Achieving Happiness by Emily

Achieving Happiness by Emily - July 2017 Scholarship Essay

Giving a Ted Talk would require a lot of thought, a lot of planning, and of course, a lot of stress. Stress, a term otherwise known as “tension” or “pressure”, can be caused by our families, our schools, or our work. I learned from an early age how stress can steal away the little joys that life gives you on a daily basis. This is an unfortunate mental and emotional strain that far too many of us can automatically and easily relate to, and because of this, I would give my Ted Talk on “achieving happiness”. Now, when I say “achieving happiness”, I do not necessarily mean societies stereotypical view on it with regards to growing up, getting into college, getting a good job/earning a high salary, getting married, having kids, retiring and dying, (not that there’s anything wrong with that), but I would talk about the kind of happiness that comes from within.
I have worked as a cashier at the same grocery store for over 3 years now. I started as a junior in high school and am about to become a junior in college. Working in the same place for so long you begin to recognize and know many of your customers fairly well. I have women that come in with their freshly manicured nails and their Michael Kors purses, spending hundreds on food. Making rude comments, bickering with their children or husband or fussing on the phone, they seem like they could not hate their lives any more even if they tried. In the same day, I see the people that pay with food stamps that carefully calculate how much they are able to spend on a much smaller amount of food, but have nothing but positive things to say and smiles to give. It is probably easy to guess which type of customer I look forward to seeing more.
My experience at work is just one small example that comes to mind when I think of happiness. Notice how in the first paragraph when I listed society’s view on achieving happiness, the word “getting” was repetitively used. What we need to start doing in our culture is switching the word “getting” to “giving”. Giving our time, giving our money, giving a helping hand, or just giving more of yourself in whatever area of life that may be, can truly be a turning point in so many people’s lives. Nothing can help someone to feel more of worth than seeing a smile on someone’s face that you helped to put there. The true meaning of achieving happiness is having a joy that exceeds materialistic items.
Another point that I would be sure to speak about in regards to “achieving happiness” is the act of “letting go”. This is probably something that many people hear frequently, how holding onto the things that you cannot control will ultimately weigh you down and make you unhappy, and it is very true. There are people that have horribly wronged me in the past and there will be people that will wrong me in the future, and that is a fact that is something that each of us just has to accept as being a part of life. Does accepting this mean that you have to become best friends with the person responsible for the wrong committed against you? No. Does it mean that they deserve your forgiveness for it? Absolutely not. But guess what, you are going to have to give them that forgiveness. Not only will rising above the circumstances help you to be at peace in your own life but it is also important to never forget that you too are human and that you too make mistakes.
To conclude my Ted Talk I would make sure to touch on “being humble”. No matter what it is that you’re striving for, no matter what you have achieved, it is absolutely vital to remain humble throughout it all. Never look down on a person for how they look, for the amount of money that they earn (or don’t), or for the decisions that they make, because you are not and will never be in any place to judge another person’s life. That being said, yes of course we can try to help others if we see their life begin to slip away into a dark place out of their own control, but do so with love.
Wake up in the morning every single day grateful to be alive, say hi to everyone you see, ask as many people as you possibly can how they are doing (and mean it), give as much as yourself as you can but make sure to never forget that you are important too, strive for excellence, and above all else, love.