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Tzompaxtle David

Mr.Beadle

ENGL 114

20 September 2018

Final Draft

Can we ever be happy with our own decisions? Well in the articles by David Brooks,

Graham Hill, and Sonja Lyubomirsky they will go in depth in their own approach on how they

view happiness. While each author does have a different point of views but they all have

something in common, like how they share the overall theme of happiness. For example, each

author has their own opinion on happiness. As the author, David Brook is a journalist but also

taught at renowned schools like Yale and Duke University. We are also given the information

that he is a conservative and is known to not be afraid of discussing controversial topics. We will

read how Brook discusses that failures and setbacks in life could be detrimental for someone.

Next, is the author Graham Hill another journalist, but as well an entrepreneur. We are given the

information that he was very wealthy because he sold his application for millions. He later

became aware that the luxuries that he purchased gave him no joy and were a burden to take care

of. Later he used fifteen years of his life to become a minimalist and realized the little things that

made him happy. Finally, the author Sonja Lyubomirsky a professor did her own research on the

scientific reason, on how we become happy. These authors opinions on how each of them

witness happiness may be different but have the overall theme of happiness. 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, have an effect on how we become happy.

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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 the theme 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 gave one

hundred percent of your love and happiness, could one day not be here is frightening. 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 in his writing that even

though we have suffered from the 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 sense the second guess in 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 one who is apart of those events will never be the same.

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

object 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
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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 we will lose the sense of

enjoyment. As we are having to carry this burden to consume materials than rather hanging out

on a nice day with your 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 goes into her own research on the other aspects on how we determine

when we are happy. 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 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. What other aspects of life Lyubomirsky is

trying to demonstrate in her conclusion? I concluded that Lyubomirsky must be discussing

important events in life such as getting married or unemployment. It's the same way how we can

become saddened by our life with the events that occur as well. In the end, our own interactions

in life could help raise our neutral scale of our own happiness.
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As we read David Brooks, Graham Hill, and Sonja Lyubomirsky. We learned that each

author has a very different view of happiness. For example, Brooks has his own opinion that our

failures and setbacks can affect one instinct as those past memories will never be forgotten.

However, how we use our fallbacks and failures can help in figuring out our own happiness.

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

that less is better. We are given facts about how we come very aware that we have too much

stuff, but don’t do anything to lessen our desires. Hill tries to convince us to just worry on our

necessities with his own personal story on how he changed his way in fifteen years. He tries to

enlighten us that we lost our sights on how we become happy because of the luxuries that we all

seek. We already see differences that these two authors have. However, Lyubomirsky is far from

Hill and Brooks. She has taken a different approach with more facts than anything else. She

concluded that our actions that happen in our lives can affect our neutral happiness. I have come

to the conclusion that each author has very 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. If it has to deal with

our past, having to understand the little 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 ver 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.