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Ashley Franco

Professor Ditch

English 115

23 September 2019

Happiness Inside and Out

In the articles in ​Pursuing Happiness,​ all of the authors give their perspective on

happiness and how they believe we should reach the goal of happiness according to our

standards and not society's standards. Some of the ideas that have been implemented in society

can affect the way we approach happiness, and we become obsessed with this idea that ​affects

us and how ​we approach and view ​happiness. The authors use personal experiences, data, or

interviews that they have conducted in order to support each of their arguments to bust myths in

regards to happiness. Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler, David Brooks, and Sonja Lyubomirsky

believe that happiness is reached through your internal space which is your state of mind.

According to Graham Hill, happiness can also be affected through external spaces which can be

materialistic objects or society's issues with consumerism. ​The authors of the articles give their

point of view on how happiness should be approached and whether it is through our state of

mind or the environment that surrounds us .

Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler, who are the authors​ of “ The Sources of Happiness”​ use

the Dalai Lama’s philosophies on how happiness can be determined more so by your mentality

rather than external circumstances. Cutler does an exceptional job of telling us experiences of

people that he ​interviews​ that go through ​tough ​life situations and we’d expect ​ their state of
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mind ​to be ​negative​ because of ​the situations they are in​ but they show us ​otherwise ​.​Dalai Lama

and Howard Cutler states that “happiness is determined more by one’s state of mind than by

external events.”(Cutler,22) ​For example, a friend of Cutler’s had ​become successful and her

income increased​ but ​she felt strange​ that she didn’t feel happier than before this skyrocketing

success.​Sometimes when we are presented with exceptional surprises such as Cutler’s friend that

was enjoying meteoric success, this happiness is temporary because our satisfaction are

influenced by the idea of comparison. Cutler states that “Our feelings of contentment are

strongly influenced by our tendency to compare.” (Cutler,23)​ ​As satisfied as this woman felt in

the beginning, she now craves more and that is why her happiness levels are average.​Another of

Cutler’s friends had found out that he was HIV positive ​but due to his state of mind​,he became

happier than he ever was before. He began to appreciate things more in life instead of dwelling

on this diagnosis. ​According to the Dalai Lama and Cutler, “Success may result in a temporary

feeling of elation, or tragedy may send us into a period of depression, but sooner or later our

overall level of happiness tends to migrate back to a certain baseline.”(Cutler,22)​ As much as

we’d think that the friend with the skyrocketing success should be the happiest and the friend

that got diagnosed with HIV would be unhappy, each person proves to us how one’s state of

mind can really affect the situations in which you are put in throughout life. As humans we

experience the ups and downs in life, but eventually our general level of happiness goes back to a

certain baseline.​Cutler and the Dalai Lama use ​emotion in order to motivate ​their​ audience to

change their perspective on happiness as a whole. When we become faced with obstacles in our

lives we tend to have the idea that we are the only ones suffering which honestly makes us suffer
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even more. Our internal space can determine whether we are content or not but we also have to

remind ourselves that there is a long process in order for our internal space to be healed.

David Brooks focuses on achieving happiness internally through redefining what

suffering does to us emotionally and ​how it affects our state of mind.​ Brooks changes the

perspective on suffering by giving it a positive outlook, ​which is by being transformed​. Brooks

believes that when people suffer, we don’t heal but we do change how we are as a person or the

way we think. He thinks that “Recovering from suffering is not like recovering from a disease.

Many people don’t come out healed; they come out different.” (Brooks, 287) Suffering is

something we want to avoid but as much as we want to avoid it, we can’t escape it. We might not

heal from these negative emotional effects that these obstacles bring us, but we can bring

something positive out of it and we can be formed through suffering. Your internal space is not

just “ I am happy”​ and forgetting about the negative situations.​ ​It​ is also being able to recognize

and analyze ​the obstacles that we have gone through and being able to ​recognize ​something

positive out of it. ​One example that stood out to me that Brooks mentions is when “Franklin

Roosevelt came back deeper and more empathetic after being struck with polio.” (Brooks, 284)

When humans are put through obstacles like that, we become more aware of how our life can be

changed in a matter of seconds. This helps us appreciate what we already have and also benefits

us in the sense that despite the given circumstances, we are able to have a positive attitude

towards that. David Brooks emphasizes the idea of suffering and how it is crucial for us to

recognize that in order for us to eventually reach our ideal happiness.

Graham Hill states that your external space can affect your happiness in a negative way.

He believes this because he ​uses his ​personal experience and his life ​spent ​with a surplus of
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materialistic objects that eventually made him feel unhappy. Hill eventually started traveling

more and just forming more relationships with people. For example, he realized that

“experiences show that after a certain point, material objects have a tendency to crowd out the

emotional needs they are meant to support.”(Hill, 312)​When we feel isolated or sad, we tend to

find things to fill that emotional void but in the long run these habits can hurt us. In this case, it

would be Hill having a surplus of materialistic items, and still feeling unhappy.​ For example,

Hill says “ Intuitively, we know that the best stuff in life isn’t stuff at all and that relationships,

experiences, and meaningful work are the staples of a happy life.”( Hill, 311) We don’t realize

how us wanting all of these materialistic items stresses us out and ends up taking up our ​internal

space and we think that having a lot of stuff is what makes people happy since we see that ​as a

trend,​ but in reality it is about maybe not having less, but ​instead of not​ worrying so much about

buying all the things that everyone else is buying. ​Happiness can be determined by our life

experiences and relationships we form, and not through materialistic items.​Happiness can be

achieved through experiences, whether good or bad and the way we enjoy the little things in life

like spending time with your family or your favorite hobby.

Sonja Lyubomirsky believes that we all want to achieve happiness but we don’t know

how to improve our happiness and it all depends on our “intentional activity”. Intentional activity

is your optimism or the way you handle situations.​ Lyubomirsky follows a similar outline to

Cutler because she interviews a variety of people and we get to read about their stories, what

their state of mind is, and why through all of the adversity they still choose to be happy.A piece

of data that stood out to me was the chart because it shows that the biggest component of a

person’s happiness is determined by their internal space. ​Internal space is how we decide to view
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these obstacles and whether we let it take over or not in our lives.​She is able to blend in logic and

emotion into her article to show us that not only is this proven by emotional stories, but her

findings can also be backed up by scientific research. ​Lyubomirsky states that 40% of our

happiness is determined by intentional activity. This is in comparison to the 50% that is based on

genetics and the other 10% that is based on circumstances.That is a huge component and it

supports her argument that happiness can be influenced by our optimism and how we choose to

view life situations. ​Lyubomirsky also goes through common myths that we adapt to our lives

and she analyzes those myths and argues against them. For example, the most common myth is

that happiness must be “found”. This statement is vague and that is the reason why as a society

we have become obsessed with this goal of happiness and we don’t really think about the process

that there is in order to find happiness. “Happiness, more than anything, is a state of mind, a way

of perceiving and approaching ourselves and the world in which we reside.” The idea of

happiness is a great one to every human being but when we start stressing ourselves out because

we don’t feel happy it is because of society's expectations and also because of our mental state.

According to research, people’s income is increasing but people are reporting that they are happy

actually goes down. This could be because Hill also argued that our external space can affect our

internal space and because of expectations in regards to happiness. “I think the reason why we’re

seeing this perceived decline is around the idea of expectations; we have become to expect a lot.”

(Lyubomirsky, 194)This could be in how to expect to get a job promotion or we expect to be

able to get the latest iPhone with no problem. Happiness is a goal that we have to pursue but we

can’t just aim for happiness, we have to experience many obstacles in order to achieve this.
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In conclusion, all of the authors ​make ​an argument and​ present evidence​ ​about

why they believe that their findings on happiness are worth considering. All of the

authors want to persuade their audience with ethos, pathos, and logos through their

interviews, their research-based ​data​, and their personal experiences. For example, the

Dalai Lama and Cutler believe that once we process how happiness fluctuates​,​ then we

will appreciate happiness even more. David Brooks, and Sonja Lyubomirsky all believe

that the key to happiness is found through internal space which is the way we handle our

emotions and the way we handle situations in our lives. Graham Hill, on the other hand,

argues that happiness can be greatly affected by our external space, which in this case is

how consumerism and the idea of having a surplus of materialistic items will eventually

make us unhappy. We should appreciate our experiences more, and focus on our internal

and external spaces in order to achieve happiness eventually and at our own pace and

standards.
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Works Cited

Cutler, Howard &Lama, Dalai. “The Source of Happiness.”​ Pursuing Happiness, ​edited

by Matthew Parfitt and Dawn Skorczewski Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2015 pp.21-33

Brooks, David. “What Suffering Does”. ​Pursuing Happiness, e​ dited by Matthew Parfitt

and Dawn Skorczewski Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2015 pp.284-287

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

Matthew Parfitt and Dawn Skorczewski Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2015 pp.179-196

Hill, Graham. “Living with Less A Lot Less”edited by Matthew Parfitt and Dawn

Skorczewski Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2015 pp.308-312

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