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Amelie Hananel

Professor Beadle

English 115

30 September 2018

The Different Roads to Happiness

Out of how many of your friends could you say are genuinely happy? Are you genuinely

happy? With many people, this emotion is almost a life challenge to be able to receive it. People

are always searching and grasping for the feeling of positivity and energy, and it’s so close yet

feels so far. In three different articles by Hill, Lyubomirsky, and Brooks, the authors share their

influence on happiness through external or internal space hoping for those who want to be happy

can learn and eventually experience the great feeling from it. External space is physical space

such as an environment, the outside world and an internal space is psychological space, what

goes on in one’s head. Happiness can be shown and brought in many different ways, such as Hill

who argues his values of happiness through external space and downsizing his living space. In

contrast Lyubomirsky argues her values of happiness through internal space with scientific

research and Brooks argues his values of suffering to happiness through internal space by

explaining the difficulty to happiness because of suffering.

Graham Hill is a man who, before his thirties, became wealthy from an Internet startup

sale. As his wealth grew, he began buying more and more items that he didn’t need, but he soon

discovered that after he bought two homes and decided to change his external space to lighten

the weight off of his shoulders. After realizing how exhausting and how much busier he was

because of the upkeep of the houses, Hill took a step back to look at where he was in life,

“‘Somehow this stuff ended up running my life, or a lot of it; the things I consumed ended up
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consuming me”’ (Hill, 308). Just like the saying “money can’t buy happiness”, Hill uses his

personal story to argue that materialistic items cannot give people happiness and rather fewer

items will make people happier. Hill had much to do aside from work and that was because he

had to do unnecessary upkeep which was taking over his time during the day. Once Hill moved

into a 420-square-foot studio and minimized his materialistic items, he was finally able to say

that he felt free and that his life was full of love and adventure. Some people may not take a

personal story as a credible source, so Hill showed the research and found that researchers have

proven that the more materialistic items, the more stress one will have. In a study from

researchers at U.C.L.A titled “Life at Home in the Twenty-First Century” researchers observed

32 middle-class Los Angeles families, and found that, “all of the mothers’ stress hormones

spiked during the time they spent dealing with their belongings. Seventy five-percent of the

families involved in the study couldn’t park their cars in their garages because they were too

jammed with things” (Hill, 310). With more and more items piling up, stress levels as well

increased. Professional researchers have proven scientific research stating the more clutter one

had, the more stress one obtained because of having to organize it, clean it up every so often, and

have to dig through piles of items just to get one task done. Hill has proven and strongly believes

from his own experience and research that with the change of external space, one’s life is much

easier and enjoyable without an overload of materialistic items.

On the other hand, Sonja Lyubomirsky argues that happiness is made from genetics and

can be changed with internal space. Lyubomirsky, a professor in psychology who earned a Ph.D.

in social psychology from Stanford University, researched and discovered the scientific way of

how to become happy. Lyubomirsky discovered that genetics play a big role in someone’s

happiness and found that there is a “set point” of happiness or sadness, “It appears that each of us
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is born with a happiness set point, a characteristic potential for happiness throughout our lives”

(Lyubomirsky, 190). This set point is the baseline of one’s happiness. Lyubomirsky uses an

example of somebody getting married and during this event, one’s happiness may increase,

however later on the happiness will then decrease and return to the happiness level made from

genes. Lyubomirsky states that, “one’s happiness is fifty-percent made from genes, there’s still

forty-percent that can be changed from intentional activity and ten-percent from circumstances”

(184). She then continues, that although humans have a set point for happiness, that doesn’t

mean humans are fixed with that level of happiness, “We can rise above our happiness set points,

just as we can rise above our set points for weight or cholesterol… Our genes do not determine

our life experiences and behavior” (190). Just like altering the insides of our bodies with

medication or with assistance, one can adjust, change, and adapt their happiness level. One can

rise above their set point if they want to, the set point does not define their happiness for their

whole life. One can change their experience of happiness with a fitting environment, meaning an

environment that can bring the best out of one psychologically. Lyubomirsky has finalized her

research for now, finding that one’s happiness can be altered with setting specific goals that

someone will look forward to and can boost their motivation.

Lastly, David Brooks a well-known journalist, writes in a different approach to happiness

compared to Hill and Lyubomirsky. Brooks argues that people expect happiness to come fairly

easy, but in reality many attempt to aim for happiness but have to go through suffering to obtain

it. Suffering causes people to come out differently and to see the different layers inside of one’s

self. Brooks states, “Often, physical or social suffering can give people an outsider’s

perspective… suffering vies people a more accurate sense of their own limitations, what they can

control and cannot control” (284 and 286). Suffering gives people the view they’ve never had
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before, the view that lets them look inside of their own skin and realize who they are and what

they’re truly feeling. To make happiness out of suffering, people realize what they mourn over

and some emotions cannot be controlled, but people can learn how to bring good out from the

bad. Brooks then leads the audience into a solution for how to make good from the bad, “The

right response to this sort of pain is not pleasure. It’s holiness… it means seeing life as a moral

drama, placing the hard experiences in a moral context and trying to redeem something bad by

turning it into something sacred” (286). Brooks wants the audience to make lessons out of

suffering experiences and then grow from those lessons to become happy. Just like

Lyubomirsky, Brooks wants those who are suffering to find their motivation to get out of

suffering and hopefully become happier. Brooks has shown the audience that happiness is not

easy since it comes from the rough roots of suffering, but happiness can be obtained if one is

able to look above the ground and see the sunlight.

Whether it was internal or external space, all the authors focused on how to obtain

happiness while each one had their own values and approach to make someone’s life better.

Graham Hill shared his own experience of dealing with happiness through external space and

changing his surroundings. As for Lyubomirsky, she shared the scientific research of happiness

through internal space and teaching the audience about how genetics have impact on one’s

happiness. Lastly, Brooks argues that happiness is made from those who suffer and turn that

suffering into a learning lesson through internal space and changing one’s mindset. Although the

authors had a different approach or different information on happiness, each author wanted their

audience to know that they are able to be happier if they wanted to be. An individual is not stuck

with one emotion or one level of happiness forever. Happiness is an emotion that can be obtained

in many different ways depending on the person, the person’s situation, and the person’s needs.
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Happiness has no certain definition or way and every individual has the right to their own

happiness.
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Works Cited

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

Dawn Skorczewski, Bedford St. Martin’s, 2016.

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

and Dawn Skorczewski, Bedford St. Martin’s, 2016.

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

Parfitt and Dawn Skorczewski, Bedford St. Martin’s, 2016.