The Truth of Happiness Project.
Project Description
The Truth of Happiness project was a three month project made up of multiple smaller projects. We watched TED talks, read Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and changed a small part of our lives for a week to answer our unit question: "What is the truth of happiness?" The three months were a journey for us all as we discovered what makes people happy and why. At the end of the project, we all got together after researching independently and shared our findings. Afterwards, we all agreed that the truth of happiness is having positive connections with society and our surroundings.
The Truth of Happiness project was a three month project made up of multiple smaller projects. We watched TED talks, read Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and changed a small part of our lives for a week to answer our unit question: "What is the truth of happiness?" The three months were a journey for us all as we discovered what makes people happy and why. At the end of the project, we all got together after researching independently and shared our findings. Afterwards, we all agreed that the truth of happiness is having positive connections with society and our surroundings.
Video Description
We got into groups of two or three and shared our research, and collaborated those ideas to make a short video based around the truth of happiness.
We got into groups of two or three and shared our research, and collaborated those ideas to make a short video based around the truth of happiness.
Annotated Bibliography
During our independent research, we were supposed to create an annotated bibliography to site our sources.
During our independent research, we were supposed to create an annotated bibliography to site our sources.
Happiness Experiment
During one week of our project we were supposed to change a small part of our life for five days and record how it affects our happiness. I chose to walk my dogs everyday with my older brother to see if that would increase my happiness.
During one week of our project we were supposed to change a small part of our life for five days and record how it affects our happiness. I chose to walk my dogs everyday with my older brother to see if that would increase my happiness.
Project Reflection
What Have I Discovered About the Truth of Happiness?
Well, I've discovered multiple things about what makes a person genuinely happy. I have learned through a book we read in the first month of this project, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, and a movie we watched during the first week, Gattaca directed by Andrew Niccol, that humans are not created to be an interchangeable part, or a designable entity. We're supposed to be individual and unique from each other, not assigned to something at birth. Humans are meant to develop themselves into a different person who will contribute to society by becoming who they make themselves, not who society makes them. If humanity does go down the path of designing humans and predesignating, future generations may never feel true happiness; just the kind society may force feed them.
Another thing I've learned throughout this project was through a movie we watched about mid-project, called Happy directed by Roko Belic. After watching this documentary I discovered that happiness can not just be sought after. One will never be able to find happiness if they force it, and they'll have large difficulty finding it alone. No, happiness is found through flow and community. If one feels flow on a daily basis they're bound to be much happier than if they do not. Flow is described as a process of when time "flies by" when someone is "in the zone". When one is so intensely engaged in something that they are doing and all their worries are pushed to the back of their mind by this occurrence. Like happiness, flow can not be forced and must come to someone naturally; otherwise, it would not be considered flow. Another argument that Happy discussed was the reason behind Denmark being rated the happiest country on the planet. It points out that Denmark has one of the strongest community based social structures in the world. Although there are some other reasons for Denmark's high happiness levels, it is obvious that their strong social compact has a huge effect on the country's collective happiness.
Watching Happy influenced my individual research while we were nearing the last stretch of the project. I was inspired by the arguments made about community strength's impact on happiness, so I based my studies off of the idea that social connections are the largest source of happiness. Specifically what I looked into was how different kinds of relationships (family, friends, peers...) as an adolescent or teenager could effect one's happiness later on in their life. What I learned was that people who have more positive relationships in their youth will not only have higher happiness ratings later in life, but high self esteem and self-worth as well than people who have more negative relationships in their youth.
One of the last things that I learned was that its not just social connections that generate high amounts of happiness, but strong connections with our surroundings as well. We had all set off on our independent research and most of us studied different topics. In the last two weeks of the project, we got into groups of two or three and shared our research with each other. What I learned from my two partners was that we must have positive connections with many different things to find true happiness. One of my partners studied on how connections with nature or the environment make people happy, while my other partner research how engaging in physical activity can effect one's happiness. We created a video around ten minutes long based off all of our research.
What Have I Discovered About the Truth of Happiness?
Well, I've discovered multiple things about what makes a person genuinely happy. I have learned through a book we read in the first month of this project, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, and a movie we watched during the first week, Gattaca directed by Andrew Niccol, that humans are not created to be an interchangeable part, or a designable entity. We're supposed to be individual and unique from each other, not assigned to something at birth. Humans are meant to develop themselves into a different person who will contribute to society by becoming who they make themselves, not who society makes them. If humanity does go down the path of designing humans and predesignating, future generations may never feel true happiness; just the kind society may force feed them.
Another thing I've learned throughout this project was through a movie we watched about mid-project, called Happy directed by Roko Belic. After watching this documentary I discovered that happiness can not just be sought after. One will never be able to find happiness if they force it, and they'll have large difficulty finding it alone. No, happiness is found through flow and community. If one feels flow on a daily basis they're bound to be much happier than if they do not. Flow is described as a process of when time "flies by" when someone is "in the zone". When one is so intensely engaged in something that they are doing and all their worries are pushed to the back of their mind by this occurrence. Like happiness, flow can not be forced and must come to someone naturally; otherwise, it would not be considered flow. Another argument that Happy discussed was the reason behind Denmark being rated the happiest country on the planet. It points out that Denmark has one of the strongest community based social structures in the world. Although there are some other reasons for Denmark's high happiness levels, it is obvious that their strong social compact has a huge effect on the country's collective happiness.
Watching Happy influenced my individual research while we were nearing the last stretch of the project. I was inspired by the arguments made about community strength's impact on happiness, so I based my studies off of the idea that social connections are the largest source of happiness. Specifically what I looked into was how different kinds of relationships (family, friends, peers...) as an adolescent or teenager could effect one's happiness later on in their life. What I learned was that people who have more positive relationships in their youth will not only have higher happiness ratings later in life, but high self esteem and self-worth as well than people who have more negative relationships in their youth.
One of the last things that I learned was that its not just social connections that generate high amounts of happiness, but strong connections with our surroundings as well. We had all set off on our independent research and most of us studied different topics. In the last two weeks of the project, we got into groups of two or three and shared our research with each other. What I learned from my two partners was that we must have positive connections with many different things to find true happiness. One of my partners studied on how connections with nature or the environment make people happy, while my other partner research how engaging in physical activity can effect one's happiness. We created a video around ten minutes long based off all of our research.
What was the Greatest Challenge You Faced in This Project and How Did You Work Through It?
To say that I ran into many challenges during nearly three months of this project is an understatement. The truth is that there were challenges everywhere. I'm not saying that it was a problem to sit through a two hour documentary, but rather it was hard to summarize that documentary in a short but detailed way. Annotating and researching usually comes very easily and naturally to me, but this project it was hard for me to finalize my answer to "What is the Truth of Happiness?" (our unit question). It was only until after all the research I had completed that I finally began to understand why this question has so much importance to today's society and myself; and more than that, why it is important to answer it. This was a challenge that I struggled with all project, and it was more of a general problem than a specific inconvenience. Even well into this project I didn't see it as a personal journey about discovery, but more of a grade that I needed to get to gain my freshman humanities credit. Luckily I did begin to see the importance and eventually took the project not only more seriously, but also more personally.
A more specific challenge I faced was during the last week in our video groups. I must have not paid attention or missed this fact, but it was a shock to me that we only had four hours in humanities to edit and finalize our videos. We weren't done recording and we hadn't even begun editing. Whenever I'm in a group project I tend to either do none or all of the work, there is rarely an even work load for me. So this project, I took it upon myself to do all the editing on my own. Fortunately my partners had no problem recording with little help from me, but doing the editing of very much film was a lot of work. I probably worked on the video for a total of sixteen hours in the span of two days and learned an entirely new editing program. The final video was twelve minutes long and turned out exceptionable, albeit one day late. This may not have seemed like a challenge, but I gave up most of my free time for two days to work on it, and without the work of my partners it got very difficult at times. I was determined, though, and created work that was at least in the B- territory. This was definitely the hardest specific challenge I had faced all project.
To say that I ran into many challenges during nearly three months of this project is an understatement. The truth is that there were challenges everywhere. I'm not saying that it was a problem to sit through a two hour documentary, but rather it was hard to summarize that documentary in a short but detailed way. Annotating and researching usually comes very easily and naturally to me, but this project it was hard for me to finalize my answer to "What is the Truth of Happiness?" (our unit question). It was only until after all the research I had completed that I finally began to understand why this question has so much importance to today's society and myself; and more than that, why it is important to answer it. This was a challenge that I struggled with all project, and it was more of a general problem than a specific inconvenience. Even well into this project I didn't see it as a personal journey about discovery, but more of a grade that I needed to get to gain my freshman humanities credit. Luckily I did begin to see the importance and eventually took the project not only more seriously, but also more personally.
A more specific challenge I faced was during the last week in our video groups. I must have not paid attention or missed this fact, but it was a shock to me that we only had four hours in humanities to edit and finalize our videos. We weren't done recording and we hadn't even begun editing. Whenever I'm in a group project I tend to either do none or all of the work, there is rarely an even work load for me. So this project, I took it upon myself to do all the editing on my own. Fortunately my partners had no problem recording with little help from me, but doing the editing of very much film was a lot of work. I probably worked on the video for a total of sixteen hours in the span of two days and learned an entirely new editing program. The final video was twelve minutes long and turned out exceptionable, albeit one day late. This may not have seemed like a challenge, but I gave up most of my free time for two days to work on it, and without the work of my partners it got very difficult at times. I was determined, though, and created work that was at least in the B- territory. This was definitely the hardest specific challenge I had faced all project.
How Have I Grown as a Group Worker in This Project?
Like I mentioned before, as a group worker I tend to either take all of the work load or very little of it. During our video work, it didn't feel exactly like that because I didn't do all the work. While I certainly took the hardest job upon myself, by myself. But afterwards I felt like I had contributed a lot to my group, whereas I never feel good after not contributing at all. I also managed to advocate to one of my less productive group members that he needed to do something to help set our group up for success. I definitely feel like this was a huge growth for me as a teammate, as I felt empowered to ask for the components I needed to complete the work. This is something I rarely feel in a group effort.
Like I mentioned before, as a group worker I tend to either take all of the work load or very little of it. During our video work, it didn't feel exactly like that because I didn't do all the work. While I certainly took the hardest job upon myself, by myself. But afterwards I felt like I had contributed a lot to my group, whereas I never feel good after not contributing at all. I also managed to advocate to one of my less productive group members that he needed to do something to help set our group up for success. I definitely feel like this was a huge growth for me as a teammate, as I felt empowered to ask for the components I needed to complete the work. This is something I rarely feel in a group effort.
If I could Refine Anything in This Project, What Would I Refine?
If I could refine anything in this project, I would change the way I had gone about reading Brave New World. I seriously struggled in keeping up with the chapters and reading them at the times Sara had assigned to us. As mentioned before, I only valued this project as a grade in the beginning. I wasn't particularly interested in anything we were working on at that point in the project. Unlike Mexican White Boy (a book we read last semester), I had a hard time connecting to the themes and arguments that BNW made. I did finish the book, and annotating it was no issue. But I feel like I had done close to the bare minimum. I could have done a much more in depth evaluation of the book if I had read it when I began to connect to this project personally. Although BNW's plot was easy enough for me to understand with little effort from me, a lot of the things the book brought up or discussed was lost on me because I never took time to truly process the content. If I could do anything different this project, I would take the book more seriously and really make an effort to understand the plot line.
If I could refine anything in this project, I would change the way I had gone about reading Brave New World. I seriously struggled in keeping up with the chapters and reading them at the times Sara had assigned to us. As mentioned before, I only valued this project as a grade in the beginning. I wasn't particularly interested in anything we were working on at that point in the project. Unlike Mexican White Boy (a book we read last semester), I had a hard time connecting to the themes and arguments that BNW made. I did finish the book, and annotating it was no issue. But I feel like I had done close to the bare minimum. I could have done a much more in depth evaluation of the book if I had read it when I began to connect to this project personally. Although BNW's plot was easy enough for me to understand with little effort from me, a lot of the things the book brought up or discussed was lost on me because I never took time to truly process the content. If I could do anything different this project, I would take the book more seriously and really make an effort to understand the plot line.