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Richard Gutierrez

Professor Beadle

English 115

5 March 2019

Project Space Essay

Space is something talked about when thinking of physical necessities and objects. But

space is used in all perspectives of writing to create context and portray ideas. The articles “What

suffering does” by David brooks , “Living with less..” by Graham Hill and “How happy are you”

by Sonja Lyubomirsky, clearly portray three forms of space. Each author emphasises these

spaces to contribute to their argument and create a easy path to follow along their reading. Each

article focuses on finding the key to happiness and what space needs to change in order to

achieve that.

David Brooks, in the article “What suffering does”, explains that suffering has an impact

to one's self awareness that causes one to take action. Brooks states that at first, the pain and

“suffering drags you deeper into yourself”(2), revealing new possibilities and capabilities.

Brooks gives examples of how people have dealt with their own suffering through time and how

the outcomes have affected history, such as Abraham Lincoln and the civil war. And even

mothers who've lost their child and started organizations that grow to be nationwide are

examples that suffering betters people. Brooks argues that suffering changes people and they

often come out devoted. “The suffering involved in their task becomes a fearful gift”(4) Brooks

states. Emotions have a strong hold of people and can control them easily, when someone

suffers, they build emotions that push them to work harder in every aspect. Which is the change

that Brooks believes is the key to happiness. Brooks warns the readers that “recovering from
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suffering isn't like recovering from a disease, many people don't come out healed…”(4) which

ties back to internal space, dealing with emotions perspectives and morals many people can

change drastically through pain. Examples of this are given to us in tv shows and movies, which

only supports the idea that Brooks claims about internal space are correct. However external

space seems to be key for one of the authors.

Graham Hill in the article “Living with less, a lot less” explains his transformation to

having less possessions. Hill lived a very successful and busy life. So busy ,that Hill hired a

personal shopper. He had his shopper go take photos of items at the store and purchase them if

they were to his satisfaction. Hill states “my theoretically upgraded life didn’t feel any better”(2)

and it gave him a question to answer. He was successful and had the better things in life but

could not figure out why he wasn't as happy. With time, his home piled up with products and

since he flew to another city when conducting business Hill figured to buy a second home to

have a place to stay. Soon he found himself worrying about two homes, roommates and all of his

possessions. Hill makes reference to a UCLA conducted research on families and found that

“Mothers stress hormones spike during the time they spent dealing with their belongings”(3).

Some of the families who participated in the research couldn't park their cars in the garage

because of how cluttered it was. Since reading the study, Hill has removed most of his funky

gadgets and found a new home that is only 420 square feet. He has found himself living a

happier, stress free life. With such drastic change in Hills life it is hard to picture many people

making these same efforts for happiness. Graham Hill has suggested that minimizing external

properties relieves stress, resulting in a peaceful happy life.

Sonja Lyubomirsky writes an article that explains the research she's done on happiness.

She's interviewed several people in order to isolate what makes people happy. Through her
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research, she has determined happiness to be a scale. Two of the people she interviewed found to

be on the higher end of the scale, while the third was more towards the lower end. A women

named Angela happened to be interviewed by Lyubomirsky, and was a happy person.

Throughout the interview, Lyubomirsky starts learning about Angela’s experiences. It turns out

that she has been suffering most her life, through physical and emotional abuse, which includes

being divorced shortly after her baby was born. Even through all this tragedy, Angela was a

overall happy person, which ties back to Brooks claim on how suffering can better you.

Lyubomirsky states that “We are unable to find lasting happiness by changing our life

circumstances”(7) which eliminates any external variable from being the path to happiness. And

instead Lyubomirsky argues that her findings shows how having a strong goal has been a

recurring theme when interviewing people who ended up on the higher end of the scale.” Genetic

basis for happiness is strong, very strong”(12) says Lyubomirsky. Since studies were done on

twins separated at birth, and was found out that both twins had around the same level of

happiness even though they lived different lives.

Lyubomirsky , Hill, and Brooks have all been affected enough to dive deeper into the

unknown causes for happiness. Even with being in different situations Brooks and Lyubomirsky

both find happiness to be a internal issue. While Hill’s experiences prove to be different and

more external each article explored a different space in someone's life. From twins separated at

birth at to a successful businessman buying condos, happiness is something wanted by everyone.

And it is something difficult to achieve as brooks stated “You can't control what you feel, but

you can control what direction you go in”.

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Works Cited

Brooks, David. “What Suffering Does.” The New York Times, April 7, 2014,

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/08/opinion/brooks-what-suffering-does.html.

Accessed Feb. 21, 2019.

Hill, Graham. “Living With Less. A Lot Less.” The New York Times, March 9, 2013,

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/opinion/sunday/living-with-less-a-lot-less.html.
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Accessed Feb. 21, 2019.

Lyubomirsky, Sonja. (2007) The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life

You Want. New York, NY, US: Penguin Press.