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Dariush Rohani

Ms. Ditch

ENGL 115 APPR UNIV WRITING

29 September 2020

Project Space Essay 

Graham Hills “Living with Less. A Lot Less” had quite the strong message and a very

impactful argument as well. Out of the three articles, he had the most effective argument because

he used his life as an example and his personal experiences as a backbone using many strong

rhetorical strategies to persuade the audience. In his excerpts, he talks about how when he was

younger, he was pretty poor and as he grew up, he began to accumulate wealth and financial

status. The main point of his writing was that money doesn't bring you happiness, enjoying good

times with people you are close to and having those amazing relationships are what really can

give true happiness. He told these stories as a use of rhetorical strategies to persuade the

audience which made his argument even stronger.

The first article that will be analyzed is “Living with Less. A Lot Less” by Graham Hill.

His main argument is that true happiness cannot be obtained from a large amount of wealth and

many expensive materialistic things, but by building relationships with people and spending time

with them and having great experiences and memories. In his excerpts, he builds this argument

by using a lot of real-life scenarios that he has been through and by applying three very strong

rhetorical devices such as ethos, pathos and logos. The first and most used one throughout the

article was ethos. He used ethos by establishing his authority and credibility on the argument by

giving these examples from his own experiences when he's said the quote, “But my experiences

show after a certain point, material objects have a tendency to crowd out the emotionless needs
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they are meant to support” (Living, Graham, 255). In this quote, he is explaining how

materialistic things can make you happy temporarily and after a certain point, they tend to lose

the effect fully. This example he has given is another display of his credibility showing he has

been through many experiences and how he has the knowledge on the topic of true happiness.

The next rhetorical device that will be discussed that he uses several times throughout the writing

is pathos. He used the rhetorical device to sway the audience's emotion when he talked about his

heartfelt story about how he loved every second spent with his ex-girlfriend traveling the world

more than any of his materialistic things. “I wouldn't trade a second spent wandering the streets

of Bangkok with Olga for anything I’ve owned” (Living, Graham, 257). By telling us his

preference, he is saying how the time spent with someone he admired and loved was more sacred

and appreciated than any materialistic item he has owned. The last rhetorical device he uses to

strengthen his argument was Logos. He talks about the way it affected his life when he said, “My

life became unnecessarily complicated” (Living, Graham, 254). He brings up the fact that having

all these extra materialistic things caused a big headache due to the fact he had to tend to all of

them. He used this rhetorical device to show how illogical it was to have all these items and how

much unnecessary stress it brought such as many errands that came with the items like cleaning

and maintaining. With these three strong rhetorical devices, he backs up his argument and gives

a strong message. 

The biggest story that compelled the audience was the one where he brought up his ex-

girlfriend. They began dating and both didn’t have an attachment to materialistic things, which

ultimately led to their happiness together. Since they were not attached to objects, they felt more

free to travel the world. They started to live in these apartments in many countries all over the

world. They moved after a few months to each new country to experience different lives in
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different and unique areas. This time that he spent with his ex-girlfriend was the most enjoyable

time in his life. As said in the quote before, he would not trade that experience with her for any

materialistic item ever. That time in his life was the peak of his happiness. This is when he let go

the obsession over objects and simply spent time with the ones he loved in fascinating places.

This is showing how happiness is obtainable if you just don't obsess over materialistic things and

just enjoy life with the ones you love.

One of the main reasons that the article by Graham Hill was chosen is because the other

two articles had an inadequate use of theoretical devices and their arguments were not as strong

and did not have that strong of evidence. The first out of the other two articles that will be

analyzed is “The Source of Happiness” by the Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler. Most of the

article is based on how well one can handle a situation in order to keep peace within and create

happiness which is not a strong rhetorical strategy due to the fact it is not enough to persuade the

reader. The article continuously talks about self-satisfaction and shows happiness can be affected

by that. Another big part of the author's readings is how well one can perceive a situation or

handle a difficult one. The authors say, “...it is a function of how we perceive our situation, how

satisfied we are with what we have” (The, Lama/Cutler, 17). A big problem with this is that

many people cannot handle a situation as well as others and this is the issue to finding true

happiness. How could one solve this issue when going through such a crisis? When going

through the article, I never saw any answers to the questions but more talk about how people

who can perceive situations well, are usually happy. The biggest reason that this article didn't

have the strongest argument was because it did not have a smooth and well put together

combination of rhetoric devices. All strong arguments should have a good combination of

rhetorical devices to use to persuade the reader, but this article did not.
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The last article that will be analyzed will be “How happy Are You and Why?” by Sonja

Lyubomirsky. This article had the weakest argument due to the lack and inadequate use of

rhetorical strategies and devices. This article used a lot of facts and statistics and this led to the

use of too much of the logos rhetoric which causes it to not have a good balance between

rhetorical devices and there being too much of one. She states she can figure out how happy you

are, “I have used a popular simple four-item measure of overall happiness that I developed and

call the Subjective Happiness Scale” (How, Lyubomirsky, 143). One cannot really be determined

on how happy they are by just some normal test. Only a person’s conscious knows how truly

happy or sad they are. There really wasn't enough strong information to persuade the reader.

There is a lack of other devices such as ethos and pathos. There needs to be a good amount of

these devices to structure the argument. The article wasn't bad at all though. It just did not have a

strong backbone for the argument. It should have given more textual evidence with a blend of

more rhetorical strategies. The audience is not going to get easily persuaded on the topic of

happiness by simply just statistical numbers and a happiness scale. Overall, this article gave the

weakest argument due to the fact that it did not have a good use of rhetorical strategies and it did

not have a strong sense of persuasion at all in the text.

“Living with Less. A Lot Less.” by Graham Hill had a great combination of rhetorical

devices to persuade the reader and give a strong argument. He used rhetorical devices to

persuade the reader and to show them that his argument was the strongest which would lead to

them agreeing with his article. He told the reader great stories and real-life examples to give a

lesson on what really matters in life and how happiness can be obtained or achieved. His main

point was that you shouldn’t latch onto materialistic things and that you should enjoy the time

you have and spent it with people you love to truly be happy. The other two arguments just
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lacked the adequate use of rhetorical strategy for persuasion. In the end, the article that presented

the most effective argument was “Living with Less. A Lot Less.” by Graham Hill.
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Work Cited

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

2nd Edition(2020)

Hill, Graham. “The Sources of Happiness” Pursuing Happiness 2nd Edition(2020)

Lyubomirsky, Sonja. “The Sources of Happiness” Pursuing Happiness 2nd

Edition(2020)