In this project, we searched for the real, genuine truth about happiness. We looked high and low, in books and articles and meditation, and even in a personal experiment of what would make us happier. We found so many answers that we applied to our own lives, and we took them to heart. We learned the difference between the pursuit of happiness of the pursuit of meaning, and how they affect us. We learned ways to make ourselves happy.
Video
Annotated Bibliography
Personal Happiness Experiment
Reflection
In this unit, I believe that I found the truth of happiness, if not just a part of it. I think that I began to truly realize what the truth was in the article we read called “There’s More to Life Than Being Happy”. It talked about the difference between the pursuit of happiness and the pursuit of meaning. It said that to be truly happy, we have to find the meaning in our lives, and find our purpose. I really connected to it, and it made me think about what my meaning is in this world and how I can focus more on it. I discovered that I also need to focus on and appreciate all of the intrinsic goals I have, like to be with friends and to actually live and not just survive this life. I got to realize that I need to spend less time on my phone and really go out into the world with the people I love. When we made our final video, I got to remember and reflect on all that I learned and felt. One of my favorite parts of this unit was how we got to see the different perspectives in the book Brave New World. We got to see how needing instant gratification affects you. The entire project has changed the way I think about life and being happy, and I’m so grateful that we did this project. Through everything we have done in this project, we have had many challenges. The biggest challenge for me was the video. It was a little hard to edit, and we were frustrated in the process because we wanted to make it a quality video, and also put ourselves into it. We spent a lot of time on making the script perfect, and making it flow. We also spent a lot of time on the actual video editing. We matched everything to make it to where it would fit with our script. Although it was a challenge, we persevered through it and supported each other so that our frustration would be put at ease. My group was amazing and supportive, and in the end, we made a video we are all very proud of, and something that we were passionate about. Along with having individual and group challenges, I feel like I have grown as a group worker in the way of being supportive in the hard and challenging times. When we were working on the script, I contributed a lot and gave my ideas to the group. We all worked together on everything, and we split the workload evenly so that we would all be less stressed. I have also grown in cooperation. I used to want to take charge of everything and have it turn out how I want it. Now, after this project, I have learned to combine all of our ideas, and let people do as much work as I do. If I could redo any part of this project, it would be to have more time on the video. I know that we could have done much better, and I wish we could have had more time to completely perfect it and make it to where we couldn’t have been more proud. I loved all of this project, every single part. I would have just wished for more time. I would refine it by advocating for myself and asking for more time, or maybe spend more time outside of school to work on it and make it better and more like us.