“The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change his future by merely changing his attitude.” -Oprah Winfrey

My freshman year online I took Health for one semester. I remember watching all these TEDTalk videos that were about motivation and how someone’s actions will affect a life. My Health teacher said to start the day off with making your bed. He said, “Doing this will give you the motivation to do things throughout the day.” I didn’t believe him. But then I thought about all the times I used to go into the Zoom class meetings 5 minutes after I woke up, still in my bed. No motivation to do homework or participate in class, so I tried making my bed. I felt a little more motivated and started doing hobbies like baking, cooking, playing volleyball, and enjoying my runs.  

Will he be willing to change his life now that he realizes how he’s lived?

From the novel Siddhartha, Siddhartha awakened from a dream and “felt himself dying, withering, finishing.” He questions himself asking, “When had he really been happy? When had he really experienced joy?”  Since Siddhartha had now realized that his life was not filled with happiness and joy, what will he do now? What would you do if you realized that your actions did not grow your happiness. Would you change the actions you make, or would you continue to live a life without much joy.

In my class I watched the movie, Seven Samurai. In this movie, farmers that are unhappy because bandits steal their crops, so they hire seven samurai to help their village defend against the bandits. A farmer said, “We live with fear everyday.” What did the farmers do to end the fear and unhappiness that they felt? They hired samurai. They took action to change the future, so that the bandits will not have their way again. In the TEDTalk on Play I watched in my class, the speaker had said, “Play is where children learn that they are in control of their life, it’s really the only place they are in control of their own life. When we take that away, we don’t give them the chance to learn how to control their own life.” Children should be happy from their childhood to be happy in the future.

Many people think they’ll be happy if they’re successful. However, discoveries show that happiness causes success. “When we’re happy our brains are more motivated, engaged, creative, energetic, resilient, and productive.” Gaining happiness in your life has more pros than when you weren’t happy, so taking action to be happy will definitely change your life for the better.