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Young Kim

Professor Beadle

English 114A

30 September 2018

Reality of Happiness

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

with a small hope of finding paths to achieve happiness.​ However, happiness is not the only

thing that can benefits people’s life, but other factors can also give people a great experience or

something more beneficial than happiness.​ ​I have read three articles regarding happiness and the

authors own influential thoughts.​ 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 ​one of the main point that ultimately builds up to happiness or a higher triumph

however​, the way that he explains how happiness does not come from the outside of people and

instead it comes from themselves are similar approach like the other 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

also claims that happiness comes from people’s inside and they can achieve happiness by being
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humble and honest rather than being greedy.​ 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 will make people happy. The three articles ​are different by having each of

their own unique thoughts of achieving happiness and different situation which can be helpful for

other people to have the same possibility of solving their problem.​ 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 perspective ​wide enough to

realize​ how suffering can be beneficial to people’s happiness.​ People are usually afraid of suffer

and they tend to run away from it.​ ​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). ​Franklin Roosevelt was the 32nd president of the United States and

also one of the most influential president​.​ No doubt that Franklin Roosevelt’s recovery from

polio is a great example of benefits from suffering.​ 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
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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 ​people​ ​and the

suffered people in the quote is a great example of how suffering can be beneficial to people.

Apart from other articles, Brooks ​article is mostly focusing on suffering instead of happiness and

how people should achieve 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.​ I believe that this makes a huge

difference from the other article because he is using suffer as an example of happiness.​ ​There are

few similarities that this particular article shares with the other two​.​ First, the way he concludes

that people’s happiness is already inside them is really alike Lyubomirsky’s article, which she

claims that behavior and genetics are the main source of happiness. Second and also lastly, it

shares the same idea with Hills’ article because his article also puts himself in a suffer by taking

all his valuable stuff away and living as a minimalist can be considered as suffering.

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 ​desires ​(Hills 308). Everybody in the world will say money

has the same value as​ 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
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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 ​also using money 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 ​become​ 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 ​it​ can be achieved without​ ​using life

time to actually find happiness​. His argument was talking about being materialistic is

unnecessary, which is different from the other two articles.​ Hills also used his biography as the

strongest support to his argument and this is unique, apart from the other two articles​. ​It is truly

obvious that his method to happiness is different, but the fact that he explained how happiness is

something people doesn’t really need to work hard for it is similar to Brooks and Lyubomirsky.

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

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.​ ​Her article was really

well organized and easy to understand with the massive amount of researches.​ She included

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

Some people might say that they are just hallucinated and they just think they are happy, when
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they are actually not. Since we can not perfectly measure one’s happiness and everybody’s

standard of happiness is different; we can only believe the person’s word whether or not they are

lying.​ ​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. ​Like the other articles, Lyubomirsky used a lot of

researches and people’s experience as her evidence. One of the biggest point that makes this

article different from the the other two is how she used behavior and genetic as her support to her

argument. It is also credible because herself is a psychologist and she also had researched about

happiness.

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​ for their life to go lower where they will be no

happiness at all​. Like Hill’s article about being happier without expensive stuff, ​but focusing on
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activities and relationships.​ Lyubomirsky’s article sums up the two articles together and explains

why and how people feels happy ​with genetics and behavior​. Even though a lot of people believe

money will bring happiness; the truth is that happiness comes from their belief.
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Work Cited

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

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

​ ursuing Happiness, edited by Mattew


Hills, Graham. ​"Living with Less. A Lot Less." P

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.

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