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Joshua Catalan

Professor Ditch

English 115

29 September 2018

What is the Root of Happiness?

People often debate what the source of happiness is. Whether we agree or not is

subjective. People have always strived for happiness, but not many have achieved in finding

happiness. People also seem to have trouble finding the true source of happiness and get

distracted doing the wrong things thinking it will bring them happiness. His Holiness the Dalai

Lama and Howard Cutler believe that people tend to return to the same baseline of happiness

after their initial spike of happiness or depression. David brooks believes that people aim

towards happiness but they feel formed through suffering. He believes that there is a relationship

between happiness and suffering. Graham Hill believes that living a non-materialistic life will

bring you more happiness than if you were to own everything you’ve wanted. Sonja

Lyubomirsky believes that people can’t gain happiness without displaying some sort of action

and that only you can tell yourself how happy you are at a given moment.

The Dalai Lama and Cutler illustrate the essential point that, “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 (22).” Researchers

surveying Illinois state lottery winners and British pool winners, “Found that the initial high

eventually wore off and the winners returned to their usual range of moment-moment happiness

(The Dalai Lama and Cutler 22).” Even after gaining what the winners were seeking, their

“happiness” increase was only temporary. The great feeling of winning money wasn’t enough to
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keep them happy long term. This relates back to The Dalai Lama and Cutler’s main argument

that happiness is a state of mind and it can’t be boosted permanently by external factors. Other

studies have demonstrated, “Those who are struck by catastrophic events such as cancer,

blindness, or paralysis typically recover their normal or near-normal level of day-to-day

happiness after an appropriate adjustment period (The Dalai Lama and Cutler 22).” During your

time of illness, peoples happiness levels goes down, for good reason, but if you come out the

other end, then your happiness levels will start to relatively rise back to its normal state.

“Psychologists call this process adaptation, and we can see how this principle operates in our

everyday life; a pay raise, a new car, or recognition from our peers may lift our mood for a while,

but we soon return to our customary level of happiness (The Dalai Lama and Cutler 22).” People

will always adapt to a new situation, so The Dalai Lama and Cutler want to transform this by

elevating your mindset instead relying on external factors. The Dalai Lama and Cutler are

focusing more on the internal space of happiness and he suggests that the way to transform this

space is to seek mental happiness rather than relying on wealth, position, and physical health as a

source for your happiness.

David Brooks conveys that physical and/or social suffering can give you someone else’s

perspective and what they have to endure. You start to put yourself in their shoes and visualize

the suffering that they are undergoing. It is almost like a wakeup call to help open your eyes and

understand certain things. “Think of the way Franklin Roosevelt came back deeper and more

empathetic after being struck with polio (Brooks 284).” This is an example of a person that went

through suffering himself and came out changed. When you go through a moment in your life

where you lose all hope, you start to develop a sense of empathy for those who have gone

through or are going through issues of the same caliber as well. “Recovering from suffering is
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not like recovering from a disease. Many people don’t come out healed; they come out different

(Brooks 287).” Suffering can alter your perception of the world and not many people come out

completely the same. It leaves you with a mental scar of the trauma that you have endured. It’s

almost a reminder of some sort. The right response to pain is not pleasure, “It’s holiness. I don’t

even mean that in a purely religious sense. 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 (Brooks 286).” You cannot compensate pain with pleasure, it may merely

mask it but it won’t get rid of it. When you are suffering, the healing process is divine according

to Brooks. Brooks is focusing on both the internal and external spaces of happiness and he

suggests that we can transform this space is by holiness.

Graham Hill argues that materialistic items don’t bring you happiness, but rather

unhappiness. He talks about his own personal experiences with being heavily materialistic and he

has even said that it had consumed his life in a way. “It took 15 years, a great love and a lot of

travel to get rid of all the inessential things I had collected and live a bigger, better, richer life

with less (Hill 308).” It was a long journey for Hill to finally understand that having wealth and

material items doesn’t bring you the happiness that he would’ve hoped. All of the experiences

that he has gone through helped him to have a better understanding of where happiness comes

from. He was able to grow as a person and take control of his own happiness. “Though American

consumer activity has increased substantially since the 1950’s, happiness levels have flatlined

(Hill 311).” Even though more and more people are consuming more items, the items they are

consuming are not bringing them any happiness. It seems to be the opposite. We get hellbent to

receive certain materialistic items that we lose focus on what is actually going to help us achieve

the sense of happiness that we strive for. While consumer activity is rising, happiness levels has
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dropped. “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).” This conveys that

you don’t need material items to have a feeling of happiness, your interactions with other people

fill in the gap for the things you don’t need. Relationships, experiences, and meaningful work are

intangible items and the items we strive for are tangible items that can be taken from us easily.

Hill focuses more on the external space of happiness and suggests that we can transform this

space by not consuming materialistic items that people believe is the source of true happiness.

Sonya Lyubomirsky articulates that no one knows or can tell you how happy you are but

yourself. “Happiness, more than anything is a state of mind, a way of perceiving and

approaching ourselves and the world in which we reside (Lyubomirsky 185).” Similar to what

The Dalai Lama believes, happiness is determined based on your own mindset. Happiness is sort

of like a mental lens that helps you perceive the world clearly instead of seeing it blurry. It helps

you focus on the really important aspects of life other than the filler and less important parts of

life. “Happiness is not out there for us to find. The reason that it’s not out there is that it’s inside

us (Lyubomirsky 185).” This conveys that happiness is an internal space and you cannot seek it

but rather improve it. Most people seem to be lost on finding happiness but they don’t realize

that it’s inside of them just waiting to be discovered. “If you’re not happy today, then you won’t

be happy tomorrow unless you take things into your own hands and take action (Lyubomirsky

185).” This relates back to her main argument because she is explaining that you will continue to

be un happy unless you do something about it rather than doing nothing. In order to be satisfied

with your happiness you need to take initiative and change the things in your life that aren’t

bringing you happiness. Lyubomirsky focuses more on the internal space of happiness and

suggests that we can transform this space by our actions.

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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, pp. 284-287.

Cutler, Howard and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. “The Sources of Happiness.” Pursuing

Happiness, edited by Matthew Parfitt and Dawn Skorczewski, Bedford/St. Martin’s,

2016, pp. 21-32.

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

Matthew Parfitt and Dawn Skorczewski, Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2016, pp. 308-312.

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

Matthew Parfitt and Dawn Skorczewski, Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2016, pp. 179-196