The Pursuit of Happiness

When we were given this theme for a brainstorming group weeks ago, the first thing that came to my mind was “wow, this is deep”. And yes indeed, I did have difficulty in writing this post so much that it is postponed for so long! However, I’m trying my best. For happiness has always been related to my questions, my goals and how I basically live my days. Such a simple word is perceived and differently by every living creature on earth, it always varies.

In this group assignment, I worked with Jia Yi and Muna. Realizing how broad the word “happiness” is, we decided to pick 3 different characters and try to figure out how each of them see happiness. We tried to be as random as possible, thus we came up with these 3 characters:

Sloth

A Cancer Patient

Teenage Girls

Working Process

We started off by making a simple, effective lists of ideas of what we thought could be the answer of the characters' happiness. From here, we then asked for lecturer's opinion on how we can further develop this BOI into a good mind map.

We were lightened up by our lecturer's idea, Mickey Ho, to make the work even more interesting by applying some kind of relation of what we had with something concrete we find in our daily lives, may it be found in famous movies/ books, and to conclude a morale on each branches. This may sound complicated by now, but keep following the story to see how we generated this simple scratch paper ^ into something much more interesting:

The finale output!

Working on the Mind Map

Me and Muna. Photo was captured by Jia Yi!

Sloth

Sloth has such a laid back, relaxed personality and it finds joy in the simplest things. It likes to chill down, eat and sleep and whenever a sloth feels bored, he will just get dirty in the mud and be easily pleased! Its adorable-ness comes out when it's being carried by someone just like a baby. And as long as a sloth has a friend and a piece of chocolate (!) with him, he can carry on with his life.

It is odd for me to type this, but I never knew I would learn something about happiness from a sloth's perspective! Sloth has taught me to actually just enjoy the moments and to find bliss in simple things.

Sloth = Slow = Happy. 

Happiness is something that needs process, hard work and steadiness. 

Therefore don't rush and don't believe in happiness overnight!

Teenagers

Teenagers have the freedom, and I think it is what becomes the core of their state of happiness. Being a teenager is when you're put in this transition between a child and adulthood, and a lot of times it gets really messy and complicated. We are mostly healthy, and we can do as much things as we can because we do not want to waste our time. We can eat junk food without worrying, we can run and go to places. We decide things for ourselves and seek who we really are. We are young and free, what can I say!

And this thing called hormones is not less important in playing a role of our feelings controller. We fall in love, we feel and imagine a lot.

For me personally, this stage of life is the most exciting and since I turned into a teenager, I've learned and experienced things that shaped me into a person I am now. 

When we brainstormed, I said to my group mates that one of my biggest constrains as a teenager to be happy is because I think/care/feel a lot. But one of them said, "For me, I'm always happy. You should just care less and do the things that you like. The less you care for shits and just think positive, the happier you'll be."

And I learned a new thing once again. :-)

Patients

Happy sick people are the most inspiring creatures ever.

We know that staying in hospital and having to rest on bed all the time is a burden for almost everyone, but somehow sometimes the patients manage themselves to be okay, and even more, they find happiness that couldn't be found anywhere else. They are truly blissful when surrounded by people they love, and because of that they learned to appreciate more. 

An example being the story "The Fault in Our Stars", a novel by John Green (which later adapted to a movie), a story of two teenagers named Hazel and Gus who met each other at a cancer patients' support group , and throughout the story they found themselves falling in love. Both of them made each other stronger and hopeful for their lives, and it is truly touching how they helped each other out.

I'm going to end the post with a sweet soundtrack of the movie:

At the end we connected the branch "Patients" and "Teenagers", just because they feel so connected. Falling in love is one of the most joyful moments in life, and The Fault in Our Stars captures no matter how deep we suffer, we are still be able to find love and happiness.

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