Copyright 2010 Dominican International School
76 Tah-Chih St., Taipei, 104
Taiwan, R.O.C.
By the laws of nature, man can achieve happiness. The happiness here means "eternal happiness." This means that man can achieve "eternal happiness" and be happy forever. But we often seem to neglect the word "eternal" when we look at this law of nature. We all can achieve happiness. Some people seem to think that man is only capable of achieving temporary happiness.
But in fact, that is not true. While some people waste their money and other valuables to achieve bodily or temporary happiness, there are the smart people out there that waste nothing to achieve soul or eternal happiness. While some men go out to get girlfriends to make themselves happy, they will soon realize that they will have no happiness once their girlfriends leave. While some men go out to earn lots of money to gain happiness, they will also soon find happiness gone when the wealth is spent. But the wise people attain eternal happiness, and that eternal happiness will never leave then.
So now the essential question: what to do?
Or, what should I do to attain eternal happiness?
One thing I think will help people attain eternal happiness is to attain religion. Religion gives people hope. Religion teaches people to help one another. Religion teaches people to give up everything in this life, because this life is only temporary. That's why we have the "sisters" and "fathers" in our school. These people seek eternal happiness by helping one another and giving up their right to be happy by marriage. That's why we have the "monks" in the Buddhist temples. Those monks meditate to rid themselves of the "suffering" in this world. That's why we have the Protestant "pastors" who help other people attain eternal happiness rather than eternal suffering. All of these people have a different opinion of this world and this bodily life: Buddhists believe that this is a life of "suffering" while the Catholics and Christians believe that this life is only a life of "temporary happiness." But these religions have one objective: to attain eternal happiness in the afterlife.
So if you asked me "what to do," I would tell you "religion," because that is, in my opinion, a good way to achieve eternal happiness after the soul has separated from the corpse.
"What to do?"
Charles Hsueh
What do we do to achieve happiness? To answer this question, we must take a closer look at ourselves, and find out what do you have to do to achieve happiness. To attain happiness, we must visualize, take responsibility, learn, and appreciate.
Life is full with complexity, once you take a step forward, there is no guarantee of success. Most importantly, there is no turning back. In our lives, we must visualize our goals, our wants, and our purposes of living. We have to know ourselves better, what should we do that would satisfy our wants, and our needs. Once you visualized, set and reach your goal, you achieve happiness. Secondly, once you find out what to do, you must take responsibility on your goal, and you have to figure out what to do to achieve it. When you fail, you can blame no one but yourself. You must have responsibility on your every actions, and by having it, you will earn respect from the people around you. Thirdly, we must learn about ourselves. Every moves and mistakes that you made become your experiences. By learning from those, you will gain knowledge. That knowledge will make you a better person, and thus you will not commit the same mistakes twice. Hence, it will lead you to have a better life, then happiness will be achieved. Lastly, we must learn to appreciate. Nowadays, everyone seems to be too busy with their lives. People often take things for granted, instead of appreciating it. One easy way to appreciate is to say "thank you." We should appreciate everything in our lives, every opportunities, and chances that you have because not everyone has the chance that you do. Be appreciative of what is given to you.
In conclusion, to achieve happiness you must visualize, take responsibility, learn, and appreciate. When you get to know yourself better, you will know what satisfy your wants. Once you achieve your goal, you will obtain happiness.
What to do?
Salin Chunprapanusorn
We are seniors. We are all about to make our transitions into adulthood. Only a year left with all my fellow classmates and then we all walk down our own paths. What do we do now?
Life is repetition. It is dull and boring. Why? It is because you do not know what to do. The worlds is huge, there are so many, many places you haven't seen and experienced. Now, as people on earth, we do what we need to do. For me, what I do is to accomplish what has to be accomplished academically. Such accomplishments heavily determine where and what path I take down on my next stage of life. Not only I need to care about my academic accomplishments, I also need to spend my time outside with others. As much as my parents despise me making friends that are not from school, I defy them. Why? Because making friends is never a bad thing. Over time, I've became clear of what is a real friend and what is not. That is why I do not have a lot of friends. But all my friends are true friends that are willing to sacrifice in some sort for the sake of my well-being. Unlike those who only want someone to talk to or to hang out with.
For every action, there is an effect. I emphasize this in my life plenty of times. I take into consideration of what I do pose what kinds of results. Yet nothing I do can be completely correct. People in the world have hugely differentiating opinions and approach. Nothing you say will gain 100% of the
people's agreement. There is always someone who opposes. What I do is to seek knowledge from the society I live in and go against that. My life has always been making the right decisions yet a portion of the world seemingly takes it as a wrong choice. Although it is impossible to absolutely have a viewpoint that everyone will agree on, I work on to expand on that and make majority of the people recognize my reasoning.
An example, you have a mother that opposes you in every aspect. I, as someone who thinks of the consequences before doing anything stupid, think of my actions. How could I have done this better or how is my following action wrong? That is why I learned that nothing you do can be correct. So what I do is to be myself. Well, even that is not correct. But that's the best I can do. If someone, like my mother, opposes me for being myself. I can't change for her. I am who I am. I have my own thoughts. I have my own feelings. My consciousness tells me that for whatever you do, if there is something inevitable that makes your life miserable, you cope and live with it. And that is what I do. Live on.
What to do?
Chayanne Tu
In life, there are always a lot of frustrations and pain, and sometimes there seems no cure to them. As the unpleasant feelings grow into an uncontrollable amount in the mind and body, they tend to affect everything we do. This is not the condition we want. What to do with it? What to do when we are confused and helpless? Well, there are many ways to choose from, and to prepare for the right one and achieve true happiness, we need to understand the basics; everything starts with the fundamental.
During Christian Living lessons given by Sr. Catherine Cruz, we learned that humans are different from other animals through our ownership of intellect and will. Men are composed of soul and body, although I personally think that animals have a little bit of soul as well, the common understanding is that humans dominated the world with superior understanding of our soul. Sometimes it seems false to me, when earth was being polluted and global warming continued to spread and both were caused by humans. No all human beings want those events to happen, so we have earth-loving organizations and respectful policies with a constantly growing number. We concluded that that was just a part of the whole race, but only part of the race has infected the whole world, where live a huge amount of races and clans, with a deadly disease: greed and nonchalance. Considering the harmless quality of the other animals, is it really God's gift that we have intellect and will? What can we do to improve ourselves, or to direct our soul to the right path? It is many times hard to answer by an individual, but by a group of people, it could be more powerful. If many people get together and organize an event, the power would be greater than an even organized by a single person. We can use our intellect and will to protect what we love and care, instead of contaminating and ruining. God gave us intellect and will not for the savage acts but for the good things, the greater aspects of human beings: the ability to develop through time and experience. We should use God's gift in the good way to shape our meanings of life positively and perform actions generated by good intentions. The news broadcast about the violence and massacre happening in the Middle East made my heart sank every time I hear them, but along the dark side came the light emitted from the good part of our intellect and will; there are always people helping the wounded and suffered when dictators called for oppression on his own people. God does not abandon people, but shows his kindness through other people.
To answer this question, we need to wisely use our intellect and will to construct a better world. This is our mission-to repay the mother earth which has raised us all without complain even when we are declining her life span as well as ours. Get together and act with a magnanimous cause; that is my answer to the question, what to do.
What to do?
Je Ru Lee
What to do? How to Attain Happiness?
Alvin Wu
Supposedly there are infinite ways to attain happiness by worldly means. For instance we can eat to satisfy our hunger, play to kill our boredom, or just simply relax for the sake of being tired. All those happiness are just a few actions away from us and they are able to be grasped easily without intellect and will. But when we calm our minds and contemplate deeply upon that kind of happiness we will be surprised how empty they are. Suddenly those joys lose their color because they are only temporary or worldly as opposed to a more profound definition. The truth behind such heartfelt emotions is the inborn will for human to pursue a happiness that is eternal which cannot be found on earth. So we ask ourselves "What to do?" that is to attain true happiness. Such an ultimate question has no written or verbal answer. The journey of true happiness doesn't begin anywhere else on the world except from one's soul. And so it begins.
The first step of the journey begins when we allow our faith to be nourished by God the father. You take that leap of faith to understand that an entity beyond human comprehension has his eye on you. And when you have made true commitment to walk this road with God you will soon enough realize that this path is very broad. In fact, it is so broad that many people wander off into the wrong directions and get consumed by the darkness lurking around the corners. Lucky are we that are witness to God's shepherd, Jesus Christ. He herds us, the flock, away from the wolves and guides us on our long trek to God's love. Along the way, we are to spread the happiness by acts of kindness and aid those in need. Each coin we spare for the poor, each inch of mercy we give to our enemy are the steps that draw us closer and closer to the Gate of St. Peter. Even so, sometimes people get discouraged on their search for ultimate happiness. That's when the Holy Spirit enters our lives and instill us a new fire of bravery. Our task then is to keep that fire burning until we return to the ashes. At the very far end of our life if we had forsaken our humanly wants and took God's path I believe that heaven doesn't lie too far. And when we finally reside in heaven, the sanctuary of God's love, we can be proud to say that we have found our true and everlasting happiness.
So people ask me again, "What to do? How to attain happiness?" I will answer, "Allow your will and intellect to awaken. Most importantly, happiness is never too far to be reached when your faith lies with God."