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Gor Akopyan
Mrs. Ditch
English 115
A lot of people can tell you that happiness is the state of being happy, but the definition
alone doesn’t help people understand what happiness truly means and how to achieve it.
Happiness can be seen to occur in two cases, internally and externally. Internal happiness is a
mental battle that a person needs to fight in order to be happy while external happiness is a more
physical one. Authors such as His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler, David Brooks,
Graham Hill and Sonja Lyubomirsky all write about happiness and why some people are having
trouble maintaining happy. The Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler, David Brooks and Sonja
Lyubomirsky all focus on the internal space while Graham Hill focuses on the external space.
The Dalai Lama and Cutler argue that happiness is all a mental transformation that has nothing to
do with physical circumstance such as injury, while Brooks argues that happiness is determined
by how people come out of a bad time where they suffer and turn that into a transformation
their internal space. The last author, Hill, argues that people focus to much on what they own
physically which leads to them becoming upset at what they do not have instead of focusing on
the more important things which enable them to transform the external space.
An argument that focuses on the internal space of happiness comes from The Dalai Lama
and Cutler where they demonstrate how external events should not corelate to happiness. They
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argue that happiness more than anything is an emotion that is controlled mentally and by how
people think rather than what they do. This contradicts how many people believe that if they
want to become happier in life they must do things or buy things that they think will make them
happier. Cutler goes on to say that “Happiness is determined more by one’s state of mind than by
external events” (22). He says this as he brings up personal examples of people he has known
who have been dealt with a bad experience in life and remained happy throughout it. A specific
example he brought up was a person he knew who got diagnosed with HIV, but they maintained
a calm mental throughout the process, allowing them to maintain being happy through a serious
issue in their life. This goes to prove The Dalai Lama and Cutlers idea on how happiness is more
internal and focused on the mind then by what happens to a person physically. Another example
Cutler brings up, is actor Christopher Reeve who was left with a spinal cord injury that left him
completely paralyzed from the neck down. Even though he suffered such a tragedy to his life, he
maintained a state of happiness by focusing on him being lucky to be alive than unfortunate
Brooks also focuses on the internal space; however, his argument is centered around the
state of suffering that all people feel. Many people find themselves at a point in their live where
they have just experienced a traumatic event that causes them to suffer. Suffering is a state that
many people would consider to make a person unhappy because of all the depressing emotions
that occur at such difficult times. In addition to the state of suffering, Brooks points out that the
way people deal with and rebound after suffering is an important factor to being happy. The
main idea that he highlights is that “Recovering from suffering is not like recovering from a
disease. Many people don’t come out healed; they come out different” (286). People get back to
being the same person after a sickness, but with suffering, Brooks argues that it changes the way
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they think afterwards. After a traumatic event a person usually goes through a great deal of pain
and through that pain they change the way they perceive the world. The type of change that
occurs is what is important because many people can go through many hardships and get weaker,
but what is important is to get stronger than you originally were. Brooks mentions Franklin
Roosevelt who is a famous United State president that exemplifies such a change for the better
when he got polio. The pain that comes from such a ailment like polio is insurmountable in most
cases, but for President Roosevelt it made him come back stronger than he had been initially.
On the external space side, Graham Hill argues that people have trouble reaching
happiness because they focus on the wrong elements of life to improve. Hill was a person who
got lucky early on and made a lot of money which let him afford many luxurious purchases. As
he went through life with all these physical belongings he kept finding that obtaining new things
only made them mean less to him and make him unhappy with himself. Having too much made
his life complicated and even though they were bought to make him happier, they did the
opposite. Going through life like this made Hill realize that all of these physical things and big
houses are not what brings happiness to a person. It wasn’t until he had less that he said “I have
less-and enjoy more. My space is small. My life is big.” (312). All of the luxuries he had were
never his ticket to happiness, but instead his happiness came from the things that he cared about
the most. Having a big house does not mean a happy life, it can make it more complicated and
lead to having things that add no meaning to life at all. The transformation of the external space
is to be done not by meaningless belongings, but rather finding the meaning in the life you
already have. Everyone idealizes that glamorous life of being able to obtain anything they desire,
but that life only ends up consuming them, forcing them to be unhappy with themselves as they
centered their life around material goods which give nothing to a person’s life. Hill highlights
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this type of mistake as he experienced the same thing, but now he is happy ever since he got rid
Shifting back into the focus on internal space, Lyubomirsky believes that happiness is in
the hands of the person who wants it, meaning they have to take the steps to achieve it. As
Lyubomirsky see’s it, a good portion of happiness is set upon birth by genetics, but what is
important is that there is another big portion left for the individual themselves. The key to
becoming happy is having the mental ability to accept the actions that are required to contribute
to an individual’s overall happiness. A lot of people go on to believe that they are unhappy
because of the circumstance they are in and that they have no say to fix it. This however, is not
true at all since circumstance is only ten percent of a person total happiness. These people are
doing the opposite of what is beneficial to them to become happy as they do not try and become
happy, instead they just sit there and blame it on what already exists. Lyubomirsky says that
“Happiness, more than anything, is a state of mind, a way of perceiving and approaching
ourselves and the world in which we reside” (185). In this case happiness is mental, but it is also
the mental ability to understand how to approach their lives to become a happier person. For the
most part happiness is internal in the sense that it is all about a person’s mentality, but it is also
how that person approaches their lives which contributes to the mentality. People can not be a
victim to themselves in terms of happiness and to not be a victim requires the ability to
understand that more can be intentionally done to transform the internal space that contributes to
Happiness is a sensation that can be influenced from both the internal and external space.
It is important to know all of the ways and things that can influence happiness, as it will only
help achieve it better. Both Brooks, The Dalai Lama and Cutler provide arguments that surround
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the idea that happiness comes by focusing on the mental idea of it. Things can go badly for
someone physically or emotionally, but they need to keep a strong mentality and focus on what
is really important to stay happy. Hill shows how physical objects can be more of a hinderance
on happiness then they can be a help to it. Finally, Lyubomirsky focuses on the idea that
happiness more or less is mainly about a person’s intentional actions even though a part of it can
be genetic. Ultimately, everyone wants to be happy and will do anything to become happy, but
the important thing is realizing that to achieve happiness one must first have a strong mind and
Works Cited
Cutler, Howard and The Dalai Lama. “The Source of Happiness”, Pursuing Happiness,
Brooks, David. “What Suffering Does”, Pursuing Happiness, Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2016, 284-
287
Hill, Graham. “Living with Less. A Lot Less”, Pursuing Happiness, Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2016,
308-312
Lyubomirsky, Sonja. “How Happy Are You and Why”, Pursuing Happiness, Bedford/St.