“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.” — Helen Keller

Like Helen said, there is always happiness but sometimes we dwell on the lousy things in life.

You’re in your room when one of your parents bursts in and says, “You’re not done with your homework. Stop playing that video game!” You put down your game but you feel that ugh feeling in your gut. The feeling of frustration, and you just wish your life were different. Wishing you had a different parent. Wait though, you shouldn’t want to alter your life. The fact that you have that game is a privilege. Know that you have many privileges and homework shouldn’t make you feel like everything sucks.

You’re on the street in the middle of winter. You’re freezing because you don’t have a house. You shift over pressing your body against the wall to find warmth. The wall turns out to be freezing and you recoil into the frigid air around you. You groan trying to find warmth, you feel the great beast hunger churning in your stomach. You haven’t eaten anything sizable for three days. You think to yourself, “What’s the point of this?” You feel miserable. You almost wish you could just die. You’re just too poor, not able to buy food or a house. And so cold.

Yes, I can see if you’re poor or you get treated poorly you might feel like, “Why do I put up with this?” That is valid. However remember that even though it may not look great now that you might have an excellent future, sometimes a far-away future but still it will probably come. And I know I said might but like hocky champion Wayne Gretzky said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” Just like trying anything, you won’t even have a chance if you don’t try.  

Always try your best to feel that there are still joys in your life somewhere. Maybe try and find one sole image you really care about to make you keep trying. Think about it like repelling the dementors in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. The dementors were held back by Harry thinking happy things, and a Patronus but we’re only people and can’t summon cool white spirit animals. So next time when work is hard or things aren’t working out, just try to think of that happy image.

I know I’m talking about my personal opinion. On the other hand, what about the science behind it? I also know in this day and age music has a big impact in most people’s lives so I will incorporate that into my essay. Just listen when musician Drake says, “YOLO.”  YOLO might actually be a better perspective on life, science shows. Yolo is a term meaning, “You Only Live Once”. I personally believe that following YOLO will encourage a person to always try their hardest to enjoy life. A study was done using the idea YOLO. A group of 70 students was taken and told to “imagine having only 30 days left before dying and to intentionally engage in activities and spend time with people they will miss after you are gone.” On the other side of the experiment there was a control group of 69 people just told to record their everyday activities. After the study was over the 70 kids who embraced YOLO actually talked about things like, “in most ways, my life is close to ideal” or “the conditions of my life are excellent.” The teens not in the control group were more grateful and happy with their lives. This can be put to real life by just thinking that you only have a little bit of life left. Drake’s idea of YOLO actually should be the mindset people should probably follow.

Life is gift and from what a lot moms and dads will tell you, “you should always appreciate your gifts.” I know that I, for one, think that those parents are right. Another influence in my life said something that really struck me. This quote is from my P.E. teacher: “Life is like a bunch of punches to the face, but it’s about what you do after that.” No matter what in life, you’re going to fail sometimes, you’re going to get frustrated, and you’re going to feel like the world is conspiring against you. Still, you need to look past that and get back up. With a perspective, I’m Kai.

Sources:

Washington Post, Adapted by Newsela

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban