The Pursuit of Happiness

Gus Merwin

9-23-07

Eng 102

The Pursuit of Happiness

I believe that happiness is the most important thing in life. I don't see any point to want any thing else in life besides happiness. I think a lot of people waste their lives trying to achieve things they dream of in the future, but the whole time they miss having the real fun of living now, and going through their current adventure of life. People do all kinds of crazy things in the pursuit of future happiness. They are confused about what will really bring them contentment, so they fill their lives with what others have told them will do it.

It took me years of fighting depression and related experiences, to realize, one of the most important things in life is to understand what brings you happiness, personally. Once you understand this you will understand yourself, and your life a lot more, and the chance that you will achieve the happiness you seek, is a lot greater.

"The happiest place on earth." is the slogan of Windell's snowboard camp and for one of my happiest child hood memories. Every year I would work hard for months to try to make the money to go to Windell's. It was perfect, a dream come true. All day, every day, was fun. I would go snowboarding all day, with the best riders teaching you new tricks in one of the best snowboard park's in the world, then come home only to skateboard, paintball, dirt bike, BMX, river raft, or anything else I could ever imagine doing. Everything from the food to the instructors to the general atmosphere was awesome. Because everything was so fun, every one was constantly happy. I could almost feel the happiness in the air around base camp of Windell's.

I looked forward to going to Windell's those ten days all of the other 355. I worked pretty hard for a little kid to get the money to do go. I used to bake sixty pies in the two days prior to our local festival, and then set up a stand titled "Help send me to snowboard camp!" Through all of this work and anticipation every time I got to Windell's was the happiest moment of my life. However I had a fairly close friend who was wealthy, and went on a lot of snowboard trips all over the place. After hearing me fantasize about Windell's for so long he went with me one year. Now he had been listening to my interpretation of Windell's for years but he never really had to put any effort in to going. Unfortunately in result he didn't feel the same since of reward that I felt so he never had as much fun, and never came back.

It took a long time for me to understand what I had learned about happiness that week. It is not the physical experience or even what you are doing it is all about your mindset and how you take on your current situation. I had worked so hard that I felt rewarded to finally get to go to such a great place. My friend on the other hand just went with little to no effort or enthusiasm, and as a result he didn't have ever much fun. I think I was learning what really made me happy. I don't know if he had yet.

Happiness is not an easy thing to understand. It is essentially a state of mind, but with a slight twist. The mind state of being happy can't be obtained the same way for different people. Each person must individually figure out what makes them happy, nobody can tell you. This is why so many people get caught up in the pursuit of happiness, they keep searching for what makes other people happy and never think about there own needs and wants.

I think the main reason I am such a huge fan of happiness is that I was clinically depressed until the age of thirteen. I hated being depressed; I hated not being able to say something cheery when others were upset. I went through years of depression seeking a way to stay happy. That was all I wanted. After years of therapy and medicine I am now a normal happy-go-lucky kid again. Through the struggle, however, I learned something during those depressed years: all I, or anyone, should want, is to be happy and enjoy life.

Whether it's just casually in conversation or my actions toward a person I choose to simply stay on the nice side. I don't see the reason to out right mean to anyone. I just never understood why any one would want to deliberately make some one feel bad. People, like my elder brother for example, have told me they get enjoyment out of making others feel bad, or simply making fun of them, but that never made sense to me. I just always feel bad for the person being hurt.

According to Buddhist thought, "If one speaks and acts with a pure mind, surely happiness will follow like one's own shadow!" I find that if I act with that "pure mind" things will continue in joyous way.

I have made a lot of stupid decsisions. Because of a few of them, I thought I was going to die. In the end though, things always worked out in a good way, as I long as I stayed positive.

It was freezing at 3:00 am when I had to be in the truck. First I had to put my Grundens