Aristotle take all the economic needs such as manufacture and work as the root of putting people in the same position with slaves and livestock. The handicraft will lead to unfortunate or even psychopathic. Then in the morden city what is the standard of happiness? whether the mental joy can be a standard of happiness? sb. belives that jobs guarantees the happiness, while others think that relaxed and comfortable social life has more effects on happiness than the job. Personally speaking, I agree with the former one.
Firstly, a great job can bring high salary which is the premise of the happiness life. If a person could not have the ability to make themselves clean and warm and clothed and fed which is the fundamental of a person's happiness, there is no need to talk about whether he/she happy or not. For example, Mr.sho which I knew him during my volunteer days in Africa, comes from a little village from kenya. His family is so poor that he had no chance to go to school and can't find a job when he reached an adult age. He worried about the future of himself day and night. But now, with the help of NGO, he leaned the basic mathmatics which gives him a chance to find a job. In his recent letters, he told me that with a job in the store, he can buy enough food for his family and they all happy with it. as a matter of fact, after the demands on matirials have satisfied, they can really aspire for the spiritual happiness.
Secondly, a job can provide people lots of positive energy that can undirectly inhance the spiritual happiness of people. In some respects, a great job have progressed many parts of ourselves, such as inceasing salaries, widen relationship, stronger team spirit and etc. all mentioned above is positive to daily life which is benefial for happiness. Not like the early Christianity which defined the work as a punishment from God for Adam, positive energy in working time also can spread to daily life and descends the possiblity of complaination and curses. For instance, everytime I overcome difficulty in my job, I always feel happy and self-content. Without the negative mental conflict, people will have more chances to feel happy.
However, social life also can partly have an effect on happiness. comunication with the external world is a good way to relax oneself. On one hand, exchanging anything new with friends in the aspects that you interested in, gain an access to happiness for you. On the other hand, which mentioned above can provide yourself a chance to let other people to know about you.
To sum up, in my point of view, jobs can have much more effects on human's happiness than that do social life. This kind of happiness not come from the adjunction of the jobs such as high-pay, honors and reputation, but derive from the inner sense of human being, a sort of self-conform or self content. although social life can bring much happiness to people too, the effect on happiness from jobs is still much more important than social life.