Venegas 5 t Professor Ditch English 1144, mel & ee many events happening throughout their day that can alter their emotions Altering Happiness Everyone from happiness, ta sad, to fiustrated and possibly back to happy. Many people have worties and excitement that they carry with them and alters their emotional state based on these events. In the articles What Suffeling Does by David Brooks, How Happy Are You and Why? By Sonja Lyubomirsky and Living with Less. A Lot Less by Graham Hil they discuss the aspects one needs to achieve the happiness they are looking for. These authors all discuss the effects some challenges have that alter one’s happiness. Although these authors all focus on the aspect of happiness théy.each differ from wHat they think alters be about emotional, mental, or materialistic problem’> Happiness is a major part of our lives while someone may say that they feel depression a y. being a bigger aspect they are not completely wrong. Brooks discusses in his article What Gtk. uN \ Suffering Does about how suffering can bring out a different perspective in life that one did not have before. Through suffering there is a chance that people can become more involved with suffering and as Brooks says people can “double down on vulnerability (287)” which talks about how people usually focus more on the suffering and allow themselves to be engulfed in the feeling of depression, While Brooks discusses this feeling about suffering, Lyubomirsky similarly discusses the topic of happiness by discussing how peoples overall attitude affects their. 2 Venegas 5 ‘outlook on their everyday life. Lyubomirsky makes the point that sadness seems to overrule the feeling of happiness and some people usually have negative perspectives therefore not being as happy as people who go through life which ties into Brooks point because both are talking how a negative feeling can lead to a negative feeling about life or an experience that can impact the f Tappitess that one can be seeking. 7 @ atjitude have on people’s happiness they both show the contradicting side and show the positive ) side of the argument. In Lyubomirsky’s article How Happy Are You and Why? she discusses claims people who are usually happier regardless of the situation tend to be happier than people (;7 w who are serious and not very happy. She shows her claim by starting off her article showing sol) ic people's stories, Angela and Randy, both of which have had bad past experiences with their yo families mental and physical abuse, loss of loved ones, financial stability and relationship \ problems. Even after all the hardships that both Angela and Randy went through, they are happy with their life because their overall personalities are not negative, but rather positive and consider themselves happy people overall. As Lyubomirsky describes the overall attitude of these people as “uplifting, optimistic perspective when you feel distrustful and beaten down (179),” she compares the overall happy peoples view points compared to most people who are usually sad and depressed. While Brooks discusses how after the process of suffering is over most people have a different outlook on what they can and cannot do. As Brooks states in his \ article “recovering from suffering is not like recovering from a disease. Many people don’t come out healed; they come out different (287).” He says this because after you suffer from a family member passing away, you will not have the same happiness or understanding as you did when that family member was still alive. Brooks and Lyubomirsky talk about both the negative and7) Venekag’s} itive aspects that influence our state of minds. These mental and emotional aspects alter one's, Less. A Lot Less he talks about how having and buying many products can put stress on someone's life. Hill backs up his claim by saying that our minds have worked on adaptation a the things that excited us may not give us the pleasure as they did, so as humans we buy to vacuum, ine engi products can lead to stress and an unhappy feeling from having nowhere to put the stuff. Hill’s i i argument is similar to Brooks and Lyubomirsky’s claims because of a snowball effect; if you! \ have to many possessions you can become stressed as, Brooks writes about, which will lead you ie) \ to suffer therefore having a rather negative and unpleasant experience as Lyubomirsky has stated e & 5 a in her aticles. This snowball effect is important due to the fact something as little as having too Sq A much stuff can cause unhappiness, » a, ~ Lyubomirsky and Brooks can be considered as different although being two intangible {2" Nn, based clims about attitude and suffering tha ulimatey defines someone's certain happiness Lyubomirsky is more personal and does not realy need a catalyst unlike Brooks’ argument that} ites something to happen for the suffering to take place while Lyubomirsky isa set mindset M/S that does not need to be taught since it is how the individual perceives certain situations, Lyubomirsky is more research and knowledge based than Brooks’ article since a ay, Spe