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Jason Diaz

Professor Ditch

English 113B

February 24, 2020

The Feelings of external and internal Happiness

How much money or materialistic items would you need to achieve happiness in your life?

Well according to these authors in the Pursing Happiness collections they are arguing that we do

not need any of these things. In all three articles by The Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler, Sonja

Lyubomirsky, and David Brooks, they all talk about achieving happiness even when they are

faced with tragedy. While they all have the same beliefs the Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler are

different because they suggest we can transform our space by having some available source

around us and using it to find our own happiness whether it would be some new activates or

getting out your comfort zone there are ways, next Sonja Lyubomirsky suggests that we can

transform our space by changing ourselves internally and having a mindset where you approach

and handle situations differently than others and being able to turn a terrible situation into a great

outcome. Finally, David Brooks is suggesting that we can change our space by arguing that it is

okay for us to suffer because what suffering does to us is that it changes us internally, and that

change helps us to become someone who has happiness in their life. In living with less, a lot less

Graham hill is focusing more on the external space and suggests that in order for us to achieve

happiness, we must change the space around ourselves first. Despite any of us being hit with

tragedy, we can all come back with a different perspective and should be able to change

ourselves internally or externally and find our own happiness. We can come back as someone
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who is happy internally or externally or we can come back as someone who is not happy. Either

way it us up to us on how we perceive on what has happened to us and how we can come back.

In the article "The Source of Happiness" by the Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler, they are

focusing on the internal space, and they are showing us how we can change our space by using

some personal experiences of their friends as examples for us. The Dalai Lama has a friend who

became very wealthy after she started a small health-care company and when she was cashing in

on her success she was able to buy lots of things and go on vacations that she thought would

make her life happier, but after a while, all she was doing was really buying temporary pleasure,

and then Dalai Lama asked her about how she was feeling with her great success and was

surprised because she said, "overall I don't think I'm much happier than I was before," (pg. 15).

Picking this quote supports my argument because it goes to show that we really can't buy our

own happiness, we can only get temporary pleasure out of materialistic items. Then later on the

Dalia Lama goes on to talk about her friend who was recently diagnosed with HIV and how he

wasn't able to cope with It, but later on, he learned to accept it and turn this outcome into

something better and accept this into his life which benefited him because he was able to find

happiness internally. I believe that the Dalai Lama is suggesting that we can change our space

internally by accepting what we have and use those bad moments to turn them into something

good and be able to benefit ourselves by finding happiness internally.

In the article, “How Happy Are You and Why?” by Sonja Lyubomirsky, she is focusing

in on the internal feeling and is showing it to us by using her personal experiences and the

experiments she did. When Lyubomirsky was doing her experiments, she meets this lady,

Angela, who despite being raised in a very tough childhood, she still considers herself to be a

very happy person on the daily. After Angela has gone through a lot of suffering in her life, she
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was able to stay happy and have happiness internally because of her daughter, who she bonds

with very strong and has a great relationship with. Then on Angela's free time she goes out and

helps other who have suffered deeply like her in her early childhood because it gives her a deep

satisfaction, “It’s virtually impossible to face one’s shadows alone”,(pg 142), and I picked this

quote because it shows that we can face our problems together and be able to find some internal

happiness in our lives. I feel that Lyubomirsky is suggesting we change our space internally by

getting help from others and forgetting about the past because we can't change it anymore.

Admitting that you need help with something in your life is always the first step to living a better

life because it’s not always easy dealing with problems by yourself. It is okay for us to express

ourselves emotionally because we are all human and deal with different problems each day.

In the article "What Suffering Does," By David Brooks, he is focusing in on the internal

space and is presenting it to us by using the experiences and sufferings of other iconic figure that

have suffered deeply but did not let them get the best of them. Brooks uses one of the most

iconic figures in history, Abraham Lincoln, because, during that time, Lincoln was worried about

the civil war and his re-election for presidency. With a lot on Lincoln mind he used that suffering

and experience and came back with the second inaugural. Then Brooks goes on to talk about

Franklin Roosevelt when he was struck with the deadly disease polio, but Roosevelt never gave

up after that, he was able to come back and use this to have a deeper and more empathetic

feeling. "The big thing that suffering does is that it takes you outside of precisely that logic that

the happiness mentality encourages, but happiness wants you to think about maximizing your

benefits”,(pg 226) picking this quote was good because it supported my argument by showing

that suffering can be beneficial in some way and it can help from when you recover because you

have been there before and know how to change the situation into something better than it is. I
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believe that Brooks is suggesting that we can change our space internally with some suffering

that we have had in our life and use that suffering to our advantage and try and find our own

happiness.

In living with less, a lot less Graham hill is focusing more on the external space. It

suggests that in order for us to achieve happiness, we must change the space around ourselves

first and shows us by using his own personal experiences in life. Hill was able to become

wealthy by being able to start up his own website and immediately took off, so when the cash-

flow started to come thru, he went out and bought a new house and crammed it with electronics

and other things he didn’t even need. Hill just wanted to be like everyone else and be happy, but

he was quickly wrong because he quickly realized the only thing, he was doing was buying

himself temporary pleasure. You can’t buy your way to happiness it is something that money

can’t buy because it’s a state of mind that you have to be in to achieve true happiness in life. “I

had a giant house crammed with stuff- electronics and cars and appliances and gadgets, But

somehow this stuff ended up running my life, or a lot of it; the things I consumed ended up

consuming me”(pg254), this quote shows how we don’t need things in our life to feel happy and

that all the things we have in our life will only give us limited pleasure and not the happiness that

we are looking for, all we are doing to ourselves is that when we buy things it’s just cramming

up are houses with things that we don’t even need in our lives. Hill is suggesting we can change

our space around ourselves and get rid of things we don't need, and by doing that, we will

achieve the external happiness we have been looking for in our lives.

In Conclusion, In all three articles by The Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler, Sonja

Lyubomirsky, and David Brooks, they all talk about achieving happiness even when they are

faced with tragedy. While they all have the same beliefs the Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler are
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different because they suggest we can transform our space by having some available source

around us and using it to find our own happiness whether it would be some new activates or

getting out your comfort zone there are ways, next Sonja Lyubomirsky suggests that we can

transform our space by changing ourselves internally and having a mindset where you approach

and handle situations differently than others and being able to turn a terrible situation into a great

outcome. Finally, David Brooks is suggesting that we can change our space by arguing that it is

okay for us to suffer because what suffering does to us is that it changes us internally, and that

change helps us to become someone who has happiness in their life. In living with less, a lot less

Graham hill is focusing more on the external space and suggests that in order for us to achieve

happiness, we must change the space around ourselves first. If I were to change my space, I

would use Graham Hill and David Brooks's suggestions on how to change the space around me. I

would change the space around myself because there is allot of negativity in my life and I want

to change it to a positive surrounding to better myself. Surrounding yourself with people who

keep positively reinforce you is the best because they keep pushing you to be your best and to

make the best out of every situation. That’s why I always like being around my family because I

can tell them anything and I know that they would help me not matter what because we have

each other’s backs and that’s what family is for, to look out for one another and help each other.
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Works Cited

Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler. "The Sources of happiness." Pursuing happiness, edited by

Matthew Parfitt, Bedford/St. Martin's; Second edition, November 1, 2019, 15-27.

Lyubomirsky, Sonja. "How Happy Are You and Why?" Pursuing happiness, edited by Matthew

Parfitt, Bedford/St. Martin's; Second edition, November 1, 2019, 141-158

Brooks, David. "What Suffering Does." Pursuing happiness, edited by Matthew Parfitt,

Bedford/St. Martin's Second edition, November 1, 2019, 226-229

Hill, Graham. "living with less. A Lot Less." Pursuing happiness, edited by Matthew Parfitt,

Bedford/St. Martin's Second edition, November 1, 2019, 254-258