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Thomas Ramirez

Professor Ditch

English 114 A

14 March 2019

What is the Best Way to Find Happiness?

Everyone has a way to find or pursue happiness but sometimes many events or many

situations tend to push us to not to pursue this tangible item that we desire which is happiness.

One should notice that most time one gets affect by how ways of adapting happiness but

sometimes these challenges could help you find yourself or change completely. Maybe just

getting outside one’s comfort zone could help find happiness by helping others out through

similar traumas that they face. Each author of these three articles that I read have their own

argument on how happiness is found. David Brooks claims that people that have gone through

suffering don’t heal normally but rather they change completely. Graham Hill argues that

sometimes the materialist thing that one uses to find happiness doesn’t help but stresses and

takes upon time from ones mental and physical life. The last article by Sonja Lyubomirsky states

that happiness is found one how you attack and what actions you take in certain situations in

your life. These arguments are similar and different in their own way because the claims that

Brooks and Lybomirsky state all have to do with one’s actions and mindset which tie together

rather than Hill’s claim which states that material object will take over your time and space there

forth live with few things and that one must be willing to change that materialist mindset and to

add interaction and experience to find happiness..

David Brooks, in his essay, “What Suffering Does.”, he claims that “recovering from

suffering is not like recovering from a disease.”(Brooks, 287) He also adds that sometimes with
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suffering comes a “fearful gift” which oddly is happiness traditionally defined. “They can’t

determine the course of their pain, but they can participate in responding to it” (Brooks, 286).

This quote from. His article could be compared to Lybomirsky Claim which is happiness is

sometimes found in the action that ones take. In a way Brooks says that one can’t choose the

course or destiny that one’s has but you can take action on the situation which could help you out

or drag you more in to a non-happy life per say. Brooks adds more evidence that sometimes

suffering could be a double edge sword it could either cut you or help you cut your way out a

deep depression. “The suffering involved in their task becomes a fearful gift and very different

than that equal and other gifts, happiness, conventionally defined.” (Brooks, 287) Brooks in this

quote gives one a hope that suffering isn’t all that bad but that can help one realize and wake up

and really understand the situation better and to be grateful, but at the same time take the

suffering a hard lesson that life gives someone.

In Sonja Lybomirsky, article “How Happy Are You and Why?”, her claim differs from

Brooks and Hill by her not referring to the situation or the owner ships of items but one’s outlook

and goals that one sets in life for one can actually pursue their happiness. Her claim is that “the

fountain of happiness can be found in how you behave, what you think, and what goal you set

everyday of your life.”(Lyubomirsky, 196) She also adds that your happiness is not just based

on your circumstances but your intuition to move on from certain situations and to learn from

them. “she feels deep satisfaction in helping others heel from their own wounds and traumas for

as she reasons, “it is virtually impossible to face one’s shadows alone.” (Lyubomirsky, 180) This

back s up her claim by adding these interviews and experiences form other and how taking action

instead of suffering alone actually helped them to find a purpose and to help others to deal with

their own suffering and that sometimes one shadows rant supposed to be fought by oneself but
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with help and some hope. She agrees with Brooks argument that suffering does change people

because instead of just living with her triumph of overcoming her suffering by herself she helps

others with the same traumas and suffering. “there is no happiness without action, it is feeling of

passivity and futility overcome you whenever you face up happiness set point or to your

circumstance, you must know a genuine and abiding happiness is indeed within your reach, lying

within the 40 percent of the happiness pie chart that’s your guide.” (Lybomirsky, 196) With this

evidence that she provides Lybomirsky states that 50 percent is set point or our genes that one

has around happiness while 10 percent is the circumstance or the situation and the other 40

percent that is left over is that action and the motive that one take to reach or pursue this tangible

item that one desires which is an endless fountain of happiness. The most important part of this

data would the the determining factor which is the 40 percent intuition if you have the strength

and the mind to go through, he tough times you will not be happy. This idea also contradicts

Hills argument because if you don’t know how to utilize the material objects that you own or

eventually would be able to own you can’t get out the shell that brought you to buy or own the

object. After that you tend to get mentally tired and stressed out about it which at the long run

would evade you to reach your happiness that one seeks with the item or the ideal to replace it

for another which could cancel the thought or present of the thing that drags you down.

Unlike Brooks argument Hills claims, in his article “Living with Less. A Lot Less”, that

“…after a certain point material object have a tendency to crowd out the emotional needs they

are meant for.”(Hill, 312) Also, he adds that material objects take up more physical and mental

space. “ it took 15 years, a great love and a lot of travel to get rid of all the inessential things I

had collected and live a bigger, better, richer life with less” (Hill, 309) this contrast Brooks ideal

of suffering because once someone is wealthy and has what they have they don’t suffer mentally
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even though one might suffer a little physical. Also, this example does support Brooks claim

because wealthy people either suffer in a way that they hardly see their love ones or their

mentally or physically put suffering on their self to become happy at the end. Hill other small

argument in his article is that the too much stuff does take up mental and physical space, “and

because then place was so big, I felt obligated Seattle to get roommates-who required more time,

more energy, to manage. I still had the house, Seattle found myself worrying about two homes.”

(Hill, 309) This backs up Hill’s claim but Hill himself adding his personal experience one the

matter by saying that he himself wasn’t all that happy even though he owns a lot of material stuff

even though people who can’t afford those certain items would be happy and thrilled to have and

maintain those items. He also claims that the maintains of the houses was stressful for him while

some don’t own a house but dream to would make time and Mindspace to think about it they

would enjoy and savor every moment of it. His argument goes against the argument that Sonja

Lyubomirsky present which is that happiness is found in what one behavior toward their life is,

but since one have too much of materialist objects the action upon the items could be negative in

which happiness that one is seeking could deteriorate and run out toward the item. Hills

experience is similar but yet different , and his ideals of happiness similar to Lyubomirsky idea

in a way that most of the times your action could contribute to your own happiness. By letting

go those materialist iteams that fill the hole where happiness belongs.

In conclusion these authors have similarities and differences between each other.

Lyubomirsky and Brooks ideas were more similar but different to Hills because they focus on

the inter works of one’s mind and felling rather that the outside materialist objects that people

tend to hold one to. While Brooks was about how much you have is how much you can be

pushed. Lyubomirsky idea was to take action and find happiness instead of digging yourself
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more in to it. Hill’s idea was that too much stuff can take over you and control your every mood

and every action. Brooks claim is that suffering is a “weapon” or “gift” that can at the end give

you what you were looking for. But with the cost of one changing completely, or taking action a

pond one’s issues, or even to an extend to live with a little less could result viewing the world in

a different point of view and to ultimately find happiness

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Work cite

Brooks, David, “What Suffering does”, Pursuing Happiness, edited by Mathew Parfitt and

Dawn Skorczewski, Bedford/ St. Martins, 2016, pg. 286

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

and Dawn Skorczewski, Bedford/ St. Martins, 2016,308

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

Mathew Parfitt and Dawn Skorczewski, Bedford/ St. Martins, 2016,179