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Kayli Meisner

Professor Ditch

English 115

1 October 2018

Happiness Within and Outside Our Lives

Happiness is seen as so many different forms throughout our life in different spaces whether

it is inside us or the external environment that we place ourselves in. Four authors have touched

upon happiness in both of these spaces. The Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler, Sonja

Lyubomirsky, and David Brooks claim for our happiness to resonate within ourselves, while

Graham Hills expresses it as what is outside that will determine how happy we are. The

arguments of The Dalai Lama and Cutler is that there are two ways of achieving happiness, get

all you want, or have what you need and to transform the outlook we have on ourselves with

inner contentment and worth. Lyubomirsky says that it is our own behavior and goals that will

allow us to be happy, so we need to control our state of mind and transform our lives through the

things we chose to experience, like who we are within in order to make us happy. Brooks has a

bit of a different approach when it comes to inner happiness and that is to take a traumatic

situation and turn this space into a “sacred gift” that cannot heal, but sooth our pain. As for

external happiness, Hill demonstrates how his life of material was not what he had hoped it to be

so the only way to make his life better was through transforming it by downsizing and having

that materials that he needs as oppose to what he wants.

Each of the authors explore and talk of the ways in which we experience happiness, whether

it is something we feel inside of us or what goes on around us that determines how we feel. The

Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler focus on how we believe that material items are what allows us
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to be even happier, but soon find out that that is in fact the opposite in that happiness lies within

ourselves. Cutler interviews a friend of his that has had great success, and a lot of money, at a

young age and when asked how she has been doing she responds: “it’s strange; after I got over

all the excitement of making all that money things kinda returned to normal… I don’t think I’m

much happier than I was before” (21). There is this set notion that money will make us happy

and we will forever live a luxurious life, but we soon come to realize as humans it is seems about

impossible to keep us satisfied forever. The Dalai Lama and Cutler believe that our space can be

transformed from having inner contentment, meaning to be okay with what we have and have

inner worth which is what will allow us to have a positive outlook in life. Not being happy with

what we have causes us to become greedy and not appreciate all of the things that we have,

which then leads to unhappiness. This then ultimately “leads an individual to a feeling of

frustration… and a lot of problems” (The Dalai Lama and Cutler 27). To be able to look inside

ourselves to see that we do not need over half the things we want will alleviate problems, that

may not be visible now, but will affect us in the future. We see this same thing happen with

Graham Hill where his life of luxury does not last long and soon beings to control how he lives

his own life.

David Brooks takes a different approach in explaining how we ourselves are the masters of

our own emotions, even in times of despair, and turn that emotion into something we can

appreciate to the best of our abilities. When we experience times of trauma “many people don’t

come out healed; they come out different” (Brooks 287). After losing a loved one it would be

hard to wake up the next morning as if nothing happened, but as time goes on we accept what

happened, although because those people’s lives have been altered tremendously it is hard to

adjust to that major changes. For Brooks the way to transform our state of depression and sorrow
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is to turn it into something that is holy and sacred to us. When going through a trauma like losing

a child “parents who’ve lost a child start foundation” (Brooks 286). Though this will not heal the

parents fully, it will give them a sense of peace in that what they have done to change their sad

situation into something that can be appreciated for not only themselves, but for other parents

who have suffered from that same sorrow. These parents would not fully heal in any way, but

they would manage to make their emotions into a project in which they can cherish and

remember for as long as they live. Like how we choose to spend our times of sadness, it also

depends on how we choose to spend every day that determines our happiness.

Sonja Lyubomirsky tells us that our foundation of happiness lies beyond genetics, but how

we spend our time in our day to day lives. It is true that we all have a “set point” (189) for our

happiness, but the amount of space that we have to form our own happiness is a lot and ours to

manipulate any way we want. According to Lyubomirsky, “50 percent of the differences among

our happiness levels is determined by set points (and 10 percent… by circumstances), fully 40

percent is still available to us to mold” (Lyubomirsky 189). A large portion of who we are is still

dependent on the environment we chose and allow ourselves to be in. We are by no means glued

to what our family traits have given us naturally. If we live in a life where we see only negative

inconveniences, we then live a life of constant sorrow and frustration. We are always free to

transform that negative perspective through what we do and who we are with, which suddenly

we can allow ourselves to see our world through a brighter lens. In Lyubomirsky’s article she

notes that “there is no happiness without action” (Lyubomirsky 196). If we sit around feeling

sorry for ourselves all the time, there is no way to be able to actually be happy. It is all in how we

decide to spend our time that will allow us to feel the satisfaction of happiness. For people to

change their lives means to get out of our comfort zones in order to go out and explore new
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things and meet new people, which for Lyubomirsky, is the key to be able to make your life your

own, not letting that 50 percent trap you.

In contrast with the three other authors who see our happiness as internal, Graham Hill

focuses on what is with us externally that will determine our happiness being that he himself has

been through the experience of having more money and materials than he could control. Hill saw

first-hand that all these things made his life “unnecessarily complicated. There were lawns to

mow, gutters to clear, … roommates to manage (it seemed nuts to have such a big, empty

house)” (Hill 309). Money by no means made his life easier, in fact it gave him more chores to

deal with, although the rest of us believe that it is money that will take care of us, but as we are

shown through his experience it only gives us more to deal with, leaving less time to actually

live. Hills also mentions his feeling of being alone that the money has brought upon him. The big

house emphasized his lack of true connections with what truly matters in his life. Hill

transformed his life of money to one that “was full of love and adventure and work [he] cared

about. [He] felt free and…didn’t miss the car and gadgets and house; instead [he] felt as if [he]

had quit a dead-end job” (Hill 311). Hill was able to change his external environment of a lot of

new and expensive materials to being able to let go of all that and live a free life of only what he

needs. Hills proves through his own life that having the money to buy whatever he wants is not

how to live a happy life. You need to take out the fantasy of the need for the newest phone or car

because that leaves you with more responsibly than anyone realizes, showing that the expensive

materials that we possess externally in our lives is not enough to make up happy. Owning less

gives us more fulfillment.

Happiness comes from so many different areas of everyone’s life because each of us leads an

entirely different lifestyle from one another. These authors showed that we could go from
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sadness and transform it into a gift, a lot of materials to a little, what we are born with in our

genetics to what we decide to make of ourselves, or even just being content with what we have

and who we are. We all live different lives and have different areas whether it be what we have

outside or inside that make us happy. It may be going out and making real connections with other

or just making sure you have only what you need that make us happy. But at the end of the day

we know what makes us happy because happiness comes in different forms to everyone whether

it is what is outside or the internal aspects of our lives that make us happy.
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Works cited

Brooks, David. “What Suffering Does.” Pursuing Happiness, edited by. Karen S. Henry,

Benford/ St. Martins, 2016, pp. 286-287.

Hill, Graham. “Living With Less. A Lot Less.” Pursuing Happiness, edited by Karen S. Henry,

Benford/ St. Martins, 2016, pp. 309-311.

Lama, Dalai, and Howard Cutler. “The Source of Happiness.” Pursuing Happiness, edited by

Karen S. Henry, Benford/ St. Martins, 2016, pp. 21-27.

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

Henry, Benford/ St. Martins, 2016, pp. 189-196.