Note: What I define as happy isn't the same for everyone. I understand how everyone has their own unique definition of what happiness exactly is. I would be happy to hear different opinions about this topic!
Although our current goals as students are to go to a good college, study hard, and get a good job, the ultimate goal in life is to be happy. For me, the question "What makes me happy?" has been around in my mind for quite a long time. I would say that in order to be happy, there are 4 main factors: mental, social, emotional and physical health. I am not going to go over each factor in detail because I will cover ones that I currently struggle with. I think another important part of happiness comes from productivity, which I will elaborate upon because I find it crucial to my own happiness. If one of these factors are not met, happiness can't be fully achieved.
In terms of mental health, it can be kind of hard to be happy all the time when you face academic challenges at school, such as failing a test. How I try to deal with this issue is by looking at this situation from a different perspective. When I was in middle school, I would cry if I didn't do well on my test. Now, I treat it as a learning experience. I acknowledge that I have to make mistakes to learn or else that means I find things too easy when it should be challenging. I wouldn't say it makes me happier, but it makes failure less painful to deal with.
My imbalance mostly happens when it comes to physical health, which includes exercise and my diet. When I don't exercise for the entire week, I start to feel tired and my body feels still. To make myself feel better, I run. Some of you may wonder, "How does running even make me happy?" Well, running gives me a reward that boosts my self-confidence. To make running less painful, I put on some music. Another way to make myself happy in terms of my diet is by tracking what I eat by using MyFitnessPal. Unfortunately, I stopped using it and my diet isn't as healthy as before. A lot of people will object when they hear this. It is unnecessary. However, the benefits outweigh the negative. Sure, it was quite hard in the beginning, but I was more mindful of myself and felt like I had control over my dietary choices. I would no longer feel like I was incapable of resisting my desires to indulge in junk food. I have found a pattern over the course of my short life that when you have self-control, you feel happier.
Among all of the factors I mentioned, I think another key component of happiness is productivity. When I feel productive, I feel like I am a step closer to achieving a daily goal. My precious time doesn't feel wasted. When you can achieve a lot of daily goals, you can achieve a yearly goal. However, achieving this state of mind is pretty hard as I am not able to reach it all the time. An obstacle that stops me from being productive all the time s the internet. If I have a distracting thought, say "New York City attractions," I would search it online. Then, I start reading the Wikipedia page. You know what is going to happen. I press on other links related to the search. 10 minutes pass by. More thoughts related to my previous search will come up. This impulsive behavior is quite distracting and when you add up all the minutes over the course of the day, I waste around 1-2 hours on the internet on the weekends.
To combat this behavior, I have experimented with different applications that block websites and write down my distracting thoughts. Not only that, I have an app that tracks the amount of time I spend on each website. I wouldn't say I am 100% productive after using these apps, but it has definitely made me happier and more productive. I can concentrate longer and ignore my current thoughts that will vanish in a minute. My time is spent on things that are closely related to my personal goals instead of things that actually don't matter as much to me. In short, the reason why I find productivity such an important part of happiness is because you feel like you have achieved something significant in the 24 hours you are given each day, making you feel like progress is happening every day.
Although our current goals as students are to go to a good college, study hard, and get a good job, the ultimate goal in life is to be happy. For me, the question "What makes me happy?" has been around in my mind for quite a long time. I would say that in order to be happy, there are 4 main factors: mental, social, emotional and physical health. I am not going to go over each factor in detail because I will cover ones that I currently struggle with. I think another important part of happiness comes from productivity, which I will elaborate upon because I find it crucial to my own happiness. If one of these factors are not met, happiness can't be fully achieved.
In terms of mental health, it can be kind of hard to be happy all the time when you face academic challenges at school, such as failing a test. How I try to deal with this issue is by looking at this situation from a different perspective. When I was in middle school, I would cry if I didn't do well on my test. Now, I treat it as a learning experience. I acknowledge that I have to make mistakes to learn or else that means I find things too easy when it should be challenging. I wouldn't say it makes me happier, but it makes failure less painful to deal with.
My imbalance mostly happens when it comes to physical health, which includes exercise and my diet. When I don't exercise for the entire week, I start to feel tired and my body feels still. To make myself feel better, I run. Some of you may wonder, "How does running even make me happy?" Well, running gives me a reward that boosts my self-confidence. To make running less painful, I put on some music. Another way to make myself happy in terms of my diet is by tracking what I eat by using MyFitnessPal. Unfortunately, I stopped using it and my diet isn't as healthy as before. A lot of people will object when they hear this. It is unnecessary. However, the benefits outweigh the negative. Sure, it was quite hard in the beginning, but I was more mindful of myself and felt like I had control over my dietary choices. I would no longer feel like I was incapable of resisting my desires to indulge in junk food. I have found a pattern over the course of my short life that when you have self-control, you feel happier.
Among all of the factors I mentioned, I think another key component of happiness is productivity. When I feel productive, I feel like I am a step closer to achieving a daily goal. My precious time doesn't feel wasted. When you can achieve a lot of daily goals, you can achieve a yearly goal. However, achieving this state of mind is pretty hard as I am not able to reach it all the time. An obstacle that stops me from being productive all the time s the internet. If I have a distracting thought, say "New York City attractions," I would search it online. Then, I start reading the Wikipedia page. You know what is going to happen. I press on other links related to the search. 10 minutes pass by. More thoughts related to my previous search will come up. This impulsive behavior is quite distracting and when you add up all the minutes over the course of the day, I waste around 1-2 hours on the internet on the weekends.
To combat this behavior, I have experimented with different applications that block websites and write down my distracting thoughts. Not only that, I have an app that tracks the amount of time I spend on each website. I wouldn't say I am 100% productive after using these apps, but it has definitely made me happier and more productive. I can concentrate longer and ignore my current thoughts that will vanish in a minute. My time is spent on things that are closely related to my personal goals instead of things that actually don't matter as much to me. In short, the reason why I find productivity such an important part of happiness is because you feel like you have achieved something significant in the 24 hours you are given each day, making you feel like progress is happening every day.
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