Kim 1

Young Kim

Professor Beadle

English 114A

30 September 2018

Progression 1 Essay Final

People chase happiness for their whole life and desperate people read books and articles

with a small hope of finding paths to achieve happiness. One of the articles that give people

useful thoughts about happiness is, “What Suffering Does” by David Brooks. The article is about

how suffering can be more beneficial than happiness. Brooks uses suffering to explain his

perspective of happiness, he believes that suffering will teach people’s limitation, which will

ultimately make them realize happiness comes from themselves. Brooks’ difference from the

other articles is the way he used suffering as his main argument, however the main purpose of his

message is similar from the other two articles. "Living with Less. A Lot Less." from Graham

Hills is another article that explains about true happiness. Hill also has his own unique belief of

happiness and it comes from his own story where he stopped being materialistic and became

happy by being productive in his life. Hill’s article is different from other because he used his

own biography as the main example of his argument, but his article is also sharing the same

message as other articles. Sonja Lyubomirsky, professor of psychology at the University of

California, also wrote an essay about happiness. In her essay “How Happy Are You and Why?”

she claims that happiness comes from behavior. Lyubomirsky’s argument is about what really is

being happy, she uses researches and graphs to give a credible explanation. She said happiness

comes from people’s genetics and mostly from their behavior, which means being truly positive
 Kim 2

will make people happy. The three articles’ arguments may be different but they all have the

same message. Their message explains that happiness doesn’t exist out in the world, but it is in

people’s mind and it only satisfies people’s happiness if people truly believe that they are happy.

Suffering is the contradiction of happiness; however, it makes people acknowledge how

happy they were before they started to suffer. David Brooks had a wide perspective to see how

suffering can be beneficial to people’s happiness. His main idea was that suffering will pull

people deep inside their mind, which will make them face their limitation (Brooks 286). He used

the fact where Franklin Roosevelt was struck with polio and became more of a better person than

before, after he recovered (Brooks 284). Brooks’ main point is that people will become more

empathetic and emotional after facing huge suffer, which also means they learn how weak and

tiny they are as a human being. Suffering will give benefits to people by letting them know who

they are. However, this doesn’t mean to enjoy suffering, but instead people should take suffering

as an experience where they can distinguish their morality (Brooks 286). Brooks constantly

explained about how suffering will give a person different life: “Recovering from suffering is not

like recovering from a disease. Many people don’t come out healed; they come out different”

(Brooks 287). The way he used the difference of normal and the suffered people in the quote is a

great example of how suffering can be beneficial to people. Apart from other articles, Brooks

had a completely different view on suffering and happiness. His message shows that people are

already happy enough, but they don’t realize it until they are struck with suffer, which basically

means that happiness is already inside people, but they just didn’t realize the fact. This means

people don’t need to chase for happiness.

 Kim 3

Materials can’t make people happy, it will only give them a short-term ecstasy and will

soon fade away. Graham Hills’ article was about his biography. He was had a successful life and

was rich enough to buy anything he wants (Hills 308). Everybody in the world will say money

equals to happiness, however Hills had a different thought about money and happiness. He

argued about how his rich life didn’t made him happy and he claimed that living with only

essential items and doing productive activities will make people happier (Hills 309). He believed

his main problem of lack of happiness was him looking for happiness from materials. He

changed how he lived by throwing away useless stuff and doing more different activities (Hills

311). The true precious thing in life in not material objects, but it is experience and relationships

(Hills 311). The article took away the stereotype of how money can make anyone happy and

used that as a path to achieve happiness. Hills gave a different option to become happy instead of

saying to work hard and make more money. His life was a great example of how a person

became happy without expensive materials; when he concluded the article, he said, “My space is

small. My life is big” (Hills 312). The quote tells how he is feeling right now living in a small

house but being way happier than before. The overall main point is that having more stuff is not

necessary for happiness and happiness can be achieved without looking for it. His argument was

talking about being materialistic is unnecessary, which is different from the other two articles.

The method to achieve happiness may be different from the other arguments, but he as well

believes that happiness is already with people.

In Sonja Lyubomirsky’s essay, she says that happiness comes from one’s own positive

behaviors (Lyubomirsky 196). It’s different from the other two articles since she’s talking about

people’s behavior affecting their happiness. People can be happy even though they were born
 Kim 4

with the genetics that make them unhappy (Lyubomirsky 193). One of her strongest evidence for

her argument was the huge number of researches she did for the essay. She included interviews

about her students who were having a hard life, but still claimed that they are happy. She also

used statistic graph like happiness scale to explain her thoughts better. Another evidence is how

much the genetics are involved in people’s happiness; she explained that throughout the human’s

life the events may influence his or her happiness, but it will soon return to the genetical set point

of their mood (Lyubomirsky 190). Although she explained different reasons how people are

feeling happy and not happy, her conclusion is that happiness does not exist outside the world,

but it is inside our mind. This message is like the other two articles that was introduced already:

“There is no happiness without action” (Lyubomirsky 196). This quote explains the main point

of how people will look for their happiness, but they won't do anything for it. Most of the people

live their life thinking one day happiness will come to them. Happiness can be achieved through

people’s inside and by their behavior, like a strong belief of their happiness and being thankful

for being alive.

Everyone believes that the main goal of life is happiness. There are people who looks for it

every day, however according to all the three article’s message, everyone already has happiness

inside them. Like Brooks’ idea of suffering will make them realize their daily life was happy and

it will teach them that there is a possibility to go lower. Like Hill’s article about being happier

without expensive stuff. Lyubomirsky’s article sums up the two articles together and explains

why and how people feels happy. Even though a lot of people believe money will bring

happiness; the truth is that happiness comes from their belief.

 Kim 5

Work Cited

Brooks, David.​ "What Suffering Does." ​Pursuing Happiness, edited by Mattew Parfitt and

Dawn Skorczewski, Bedford St. Martins, 2016, pp.284-287.

Hills, Graham. ​"Living with Less. A Lot Less." ​Pursuing Happiness, edited by Mattew

Parfitt and Dawn Skorczewski, Bedford St. Martins, 2016, pp.308-313.

Lyubomirsky, Sonja.​ “How Happy Are You and Why?”​ Pursuing Happiness, edited by

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