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David Tzompaxtle

Mr. Beadle

ENG 114A

5 December 2018

Be Happy

We are never satisfied with our decisions. We regret our decision as we second guess our

gut. The authors may not agree with each other, but they all share something in common. For

instance, each author gives their form of happiness. If it was David Brooks, which taught at

renown universities such as Duke and Yale. As well as being a journalist who didn’t care of

voicing his opinions on controversial topics. Not to mention, another journalist; Graham Hill. He

was also an entrepreneur who sold his application and became wealthy. As well, the professor

Sonja Lyubomirsky, who researched how people may witness happy and how different our

tolerance is. To sum up, their opinions that life has many unexpected bumps along the road, but

how we choose to deal with them will, in the end, influence how we become happy.

Life is unexpected and there are setbacks in life that can affect one's happiness. Which

“What Suffering Does” by David Brooks demonstrates in his interpretation of happiness. For

example, he describes it as, “Well, I’m feeling a lot of pain over the loss of my child. I should try

to balance my hedonic account by going to a lot of parties and whooping it up” (Brooks 286). I

interpret what Brook is stating how a parent could react when grieving their child and how

detrimental it can be for the parent. The thought of losing someone who you cherish, could

vanish one day. However, Brooks doesn’t limit these setbacks in life to just losing a loved one. It

could be the act of failing and how failing could restrict your own choices in life. We see these

acts like losing a loved one or just failing as setbacks in life. I believe Brooks is trying to portray
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in his writing that even though we have suffered from these setbacks and failures in our lives. At

the end how, we respond to our own setbacks in life could help us in the long run. However, our

recovery will never be the same because we will second guess our initial response because of the

past. Which at the end of the reading I learned that Brooks sees the failures and tragedies are

setbacks that will never be forgotten and protecting ourselves will interfere with our judgement.

We will never lose interest in what we own, but if we decide to forget those materialistic

objects, we could just see how happy we could be without them and appreciate what little we

need to be happy. In the reading “Living with Less. A Lot Less” by Graham Hill, he

demonstrates his philosophy that the less you own the better. For instance, he shares how he

dealt with being unhappy, because of his stuff: “My life was unnecessarily complicated. There

were lawns to mow, gutters to clean, floors to vacuum, roommates to manage ( it seemed nuts to

have such a big, empty house), a car to insure, wash, refuel, repair, and register and tech to set up

and …” (Hill 309). I interpreted from what Hill was trying to convey to the reader that having

too many things is a burden. The thought of taking care of everything and not having the luxury

to use the material has dawned to me when reading Hill’s article. Hill isn’t just an ordinary

author, he sold his app for millions and sought to purchase his desires. Hill had unlimited

luxuries we only wish we could achieve someday. However, was this genuine joy that Hill felt?

That is what I believe what Hill is trying to further explain that once he had too many things,

and he lost the sense of enjoyment. We must carry this burden, which is to be overwhelmed by

our materialistic desires, instead of enjoying the day with some friends.

Are we just born to be limited on how happy we could become? This is what the

article “How Happy Are You and Why?” by Sonja Lyubomirsky approaches on how she defined

happiness. Lyubomirsky has gone and done her research in hope to find any clues to determine if
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happiness is different for people. She discussed the myths about our happiness, but later

concludes that we have a set level on our own happiness. For example, “As the pie chart

illustrates, your genetically determined predisposition for happiness (or unhappiness) accounts

for 50 percent of the difference between you and everyone else” (Lyubomirsky 186). From what

I interpreted from what Lyubomirsky wrote, is that we are predetermined on how neutral our

happiness is. However, this leads to a huge gap that is unanswered. Which Lyubomirsky tries to

explain, such as how other aspects of life could boost or lower our natural happiness. It may just

be for a while, but for that set amount of time, you’ll be happier or unhappy. I concluded that

Lyubomirsky must be discussing important events in life such as getting married or

unemployment. In the end, I concluded that Special events could alter our happiness scale and

affect our day in that way.

As we read David Brooks, Graham Hill, and Sonja Lyubomirsky. We learned that each

author has different philosophies of happiness. For example, Brooks has his own opinion, that

our failures and setbacks can affect our judgement for the future as we will be second guessing

ourselves. Which is completely different from what Hill is trying to convey to the readers. Hill

believes our happiness will be tarnished by our things. However, Lyubomirsky is far from Hill

and Brooks. She has taken a scientific approach. I have concluded that each author has different

views on their own view of happiness. However, they do have one thing in common. Which is

that their articles all have the overall theme of happiness. Sure, each author has their own

opinions on how we achieve happiness in one form or another, but in the end, they all have the

common theme of happiness. At the end of these reading. I learned that people interpret the

importance of happiness differently. If it must deal with our past, having to understand the little
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important things that make us truly happy instead of the luxuries we own and understanding that

little events in our lives have an input to our very own happiness.
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Work Cited

Brooks, David. “What suffering Does.” Pursuing happiness, edited by Matthew Parfitt and

Dawn Skorczewski, Bedford St. Martin's 2016, pp.284-287.

Hill, Graham. “Living with Less. A Lot Less.” Pursuing Happiness, edited by Matthew

Parfit and Dawn Skorczewski; Bedford St. Martins 2016. Pp. 308-313.

Lyubomirsky, Sonja. “How Happy Are you Why?” Pursuing Happiness, edited by Matthew

Parfitt and Dawn Skorczewski, Bedford St. Martins, 2016, pp. 179-197.