During this project we started out by looking how different people view happiness and we understood how different people interpret happiness by reading the book Brave New World. After we annotated the book to better understand how we were going to take on this project, we built background knowledge by compiling an annotated bibliography. With sources that were provided and self explored we answered questions that make us think deeper about the information we just read. After that we chose what we wanted to personally study about happiness. Once we were finished with our annotated bibliographies, we conducted a happiness experiment and tested how altering our life in one way changed our happiness. After we gained all of the knowledge we needed we created a video that showed what we studied. Since my group looked at how social connections affect your happiness that is what our video is about. Please enjoy!
Annotated Bibliography Happiness Experiment
Project Reflection:
For me the truth of happiness is a subconscious state of mind. We often notice when we are happy or get that warming sensation in our chest. The truth of happiness is something completely different, it is when you are happy but aren’t forcing the feeling. When you are in the moment and forgetting about the past or future. It is when you can be comfortable and feel safe around your passion and other things that you love.
The greatest challenge I worked through was finding a group to be in for the final product. I chose to study how the environment affects your personal happiness. When got into groups with other people that studied the same thing, I was alone. I talked to Sara about my problem and we decided that I would join the group that was learning about social connection and how it relates to happiness. However in our video, we still didn’t talk much about what I studied. I am still proud of it though because I learned many new things about social connections and how the are tied to happiness.
I have grown as a group worker by learning how to step back from being the leader. Usually I am in a group where I have to take on most of the work, but this time around it was a lot different. I joined a group with a lot of hard workers and drivers. I was able to step back from doing every little thing and let my group members contribute. I think that this is a very good skill to have in the future because when I have a job, I can use my experiences to only volunteer myself for things that I can do. I can learn to balance my life in the best way by not over-scheduling myself.
The one thing that I would refine is my happiness experiment. We were supposed to change one thing in our life for one week and see if it changed or influenced our happiness in any way. I decided to read for 20 minutes after school. I do believe that this worked on some days but not overall. If I were to redo this experiment, I would choose something that was more meaningful to me. I would also come up with a different way of rating my happiness. Instead of assigning my mood to a number I would use words to describe how I feel.