Happy Life - Essay

Riwen Liu ESL 35 603915925 Happy Life
Today, it is barely to find a person who is not working hard, even a homeless guy is standing at the freeway exit or signal stops to beg for money or food. If people are not working hard, they might be abandoned by society. If people don’t make enough money, they might not even have an apartment to live in. These are the truth of life. Just like what I saw yesterday, an old Mexican man was standing on the street trying to sell fruit. Most likely, everyone is looking for a successful life. What is a successful life? Is it a life without concern about money, without caring about interpersonal relationships, or without suffering any discomforts? To me, if it were a life without caring about others, people would not feel happiness. If it were a life of just working hard, people would lose their family. If it were a life of being selfish all the time, people would not feel the taste of love. Therefore, in order to have a happy life, we need to control our willpower, have a good relationship with others and then live with any pains. Will power plays a very important role in one’s life. When we were born, everything looks interesting to us. Or in some other cases, we are looking for troubles that we are not intended to. That is why kids need to be educated. Facts such as failing to control one’s impulses, low frustration tolerance, and failing to plan ahead always happen for a young kid. That is why young children need constant supervision from our parents or teachers. In these cases, most of the will power is established in one’s childhood. As an example from the reading, “ Don’t, the secret of self-control”, Jonah Lehrer explain well why our young generation needs a good self-control to be successful in our life. His article summarizes research on self-control in children and how this factor will predict success later in their life. In his articles, researchers showed four-year-old kids a marshmallow, and told them that they “could eat one marshmallow right away, or if they were willing to wait while he stepped out for a few minutes, they could have two marshmallow when he returned.”(Lehrer 2009) Some kids ate one marshmallow very soon, while 30% were able to wait until the researcher returned 15 minutes later—a very long time in the life of four-year-old. Interestingly, the researchers also followed up these kid twenty years later, they found that the kids who could delay 15 minutes had an average S.A.T score that was 210 points greater that those who delay 30 seconds or less. (Lehrer 2009) To their credit, those kids who could delay longer had fewer behavioral problems, dealt with stressful situations and maintain friendship better. I am not saying those well behave kids would be successful in the future, but at least they can control their will power, which will help them build their life better. As I was in my high school year, I met some friends who are extremely out of self-control. In their cases, they prefer having troubles with teachers and school disciplines rather than studying. They didn’t come to school on time, and do the homework by themselves. I think they are in a bad condition of even having self-control. I tried to contact with some of them recently, they told me they feel so regret at their high school years. From them I know some of their fellows went to jail after.
That is the reason why we need a good self-control, no one want to spend the rest of his or her life in jail. Besides having a strong will power, we also need to communicate well with others. The scale of being successful or happy is not measured by how much cash is in your pocket, but the relationships with others. More precisely, a good mental health really matters in one’s life. In the article, “What makes us happy”, Joshua Wolf Shenk argues the how interpersonal relationship effects one’s life. Shenk’ s article is based on the Grant Study. The grant study was longitudinal research by subjects had been followed for about 70 years. The subjects were all Harvard male student from the classes of 1942, 43 and 44. The main researcher of this study, George Vaillant, thought, “the only things that really matters in life are your relationships to other people”. (Shenk 2007) Vaillant regards the relationship to other people as the most important factor of people’s life. It is very important to maintain close interpersonal relationships not only with our family, but also with our friends and other people. Sandra Bullock, for an example, explains us well why we need to maintain good interpersonal relationships. In the article, “ The Sandra Bullock Trade”, David Brooks persuade his audiences that, “ marital happiness or interpersonal relationships is more than an accomplishment in a profession.” (Brooks 2010) In the article, Brooks discusses two things that happened to Sandra Bullock in one month, she found out that her husband was cheating on her and she won an Academy Award. Although as a normal person, we don’t have a clue how Bullock feels, we know that Bullock doesn’t have a happy family. Although Bullock is so successful in her career, she has no support from his family. In my opinion, I think she put too much effort into her career and she loses her family. Once one’s family is not on their back, their success will not count. Besides having a good self-control and interpersonal relationship, we also need to face our pains. The more difficulties we have met, the more experiences we will have for life, and the more successful we will be in our life. From Shenk’s article, “ What makes us Happy”, he illustrates how pains related to one’s happy life. I really like his point about interpersonal relations. However, I disagree with what you said about “your feeling of how happy your life was depended on how you think, not on how many difficulties you had met.” (Shenk 2007) In my opinions, life is based on how many difficulties you have met. Because the more pains you suffered, the more experienced you will be, and the easier we will learn how to deal with them. In my family, my dad always gives me advice upon any difficulty I have met. Because he suffered those pains before, and he just doesn’t want to come through with them again. But there must be one day he can’t advice me any more, because my dad and I are in a different mode of life. Thus, I need to be fully experienced to build my family. With good self-control, maintaining good interpersonal relation, and living with any pains are the ways to build a successful life. Different people suffer different lives. From the time we were born, we will face the questionnaire upon how our life will be. No one can answer this question, no one will know how one’s life will be, and no one can conclude whether the life is successful or not. We start, and we should finish it perfectly. Don’t give up in the half way.