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Kaylani Wright

Professor Beadle

English 114A 12:30-1:45

1 October 2018

Is Happiness Possible?

What is the true meaning of happiness? What is going to make each individual person

happy? As we read, each author of the three readings we looked at how each author has a

different belief on how to achieve true happiness. Although all of them write about happiness

they don’t all share the same opinion. Brooks believes that happiness does not come from

assumptions. That assuming something is ok makes you happy or assuming that you're going to

get something makes you happy. Brooks believes that you have to fail in order to achieve true

happiness. Hill talks about living with less leads to true happiness. He believes that living with

less materials will in the end make you a happier person. He is trying to prove that materials do

not equal happiness. He does this by sharing his own story. Last Lyubomirsky believes that no

person can truly be genuinely happy. She writes about her own struggles and shares the stories.

Although the three authors each believe in their own thing…They all show through their writings

that each person has a different way of finding their true happiness, but it is possible for

everyone to find happiness in their life.

First, we will take a deeper look into Brooks and his reading on happiness. Brooks

believes that happiness is not achieved from an assumption. He believes that to achieve

happiness you must suffer. You must fail in order to realize what truly makes you happy. David

Brooks’ first argument to prove his thesis states “suffering drags you deeper into yourself” (285).
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When people go through suffering they often come out knowing themselves a lot better. Going

through pain and heartbreak will in the end show you what makes you happy. In Brooks’ reading

it says, “find they are not who they believed themselves to be” (Brooks 285), people often realize

that the person they thought they were is not who they are meant to be. David Brooks writes

“Recovering from suffering is not like recovering from a disease. Many people don’t come out

healed; they come out different” (Brooks 286/287). When we heal from a cold or the flu we are

the same person just healed from the sickness that we had. When we recover from suffering such

as a loss in the family or even a mental illness we are changed forever. The point that Brooks is

trying to make is that you are not happy based on assumption, but rather learning from your

suffering makes you happier.

The second reading we looked at written by Graham Hill, Living with Less. A Lot Less,

talks about how living with less materialistic items makes you a healthier and happier human

being. Hill starts off his reading by talking about his own situation, “I live in a 420-foot studio. I

sleep on a bed that folds down from the wall” (Hill 308). He writes about how he lived in a small

studio apartment and that he lived a very minimalist life. He writes that he only has “six dress

shirts” and “10 shallow bowls” (Hill 308). Hill writes about how he only lives with a couple

items that are necessary for him to live. Throughout his entire reading, Hill talks about his own

story and how he lived a lavish life but was unhappy so decided to get rid of it all and live a

simpler life with less gadgets and materialistic items. Hill writes “My success and the things it

bought quickly changed from novel to normal. Soon I was numb to it all” (309). The material

items in his life soon became normal instead of exciting to receive. He expected to receive those

items instead of hoping to get them. Towards the end of his writing he bases what he writes

about on the findings of Professor Bodenhausen, “Though American consumer activity has
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increased substantially since the 1950s, happiness levels have flatlined,” immediately after that

he writes “I don’t know that the gadgets I was collecting in my loft were part of an aberrant or

antisocial behavior plan during the first few months I lived in SoHo” (Hill 311). He writes about

how all this technology he was buying was making him this antisocial person who stayed indoors

all the time. Towards the end of his reading he writes, “Intuitively, we know that he best stuff in

life is not stuff at all, and that relationships, experiences and meaningful work are the staples of a

happy life” (Hill 311). He writes his main focus which is that materialistic items are not the main

source of happiness and that everyone deep down inside knows that whether we show it or not.

The last reading, we read was by Sonja Lyubomirsky, to prove her reasoning about

happiness. She starts her reading by asking questions to get your brain thinking. She gets us to

think about our friends and the people around us. Shen then writes “It’s especially frustrating and

perplexing to be around such individuals when they’re in the same difficult or troubling

situations we are but seem happy in spite of it” (Lyubomirsky 179). She makes her first sentence

of the paragraph very relatable because we have all had that happen to us where it seems we are

the only unhappy person out of everyone we know. She writes about people she interviewed and

studied and before she writes their story she says, “I’ve even found a few who remain happy or

are able to recover their happiness fairly quickly after tragedies or major setbacks”

(Lyubomirsky 180). She then goes on to talk about her first cases whose name is Angela and

says, “Angela is thirty-four and one of the happiest people that I ever interviews. You wouldn’t

guess it, however, from all she’s had to bear...her mother was emotionally and physically abusive

to her, and her father did nothing to intervene” (Lyubomirsky 180). She starts by writing about

Angela’s background giving you the reader an inside view of how she grew up, letting the

audience get to know the interviewee. Although Angela endured all of this as a child and more
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throughout her life, the writer states, “She finds deep satisfaction in helping others heal from

their own wounds and traumas” (Lyubomirsky 180). She then starts to talk about a second

interview she had with a man named Randy who just like Angela suffered a lot as a child. He

talked about his divorce and picking himself back up after that. The reading says, “Randy is an

eternal optimist and claims that seeing the ‘silver lining in the cloud’ has always been hi key to

survival” (Lyubomirsky 181). He has his own way of being happy which is what everyone in this

world needs to find. The one thing or the one way that they can be happy for themselves and no

one else.

In conclusion, all the authors had valid points on true happiness and each of them had

great supporting arguments. They all had their own view, but in the end still feel that the best

thing in life is true happiness. True happiness is tailored to each person individually and I believe

that each author has proven that by giving us different examples and how those examples were

achieved. Hill for example found true happiness when he lived with less material items and in

Lyubomirsky's reading, Angela, the woman she interviewed finds happiness in helping others

through their troubles even though no one was there to help her through her trouble as a child

growing up. Brooks writing really goes along with Lyubomirsky’s because he writes about how

true happiness comes from suffering and Lyubomirsky writes about people who have suffered in

the past. Although the authors each had their own way of finding true happiness they all showed

that it was possible for each individual person. One author used logos by giving scientific

evidence on happiness. Another used for ethos by using the stories of others showing that she

was credible based on that fact that she talked to others to find their stories. The last author used

pathos by using his own story and his own life to show how he found happiness for himself. In

the end the authors proved that everyone does have a way to find happiness.
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Works Cited

Brooks, David. “What suffering Does.” Pursuing Happiness, edited by Matthew Parfitt and

Dawn Skorezewski, Bedford St. Martin’s, 2016, pp 284-287.

Hill, Graham, “Living with less. A lot less.” Pursuing Happiness, edited by Matthew Parfitt and

Dawn Skirezewski, Bedford St. Martin’s, 2016, pp 308-313

Lyubomirsky, Sonja. “How Happy are you and why?” Pursuing Happiness, edited by Matthew

Parfitt and Dawn Skorezewski, Bedford St. Martin’s, 2016, pp 179-197.