Pursuit Of Happiness

 

Every summer my dad would enroll me and my brother into summer camps. It was an annual thing in our family because my parents did not want us staying home all day doing nothing so they decided for us to have fun and be engaged over the summer holidays while attending summer camps but these were not just any ordinary, boring camps, they were actually set up by the University of Calgary. So the camp we were both put into was called ‘Natural sciences’ and from its name you could probably tell it was a camp all about science and learning different things about science.

 

The University of Calgary held camps that were informative and entertaining but most of them had to with courses that you could easily take in school like math, science, english, ect. But with that being said they were very fun and for me was an eye-opening experience. So me and my brother were in grade 6 when we joined this camp and we were just lucky enough to join because it was almost full. They were already 30 kids and the maximum was 35 kids and we were one of the last few kids to join. Eventually it was full and the instructors who were leading the camps, happily accepted two more kids then were allowed. This camp was popular. I knew from the start it would be an interesting one and it would be one I probably would never forget. So it was the very first day of this camp and the first place we went to was to the EEL building. All the labs are located in this structure since it was the first day of camp, the two guiding instructors we had, wanted to start off with getting to know all the kids and their names, so we played a lot of icebreaker games and getting to know rest of the kids was fun. It was a mixed group of kids ages 11-13 and since we were in grade 6 only we were one of the younger ones but it didn’t make a difference because everyone turned out to be very supportive and accepting all the same despite their ages. We played most of these games outside the EEL building but after a little bit our leaders brought us inside and can I just tell you that this building was gigantic. Its whole exterior was made of reflective glass and the landscape around it was lush and green. The building itself was mesmerizing and inside was a whole new world. It contained high ceilings and it was cold inside with the air conditioner on high to combat the scorching heat outside. The interior was still cool but as we entered we started waking up these grand staircases to the right.This building had a lot of levels and on each level, there were designed to be a certain amount of labs. Most of the labs were for research purposes and this was a building mostly dedicated to medical science students.

 

Everyone made their way up following the instructors and they lead us just outside of this massive room on the 3rd level. This however wasn’t a lab. It looked to be a chill room where university students may come to take a break from their researching and it contained comfy looking couches and it was like a massive studio. As all of us were patiently waiting, lined up to go into this room, we were first given instructions. Our instructors started giving each person one balloon. Everyone was asked to write his/her name on it using a marker. Then all the balloons were collected and put into the room.

 

One of the instructors went into the room while the other one stayed with us outside. After a few moments we all were let into that room and everyone was asked to find the balloon which had their own name written on it within 4 minutes. Everyone was frantically searching for their name, colliding with each other, pushing around others and it was utter chaos.

At the end of 4 minutes no one could find their own balloon. Now mind you, this room was actually very spacious but for some odd, strange reason, no one could find their balloon. Not even me. But  going into this I already knew I wouldn’t be able to find my balloon but I had faith in others and they couldn’t either. So now each person was asked to randomly collect a balloon and give it to the person whose name was written on it. Within minutes everyone had their own balloon.

Our instructor then began, “This is happening in our lives. Everyone is frantically looking for happiness all around, not knowing where it is, but our happiness lies in the happiness of other people. Give them their happiness; you will get your own happiness. And this is the purpose of our life..the pursuit of happiness.”

Somehow 11 year old me could comprehend that. Shocking, I know, but I look back at it and this activity stood out because I am a believer of which that “If you stay happy then mostly everyone around you will be happy too. It’s a contagious feeling and therefore I really enjoyed this camp. There were countless other activities we did as a group but this one stood out to me and like I said in the beginning I will never forget what it taught me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Image used

http://bmindful.com/forum/thread/5865/choosehappiness

 

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6 thoughts on “Pursuit Of Happiness

  1. Dear Arzoo,

    Your style of writing really made me sit back and relax and enjoy what I was reading. I didn’t feel like I was bombarded with a bunch of information and words I couldn’t even guess what they meant, thank you for that. I really enjoyed how you included a quote your instructed told you and I am really impressed that they had such an impact on you that you still remember it to this day.
    What I would encourage doing is to look over your work a few times and look out for missing spaces, capital errors, and run on sentences like this one: “It was an annual thing in our family because my parents did not want us staying home all day doing nothing so they decided for us to have fun and be engaged over the summer holidays while attending summer camps but these were not just any ordinary, boring camps, they were actually set up by the University of Calgary.”

    Thank you for your work, I really appreciated it!

    Sincerely,
    Tina

    1. Thank you for taking the time to read my piece. I’m thrilled that you liked my writing style. (Although I still haven’t figured it out completely yet, but still).I’m definitely going be taking your advice into consideration. I do tend to overlook my work and don’t notice the errors but thank you again for your leaving your thoughts.

      Sincerely,
      Arzoo

  2. Dear Arzoo,
    Your post was great! I loved reading it. The flow of it was very smooth.
    I found this quote, “This is happening in our lives. Everyone is frantically looking for happiness all around, not knowing where it is, but our happiness lies in the happiness of other people. Give them their happiness; you will get your own happiness. And this is the purpose of our life..the pursuit of happiness.”, very inspiring and there is definitely truth to it.
    I like how the theme of the narrative is “the pursuit to happiness”, but the story revolves around a summer camp, this shows that anything can make us happy, we just have to be willing to let it.

    Something you could work on is fixing your grammar mistakes. And another thing is that anecdote’s start of with an interesting first line, maybe you could add on to yours to make it more captivating, but other than that your narrative is pretty good. I look forward to reading your work in the future,

    Sincerely,
    Ayesha

    1. Dear Ayesha,
      I greatly appreciate the time you took to comment on my blog and for leaving some critical criticism behind. I can now evidently see, as I look back at my blog, that some sentences could potentially be a bit choppy and there may be a few grammatical mistakes so thank you for pointing those out because now in the future I will make sure to incorporate a better sense in my writing. I understand at times my writing can be a little less captivating but next time I’m going to make sure to add more vocab or metaphors to make my work more captivating for the reader. Thank you for your kind thoughts.

      Sincerely,
      Arzoo

  3. Dear Arzoo,
    I absolutely loved reading your work. You are a very efficeint writer, which made me hooked to your piece. I wanted to read more, and the definition you added to everything you saw that day was amazing.
    I would recommend you to read your work a few times before you publish it, to make sure you do not lack any spaces between few sentences. But overall, your work was amazing and I liked it a alot:)

    1. Dear Dikshita.
      You’re marvelous and thank you for taking the time to leave me your thoughts on my post. I appreciate your advice and yes, I totally agree with your comment on taking the time to review my work before I decide to hand it in. I tend to make errors very easily and of course a lot of them too but thank you again for your kind words.

      Sincerely,
      Arzoo

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