Do Hee Kim/ Assignment #3/ Tues. 11 A.M.

                       On Its Way

    In this fast moving society, where everybody's gasping from their own burdens of life, pursuing happiness has become a rather difficult "business" for people. There have been a mounting number of books, articles, or even the media teaching  people how to become happy. They provide a list of ways to pursue happiness. Happiness can be pursued in certain ways, but for me, I believe happiness is merely an unexpected event that pleasantly surprises me.
   
   Out of the many events that made me happy, I can surely remember an  event that me especially happy. When I was in the third year of high school, I was going through the hardest time of my life. I was depressed and

stressed out about going to college as well as the future ahead of me after graduation. I can say that most of the Korean students would have similar experiences because all of my friends were suffering from their own situations as well. 

   I felt like a little hamster running on its treadmill everyday. I repeated this same daily routine everyday; waking up at 7:00 a.m in the morning, studying at school, and dragging myself back home at 11:00 p.m. It was disastrous. Making time to pursue my own happiness seemed like a waste of time. However, one day, an  unexpected happiness had struck me greatly. 

   It was a surprise birthday party from my friends. It was very unexpected because I knew that it was hard to make time for something rather than studying. This mixture of emotions which I cannot express through words had arisen and I was so glad to have such great friends like them. I could definitely say that I was extremely happy at that moment and the happiness had lasted for several weeks.

   Just like this unexpected happiness during a gloomy period, I often encounter them  in my daily life. When warm sunlight and a breeze that welcomes me as I go out, when I hear a favorite song at a cafe while chatting with my friends, when my baby cousin smiles at me; all these unexpected events fill me with joy and happiness. Happiness cannot be around you all the time. I believe that's what makes it special. Don't worry if you are unhappy now, because happiness is on its way to you.

So-eun Yoon/ assignment no3/ tuesday 34

201302156 So-eun Yoon Homework no.3                                     What Makes Us Happy       When asked about the causes of happiness, people have a hard time giving a definite answer. This is because we rarely sit down to think about what makes us happy. We unconsciously laugh a few times every day, but we are clueless as to why we laughed so hard. I think there are two indispensable things in life which are essential to making us happy. One is being in a relationship of mutual respect and love. The other is learning to love yourself.       When we count how many times we laugh in a day, 95 percent of them are caused by others, or more specifically, they are caused by the people you love. Joy is doubled and sadness is halved when they are shared by the people you love. Even the most delicious food does not taste so great when you have no one to share it with. This is why on Thanksgiving or on Christmas, all families, including the ones living on the other side of the country, gather to make happy memories. My dad used to always compare our family to a car with four wheels. Even a single flat tire can stop the whole car, meaning that even one member going through hardships can put the entire family in great pain. As such, our relationships can wound us sometimes, but being in loving relationships offers us something of much greater value in life.        Another essential part of our lives is to love the person we are. Many people undermine their worth by comparing themselves with others. However, it is crucial that you do not compare yourself with others or try to live up to others' expectations because everyone is born with a different talent and personality. It is natural that you excel at some things, while at the same time, lacking some other skills. Even those who appear completely flawless may be slow at learning some things that you find very easy. Feeling confident about yourself is essential to leading a happy life; that way you will not feel the need to compare yourself to anybody else because you have already accepted yourself for who you are.       They say to love and to be loved is the greatest happiness in life. I cannot agree more with this old saying. There are times when you just want to give up everything and feel hopeless. However, what we must remember in life is that being around those you love and accepting yourself just the way you are brings out the greatest happiness in your life.

Hae Jin Jang / Causes of Happiness / Tues 11 a.m.

Happiness Depends on You

 

             Happiness is everybody’s desire. They say don’t worry, be happy; but what is this happiness that everyone is obsessed about? Many people say money and success is the key to happiness, but I have a different perspective. I think happiness is something you make out of what you already have. And the factors that are essential to this are family, work, and health.

 

             No matter who you are, family is most likely to be a priority in your life. Just by having them in your life itself is happiness. They are the only people that can understand you and love you no matter what happens. They are the people you spend the ups and downs with. When you have someone special like your family to share your happiness with, that’s real happiness.

 

             Success might give you the joy and pleasure in life, however you don’t always have to become the head CEO or the president of some fancy company to call it success. By working, you motivate yourself to do things to achieve a goal. Although the process of achieving it might be difficult, as a result, you feel great and happy. Working gives you a goal to achieve and the motivation to continue living, which therefore enhances self esteem, not to mention the money you earn which is probably going to lead to happiness.

 

             The most important factor is health. People with wealth, success, and even a lovely family cannot be absolutely happy unless they have health. What possibly could be more important than having a healthy body that allows you to live conveniently? Without health, what good can any of the factors mentioned above do? Health is not only important to yourself, but you need to be happy in order to take care of the people you care about as well. You can only work and share the joys of life with family if you are healthy to do so. Therefore, health is the most important factor to happiness.

 

             I believe you need to have independent satisfaction from work, the shared joy with loving family members, and most importantly health, the key to happiness. If you already have all three factors in your life, and still cannot say you’re happy, then that is a matter of thinking. Happiness is having those three factors as a foundation and your motivation and positive thinking doing the rest, by taking the moment and making it the best you can. 

Naeun Kang/ cause of Happiness/ Tue.11 am

Cause Effect essay

1^st draft

201000003

Naeun Kang

 

 

 

Happiness goes around and comes around among people.

 

 

There is no doubt the most important thing in our life gives us happiness. Then, what is it? Money? Religion? Honor? It might be different to every each person. But, I believe relationship is the most important thing that we need to keep and value. Then, how can we take care of it? Express our feelings and emotion is the answer. We can make our relationship strong, and avoid conflicts in advance by expressing our emotion honestly.

 

             First of all, we need to realize why human relationship is the most important one not money or rich life. Following example shows why relationship is worthy. I have lived with a home-stay family in America for 1 month. Before I went to there, I dreamed a beautiful life as I watched in several American films; however, when I arrived at the house where I would live from that time, I was totally despaired because the house was very dirty. It was very hard time to live in a terrible environment. But the day when I left the home, it was also very hard to say goodbye to my home-stay family. We got along with each other and became familiar by doing many things together; cooking, shopping, picnic, playing games, talking, watching TV shows together. Exactly, we became family. From this experience, I realized that however I was in a bad environment; I can bear and live thanks to people who stand by me. So, human relationship is invaluable thing in our life, and expressing our feelings to people next to you is the way to keep our relationship worthily.

 

             First, expressing our emotion makes our relationship strong. Pleasant feelings such as thanks and love make our friends happy and when we see and feel they are happy, we can feel happy too. In my case, whenever I travel, I bring gifts for my friends and express thanks to them through it. Also, when they are given the present, they look very happy and express thanks to me, and when I see their happiness, I feel satisfaction and happiness. So happiness goes around and comes around by expressing our emotion. Meanwhile, when we express bad feelings such as worries and troubles, friends hear what we say understand our situation, emphasize us, and help us solve the problems. Through this process, the presence of friends can be a help and happiness each other, so the relationship become stronger.

 

             On the one hand, we can avoid conflicts by expressing unpleasant feelings. Unless we tell honestly unsatisfied situation or unpleasant feeling to our friends, discontents would be building up and conflicts would deepen. When we express the dissatisfaction or unpleasant feelings, the important thing is not just telling them your bad feelings, but explaining why you are dissatisfied and what you want, which helps us understand each other and solve the troubles. So, when we express unpleasant feelings to friends honestly, the feelings can be eased and conflicts can be avoided in advance.

 

             We can become closer, resolve conflicts and find happiness by expressing our feelings. A good human relationship makes happiness and can be a help in our life. There might be no doubt it is the precious present for us. So we need to take care of, value and keep it.

Yujin Lee/ Causes of Happiness / Tuesday 11a.m.

                                        

                             Ways to Achieve Happiness; Have Smile, Gratitude and Love

 

                                   

                                                                                                                                                                  Yujin Lee 

 

  There is a saying that goes, "Misfortunes never come single." Last year was the kind of year since so many bad lucks followed me. Looking back upon the days, it was surely one of the hardest moments of my life and I desperately wanted to be happy. To be honest, I never thought about happiness seriously before then. However, as I was surrounded by such unhappy situations, I tried hard to figure out the ways to achieve happiness and I found three most important factors; they are smile, gratitude and love. These factors which seem quite simple can actually lead us to great happiness.

 

  First, it is important to smile because smile is one of the key factors to build better relationships with people. Honestly speaking, I was not the kind of person who smiles often. Many people had said that smile attracts happiness but I did not believe in them. I thought deliberate smiles would not change anything but since I was so desperate, I decided to clutch at straws. Surprisingly, after I started to smile, I faced some amazing changes around me. Every time I smiled, people smiled me back and approached me in a very friendly way. Soon after, I came to realize that I was surrounded by many nice people. They helped me to endure hard times and I found myself having really happy smiles with them.

 

  Also, having gratitude can lead us to happiness as it helps you to become a positive person. I believe everything has both positive and negative sides; if you cut a cucumber, no matter how thin you try to slice, it would have two sides. Likewise, everything is two-sided and it is our decision to choose which side to see. And when we try to have gratitude, we start to look on positive sides. If we say thanks to a challenging task that seems to generate only stress, it suddenly becomes a rewarding task. If we are thankful at a problem, it starts to give us lessons. After I tried to have gratitude, I was truly amazed by numbers of blessings I had, even though I was having hard times.

 

  Lastly, I believe love is a crucial factor to become happy since it helps to bring peace to one's mind. There are many situations and people that are hard to deal with in everyday life. It might seem they bring constant problems that disturb your peace of mind. To manage these problems, you can either ignore or fight with them. But I think the best solution is to love them. For example, if there are people who keep irritating you, try to love them. It may sound strange but soon you will realize that you feel much more generous. You start to overlook their mistakes and bad behaviors as well as enjoy the situations. As a result, your mind will be more peaceful and stable. Usually, it is beyond your ability to make others love you but you can always try to make yourself love them. And it will surely do the trick to find peace in your mind.

 

  I believe everybody wants to be happy. But most times, we seem to forget that happiness is something we should achieve by ourselves. We often misunderstand happiness as luck or fortune that rarely comes to us. However, if you only think for a moment, you will realize that many happy people were not the people who had best luck. Therefore, In order to become truly happy, I think we should find our own ways to achieve happiness rather than wish for better luck. And based on my experience, I suggest you to have smile, gratitude and love. These factors might look obvious but if you put them into action, they will certainly make you a happier person.

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

  

Chaelim Lee/ Causes of Happiness / Tue. 11 a.m.

< The road to happiness >

Chaelim Lee

We all live in hard time. Economic depressions are every where, people get angry very easily with the little things. However, in time like this, we all deserve a happy life. In order to do that, I think we need to take a step back and think what should we do to make our life happy and satisfying. In my opinion, happiness comes from loving oneself, satisfying with the smallest things, and expecting nothing.

 

 

 The most important thing to feel happy is loving myself. If you don’t accept who you are, you can’t be happy. In other words, if you try to change all the things that can’t be changed, you’ll feel desperate and frustrated. If your natural character or personality is what you want to change, you better give up because those things are that can never be changed. Whether you are out-going or introverted person, pretty or not pretty, you are perfect already. There’s no need to feel shamed for what you’re born with.

 

Next thing is about satisfiying with the little things in your life. It may sound boring, but it’s true. If you appreciate only the big success or accomplishment such as employment or promotion, everything else will never make you happy. However, you can make your life much happier and richer when you feel happy with a stranger holding the door for you, or sincere friends who always there for you. Don’t take it for granted. Think of it as a gift for you.

 

Finally, expect nothing is one way to feel happy. If you expect some advantages for doing something and don’t get what you want, you probably feel miserable. But if you get rid of your expectancy and try to give your best regardless of the outcome, you can feel happy with the smallest payoff.

 

If you change your way of thinking just a little bit, you can make your life happy and satisfying. I know it won’t be easy in a world of competition like where we are. But accept and love yourself is a great way of respecting yourself and happiness, as well as appreciating little things and expecting nothing. Remember, the road to happiness depends on you, not someone else. No one can do that for you. So, why don’t you start pave your way to happiness right now? 

Park Hyun-ju/causes of happiness/Tue 11 a.m. class

201101524 Park Hyun-ju Three causes of happiness   Everyone looks for happiness in life. However, people's definitions of happiness differ from one person to another. There are lots of factors that bring happiness to our lives. For me, the three most important causes of happiness are money, good health and love.   The first factor of happiness is money. While some people say that money can't buy happiness, I believe a good financial status makes people happy. In a capitalist society, money means freedom. Money enables us to buy whatever we like so it plays a significant role in deciding how happy we are. Without a decent amount of money, we would have to worry about our tuition and mortgage and we will never be able to be completely happy.   Next, good health is also a decisive factor of happiness. We have to be healthy to be truly happy. Strong immune systems and younger hearts help us to live everyday to the fullest and have energetic lifestyle. On the other hand, health problems from mild cold to life threatening diseases disrupt our ability to function normally in our lives. Therefore, we have to look after our health to be happy.   Last but not least, love brings happiness to our lives. Love gives our lives meaning. We feel love in good personal and intimate relationships, such as those of marriage, the family, and friendships. Love for others gives us energy and satisfaction. It is also important to love your own life and love yourself, which is the highest level of happiness.   To sum up, I believe money, good health and love are the three most important factors that bring happiness to our lives. However, we should always remember there are a lot of other factors that could make us happy. Even if we miss one or two factors, we can always find happiness in other parts of our lives. We should try our best to become happy with what we have.