, but only a need for sleep and a need for relaxation. So, when the person eats just enough, it is the virtuous action. The best example might be attitude. The virtuous person is neither cowardly nor reckless, but he is courageous. He believes that if people choose this lifestyle, it will lead them to happiness. Aristotle also took into account the realities of life. He believed that there was no single way to live right. He thought it was personal. He suggested experimenting and that making mistakes would help one find virtuous activity. So "eudaimononia" has the meaning of "flour... middle of paper... Emmett. Open Questions: An Introduction to Philosophy. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Pub., 1992. Cashen, Matthew. “Happiness, Eudaimonia, and the Principle of Descriptive Adequacy.” Metaphilosophy 43, no. 5 (October 2012): 619-635. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed November 17, 2013). Cooper, David E. World Philosophies: A Historical Introduction. Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1996. Irwin, Terence. Aristotle's first principles. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988. Popkin, Richard H., and Avrum Stroll. Philosophy. 3rd ed. Oxford: Made Simple, 1993. Schalkx, Rozemarijn and Ad Bergsma. “Arthur's Advice: Comparing Arthur Schopenhauer's Advice on Happiness with Contemporary Research.” Journal of Happiness Studies 9, no. 3 (September 2008): 379-395. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed November 26, 2013). Shields, Christopher John. Aristotle. London: Routledge, 2007.