David Brooks Best Role Model

When I was seventeen, I went to Temple High School and a sixteen year old girl, named Alexis, came to me asking for relationship advice on her and her boyfriend Dalton. I had to give the best relationship advice I could considering I was struggling in my relationship with my boyfriend also. Although I was not happy with my relationship, I was still trying to be the best role model and help I could be for her. David Brooks is a journalist who earned a B.A. in history from the University of Chicago. Daniel Haybron is an associate professor in the Department of Philosophy at Saint Louis University and holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from Rutgers University. Brooks and Haybron both wrote articles on happiness and their view of what it is and what causes
it. Brooks wrote the article "What Suffering Does" to inform readers that in order to achieve happiness, one has to be a service to another; whereas Haybron wrote "Happiness and Its Discontents" to tell readers that happiness is actually an emotional well-being rather than a service. Although Brooks view that happiness comes through the ability to be a service to others is interesting, Haybron's idea that true happiness comes from an emotional well-being brings more logic.
Brooks views happiness as an emotion that comes from helping others; however true happiness comes from an emotional well-being within oneself. Brooks states, "they hurl themselves deeper and gratefully into their art, loved ones, and commitments. The suffering involved in their tasks becomes a fearful gift and very different than that equal and other gift, happiness, conventionally defined" (Brooks 287). He is saying that when all else fails in ones personal life, he/she can be a service to others and that creates happiness. Brooks case is that the suffering in all of the struggles being gone through becomes happiness in one's life because that can be used to help others. However, individuals have to be happy before their able to bring happiness to someone else. Thus, Brooks gives a well written argument on how helping others causes happiness, however an individual must have self happiness and a well emotional being, as said by Haybron, before one can make another happy.
Thus, individuals emotional state is what brings true happiness throughout their lives, not their physical ability to service others. For example, Haybron states, "Happiness as emotional well-being concerns your emotions and moods, more broadly your emotional condition as a whole. To be happy is to inhabit a favorable emotional state" (Haybron 133). He brings out the idea that happiness is directly related to moods and emotions within oneself. If one has well emotional conditions then he/she will more than likely be happy. The emotional conditions being referenced are not about physical pain it's about"laughter, cheerfulness, or your ability to enjoy things" (Haybron 133). Therefore, one's ability to enjoy activities, through their emotional state of mind, determines their level of true happiness and not contempment.
Although individuals may be depressed or unhappy, if they take a look at their emotional self, they could possibly determine what is decreasing their mood and fix it to increase and become happy again.
For instance, Haybron says "often, the signals of the emotional self can get us on the path to better ways of living- and a happiness worthy of the name" (Haybron 135). This means that people's emotions will signal their happiness and unhappiness and they can change what needs to be changed to set their happiness back on the right track. Say something was to upset you, then you would know that that needs to be changed in order to make your emotions turn around for the better. If something were to make you happy then you would know that that needs to be kept in your life because it brings excitement which will make your emotions good. If happiness is worthy of its name it would be because one put in the effort to turn his/her life around in order to create the happiness that is there. Thus, the activities that brings oneself down often signifies a change needing to happen in ones life to make it enjoyable which in return creates the true definition of
happiness.
Haybron's view, that an emotional well-being within oneself is what causes true happiness, has strong evidence to support the interesting idea, whereas Brooks logic of happiness has holes in it because one cannot find happiness in the service of others without first being happy with his/herself.
Haybron goes against Brooks by saying that happiness comes from oneself rather than others. Individuals must find what creates their happiness and not be guided by other people's happiness. Happiness is not about the physical conditions of the body, but by the moods and emotions felt. Happiness does not come and go from the pain that is happening in the body; it comes and goes with your emotional happiness. one can control his/her pathway to happiness by watching for signal emotions within the life lived. When seen that something does not go right change it to an occurrence that will bring excitement or a happy emotion. Changing events that go on is getting the upset or mad emotions out of your life so that the pathway to happy and excited emotions is better. While I was giving Alexis relationship advice, I was struggling with problems myself which created an obstacle in my path to happiness. I soon learned that I couldn’t help Alexis if I was not happy with myself. I had to get the bad out of my life so that I could help Alexis get the bad out of her life also. I later got out of my relationship and learned that my emotions are stronger than my relationship with him. When I finally
got myself back on the right track to my happiness I could then go help Alexis with her happiness. She ended up taking my advice I gave her and got out of the relationship that was causing her bad moods and got into one that created happiness to her.