To My Class of 2017: Be Happy by Matthew

To My Class of 2017: Be Happy by Matthew - March 2017 Scholarship Essay

The definition of a successful life means a variety of things to different people. Depending on who you ask, there will always be a variety of answers. One person may want a lot of money and to them, that is being successful. On the other hand, another person could say that having a happy life and a career they enjoy is what makes them feel like they are successful. A successful life is relative to what you need to feel successful, for me it is happiness. I feel that if you are happy and look forward to your daily routine, no matter how routine it may be, you should feel joyous and grateful. Waking up 30 years from now and being happy where I am in my career, community and stage of life is what a successful life means to me, not having a million dollars or owning a mansion. Money and possessions are only material things and allow only short-term happiness. Therefore, there are more specific criteria by which I plan to judge whether I have been a success when I look back on my life in 30 years.
Right now, at 17 years of age, I imagine that my criteria for success when I am 47 years old would include, marriage, family, health & fitness, personal growth, wealth creation, and community involvement. My opinion on a successful life has been formed by my life experiences so far, the lives of those that I have encountered and the people I still have a relationship with. The people that I know that enjoy their life the most do not always have the most money, expensive cars or the biggest houses. They love life for the experiences they have in their memories and the people they have met along the way. They are grateful to be in the position they are in because they are happy where they are in their life accomplishments. The people in my life I look up to do not desire or envy another person’s life, even though others may look more successful with materialistic possessions and appear happy.

A successful life can look like more than one thing and most often successful lives must first be defined. Not by one person, but by the person's whose life it is. Someone else cannot tell you if you had a successful life or not because they cannot feel what you feel they do not know what makes you happy or feel accomplished. In the end, I want to be able to say I have had a successful run at life, and to me, that is being happy and waking up and looking forward to living the life I made for myself. I am confident with my academic and athletic solid work ethic and life choices over 17 years, I will exceed my definition of a happy life. And a successful life means more than two words, it means loving the memories you have produced, the relationships you have made, and more importantly being the person you want yourself to be.
Waking up 30 years from now I want to be able to say that I have developed and experienced a happy, fulfilled, joyous life that impacted others as well. If I can say that I have met my requirements for living a successful life, then I have completed the biggest goal in life. And if that is the case, I plan to share my knowledge with others to give back in any way I can. In the end, money and physical possessions only get you so far mentally. You may be the richest person in the world, but if you do not have any experiences of happiness of marriage, family and a fulfilled career, then what is it worth? To me, a successful life is being able to look back on your life and say that no matter what life threw at me it was never going to stop me from being who or what I want to be.