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Japhet Mondragon

Professor Beadle

English 115

05/9/2019

Searching for Life’s Joy

Life meets us with an array of emotions that prove to be beneficial at a certain time or

scene, but never ​stick with us​ for long. ​To control and acquire happiness is the goal of everyone,

but how is it done? ​Sonja Lyubomirsky, Graham Hill, and David Brooks are well known writers

and in their articles​ How Happy Are You and Why?, Living with Less. A Lot Less,​ and​ What

Suffering Does​ they give alternative ways of controlling ​happiness​ as well as how to attain it.

Lyubomirsky and Brooks focus on the internal aspects of how to achieve happiness, by searching

within or living satisfied with what we have, while Hill focuses on the external ways to achieve

happiness, by remodeling your room and keeping items to a minimum. Happiness and joy are the

emotions most important to practically everyone. They are attainable to some but not all.

Lyubomirsky’s article “How Happy Are You and Why?” gives us factual information

about happiness and the set point of happiness that everyone has. Not only that but she provided

in her article subtle hints on how to attain satisfaction, happiness, and joy. Lyubomirsky herself

is a psychology professor at the University of California, Riverside; Devoting some of her time

to this issue Lyubomirsky conducted experiments and interviews with very happy people as she

stated as well as with one very unhappy individual. Angela is Lyubomirsky’s first interviewee

and is surprisingly extremely satisfied with life considering the events that have fallen upon her.
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Angela is an individual who was abused by her parents not only emotionally but physically from

a small age. She soon grew up and escaped the abuse by marrying a man she barely knew only to

get pregnant and soon divorced. As a single mom whose life couldn't get any worse emotionally

and financially she also loses her job. She is a mother who unexpectedly happy. She describes

the root of her happiness as her daughter that she loves cuddling with. ​It can be shown that

Angela’s mindset even if se has a gene that makes her happier look at her experiences she went

through these experiences would devastate any person. She sought out her happiness in what she

has not what she could have. ​Sharron is a different case who is unexpectedly not satisfied with

life ​given her angel-like circumstances compared to angela’s. However, internal change is

needed within Shannon so that she may become happy just as angela is and that is how she

became happy.​ She has promising life ahead of her Lyubomirsky states “On the surface, her life

is quite good. She has a promising and enjoyable career ahead of her, a boyfriend, a stable family

life, even a dog she loves. However, Shannon sees herself as a generally unhappy

person”(Lyubomirsky 182). The difference in characters and lifestyle is very different from

Angela, and Shannon is the one unhappy. Shannon shows that her own unhappiness is due to

lack of internal soul finding and lack of love perhaps. ​She is too hung up on what could be and

not what she has. The external is obviously not what brings happiness it is internal.​ Shannon

claims that her boyfriend is the only thing that keeps her going and never self motivating herself.

Having a boyfriend who cares for her as well as continually brings her up she is still left

unsatisfied ending in own depression. She grew up in a normal, financially secure household

with no reason of complaint. She traveled around the united states. Yet she could never stop

being haunted by her insecurities that anything could go wrong in any given moment. Seeing
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how Lyubomirsky talked about these two very different characters show us the difference in

where the search for happiness is. Showing us it is not based on external, but internal change.

Subtle hints in the interviews with people are genuinely always happy and those who are not.

Happiness and joy do not come from outside sources but from an inside source, the soul. ​Only by

analyzing what you have, setting goals, and living the moment will you be happy.

Brooks is a similar case in his article “What suffering does.” He gives us the notion that

an internal change is the key to satisfaction. Being a writer in the ​New York Times​ he is an

individual who always take a different approach to certain ideas. In “What Suffering Does,” he

takes suffering as usually negative or unwanted experiences and transforms what it truly does to

an individual. ​Providing us with a claim that ​suffering is more useful than happiness. He takes us

to a different view of suffering by giving us examples such as “...people are ennobled by

[suffering]. Think of the way Franklin Roosevelt came back deeper and more empathetic after

being struck with polio”(Brooks 284). He provides a clear understanding of what suffering does

to a person. It changes a person making them dive deep into who they are and their own

limitations allowing them or ourselves to find a sort of holiness, making us more grateful. He

continues with how suffering can provide us with more experience or insight on life and help us

become people ​ennobled​ by life. This is an obvious hint that an internal change is required to

attain happiness.

Graham Hill takes a spin on the way to happiness he takes us through what you can do

externally to achieve happiness in his article “Living with Less A Lot Less.” Overall it is still an

internal change that takes you to happiness. In the article Hill takes us on the external path but

still in a sense focuses on the internal aspect of how to attain satisfaction or happiness. ​He claims
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that a change in lifestyle as well as mindset will provide people with happiness.​ Being a

multimillionaire Hill as anyone would do went on a shopping spree, he bought mansions, the

most innovative gadgets, cars, and even friends in a way. After a while he surrounded himself in

a lifestyle of stuff. He slowly came to the realization that it was only stressing him out as well as

him not seeing a point to it all anymore. He states that “ My success and the things it bought

quickly changed from novel to normal. Soon I was numb to it all. The new Nokia phone didn’t

excite me or satisfy me. It didn’t take long before I started to wonder why my theoretically

upgraded life didn’t feel any better and why I felt more anxious than before”(Hill 309). His life

experience gives us more insight on how he had so much stuff and how it still didn't give him

satisfaction, instead gave him more stress, fear, and anxiety. Finding love was his escape from

the stuff that does not benefit us. ​His mindset ultimitally changed in the end and he never went

back. ​He shows us how having more stuff can cause more stress than pleasure. He gave the data

sheets of how the stress hormones in mothers rise when it is time to deal with all the “stuff” they

have. ​He also emphasizes the need for a lifestyle change as well.​ Going from changing how

much stuff we have he tells us how it is not only external change but internal change. “Intuitively

we know that the best stuff in life isnt stuff at all and that relationships experience and

meaningful work are the staples of a happy life”(Hill 311). He blends the internal and external

and shows us that changing in both of these ways can provide us with happiness. ​The changes he

wants us to see from him is a complete mindset change and lifestyle change; That less is better

than more and that people are very important to a person's life.

Happiness is an emotion of satisfaction or the best one can have in every individuals

eyes. Attaining it is a very diverse course, however, it is in fact profoundly specific. An internal
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search is required to attain happiness, through pain or looking into who you are and being

grateful is fundamental. It was seen in the test subjects of Lyubomirsky​ as​ Angela was

uncommonly happy because she was ultimately grateful for what she has and not longing for

more. Brooks describes suffering as the path towards happiness because it leads to search deep

within ourselves finding gratitude​ and​ creating a sacred place in ourselves filled with gratitude.

Hill provides his own soul searching moment when the realization hit that stuff was not all life

had to offer. How can we ever know what happiness is if we have never experienced sadness?

Without a dark can we truly see a light?

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Works Cited

Brooks, David. “What Suffering Does.” ​Pursuing Happiness: a Bedford Spotlight Reader​. edited

by Parfitt, Matthew, and Dawn Skorczewski, Bedford/St. Martins, a Macmillan

Education Imprint, 2016. PP. 284-287

Hill, Graham. “Living with Less A Lot Less.” ​Pursuing Happiness: a Bedford Spotlight Reader​.

edited by Parfitt, Matthew, and Dawn Skorczewski, Bedford/St. Martins, a Macmillan

Education Imprint, 2016.​ PP. 308-313

Lyubomirsky, Sonja. “How Happy Are You and Why?” ​Pursuing Happiness: a Bedford

Spotlight Reader​. edited by Parfitt, Matthew, and Dawn Skorczewski, Bedford/St.

Martins, a Macmillan Education Imprint, 2016.​ PP. 179-197