Should Being Unhappy Be A Good Thing - 1460 Words

Mingyang Chen Sarah Perkins English 1A Final Draft Dec. 12 2015 Can Being â€Å"Unhappy† be a Good Thing? In This Boy’s Life written by Tobias Wolff, we follow the stories of people who choose to surrender to their unhappy circumstances and all they can do is hope things change without them actually putting work into it (Wolff). However, Wolff’s work triggers the question, â€Å"can being unhappy be a good thing?† Every individual has a desire to achieve a state of happiness, they wish to be happy even they live very hard. From a very young age, young boys and girls are told to work hard in school if they want to eventually live a happy life, without contextualizing that happiness is an abstract concept. We live in a world that everyone is in are†¦show more content†¦Brooks uses the example of how one is quick to picture future happiness, but when they think of their past, they hardly remember what happy events they have gone through; what sticks out in the past is pain or suffering. They remember the differen t feelings between happiness and suffering. The example of Oxford’s reading is relatively more complex, he uses the example of hard workers who have served the company for a long time, but when times get tough, sometimes layoffs may be inevitable. What stands out here is the fact that whatever impression of happiness one might be under, it is very likely that it is temporary. As much as people strive to be happy, â€Å"We live in a culture awash in talk about happiness. In one three-month period last year, more than 1,000 books were released on Amazon on that subject† (Brooks), putting happiness as the central focus of their existence would be basically setting themselves up for failure. The abstract nature of happiness makes it very relative and varies amongst individuals, it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to narrow down a perfect recipe for happiness. Furthermore, there is a lot to be learnt from challenges, mistakes, suffering etc. as a result, we can reap a lot from these experiences, and all the things that are considered to be the opposite of happiness. In both articles, one thing is clear, when one person goes through trying times, they will gain