The article I read called “The Spoils of Happiness” written by David Sosa was about whether happiness is a state of mind or not.  This is a very debatable topic, but I believe it is not a state of mind.  What is happiness exactly? This is a question even philosopher’s struggle with.  The answer is completely different for everyone.  In the article, the author thought of a very unique example of showing happiness being a state of mind. “Suppose there were an experience machine that would give you any experience you desired. Super-duper neuropsychologists could stimulate your brain so that you would think and feel you were writing a great novel, or making a friend, or reading an interesting book. All the time you would be floating in a tank, with electrodes attached to your brain. Should you plug into this machine for life, preprogramming your life experiences? Of course, while in the tank you won’t know that you’re there; you’ll think that it’s all actually happening.” (Sosa)  So the main question through out the article was… would you plug in?  If you did plug into this experience machine, what would you get from it?  The only form of happiness it gives is false.  The only happiness we would see if we did plug in would be our aspirations, or what we want to be happy about.  We aren’t really making new friends, or making a real family, or going to your daughter’s ballet performance, it would all be false.  This unreal happiness which is just a state of mind comes nowhere close to the value of real happiness.  The moment you unplug, you wouldn’t have those friends in your mind, or the family in your mind anymore.  They would be gone because they weren’t ever really there.  The point I’m trying to make of all of this is, happiness isn’t a state of mind.  Happiness has everything to do with your surroundings.  Happiness comes from things that actually, physically happen.  If absolutely nothing was going on, the world was completely blank what would you be happy about? Although what’s going on around you affects your emotions, you do have the choice to look at the opposite point of it.  In happiness there can always come something negative, It just depends on what side you want to look at.  In conclusion I believe that happiness doesn’t just come from nowhere, it comes from the world around you it just depends on whether or not the mind wants to perceive it as happiness.