Charmine Tan Renbao, Class 4/7
As the saying goes “Do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you”. This humble saying encapsulates the idea that people would not be content if they are treated poorly by others as it undermines their self-worth. Even though this applies to the minority of people, I believe that the majority will be happy through other ways. Most people can find happiness from holding onto precious memories of good encounters and achieving their goals or dreams, while some feel blessed if they can lead a fruitful and meaningful life.
Proponents of the idea that people can only be happy if they treated fairly claim that the feeling of satisfaction and joy from being treated fairly overrides all other emotions such as anger or sadness. People will usually reciprocate the same type of treatment to someone if they feel that the other party deserves it. However, this “an eye for an eye” mentality is flawed as most people would not dwell too much on such things and prefer to look at the bigger picture of maintaining a harmonious relationship with the person instead. This, in turn, will not cause people to feel disadvantaged or disappointment if they are not treated fairly.
To add on, people are often satisfied if they have a notable achievement that they can recount to their friends and relatives alike. Feeling proud and reaching a milestone in one’s life allows one to be able to create precious personal moments that he can hold on to for a long time. For instance, the athlete Joseph Schooling grinned from ear to ear when he was awarded the prestigious Olympic gold medal for his outstanding record in the men’s 100-metre butterfly event. In an interview, he mentioned he felt that all his hard work had paid off when he received the award representing Singapore in the international arena. From this, we can tell that happiness can stem from intangible sources and make one feel as if he was standing at top of the world.
Besides, people can easily find meaning in their humble life, be it through pursuing their passion or living a stress-free lifestyle. For busy white-collared workers working in a big corporate company, they would inevitably feel pushed into a corner every day as they are pressured to meet the high expectations of their bosses to earn their good favor in return. For these people, ‘stressful’ and ‘happy’ rarely appear in their list of go-to vocabulary. This is no surprise to anyone working in that same stressful situation. However, for retired blue-collar workers, who choose to move to the quiet countryside to spend their better part of their retirement lives in, experience many encounters of being happy and enjoying life to the fullest. For example, they could find contentment by planting crops and ploughing it to eat or admiring the scenery in front of their houses. As seen, people will be more joyful if they can escape a routine life and turn to a more ‘stress-free’ and ‘happy’ lifestyle compared to their city counterparts.
We can choose our source of happiness if we look beyond ourselves and appreciate the things we have around us. In a nutshell, I do not concur that contentment can only be achieved if people are treated fairly and that there are other more meaningful ways to search for it. After all, would it not be nice to always feel happy as life is too short to be sad?
Writers by the River 