Money doesn’t buy happiness, but it sure does help.
I remember my first time skiing as if it was yesterday. It was the perfect skiing day anyone could ask for. The sun was shining, and the fresh powdery snow was just waiting for me to glide my skis across it. On my first lesson I fell in love with adrenaline rush I got while zipping down a ski hill, and the cool rush of wind against my face. Ever since my family and I have gone on a ski trip to the West at least once a year. The trips are always filled with excitement, laughter, and pure fun.
Skiing is fantastic but I do not think that anything can compare to how happy a summer camp called Olin Sang Ruby Union Institute or OSRUI for short makes me year after year. Besides what can be better than a place 4 hours away from home with no parents, and no homework to worry about! I have been going to OSRUI ever since I was 8 years old and it has been a second home to me. I love swimming in the lake and playing capture the flag. I love going to the music center and learning new things on my guitar, and I especially love the delicious Chicken that we eat every single Friday.
Although my camp and skiing make me the happiest person on earth, it’s not entirely the activities that make me so happy. It’s the people I’m with and the memories I make. Skiing is sort of fun when I am alone, but nothing is better than trying to conquer a black diamond with my twin brother or having insightful conversations on the ski lifts (you would be surprised on how many you topics you can cover in one day of skiing). At camp, none of the activities would be any fun without my friends by my side. The memories that stick with me are not the ones that I enjoyed by myself but instead the ones that I experience with my best friends. It’s the inside jokes, the folk nights next to the bonfire, the friendly competitions… those are what make me really happy.
Although skiing and camp are places that make me really happy, that does not mean that I am not happy anywhere else. Every single day there are people that make me laugh, and make life more enjoyable. There is not a day that goes by without some sort of happiness, and those can only be caused by other people and not things that you can buy.
Looking back, I have realized that the mutual love between my friends and family is what makes me happy. Everyone knows you can’t buy friendship and love so why does money make any difference? Well, I think that money helps provide the necessities. It is hard to be happy if you are constantly worried about your next meal or where you can find a roof over your head. Instead of enjoying time with your family and friends, without money you would only be focused on how to deal with the problems at hand.
Money also buys you experiences. Skiing is a luxury that many people cannot afford, and I am very fortunate to have a family that can afford that luxury. Although it is the people that I ski with that make it special, everything costs money starting from the plane tickets to the ski lift passes. The overnight camp I go to, OSRUI, costs almost 1,000 dollars a week so although I have met some of my best friends at OSRUI, it comes with a price. So although money cannot buy you friends or fun it can make it a lot easier to make friends or have them. Money doesn't buy happiness but it sure does help.
Great essay! This perspective on the saying "money doesn't buy you happiness" is one that I wholeheartedly share. Today's society completely revolves around money and going to a camp or going skiing costs money because they need to pay people who do all the little things that make their organizations run. I really like the way you explained this understanding throughout your essay and how you related it to the mutual love between your friends and family.
ReplyDeleteWow, skiing on a black diamond...that is really impressive. Anyways, in terms of the essay, I didn’t notice anything that I thought was a major problem. The only two things that I think could need some work were the end and the part where you go from talking about skiing to money. I actually liked the closing sentence, however, I thought that there wasn’t enough of a transition between the last two sentences. I felt the same applies when tying in skiing to the topic of money/happiness. Other than that, everything else was fine.
ReplyDeleteI thought that you did a good job of connecting a common philosophical question to very concrete examples in your life and included powerful insights about the true meaning of your experiences. Your essay was also nuanced in a way that many answers to this question might not be. Many would be inclined to assert that money dosn't buy happiness or that it does, but you managed to express a deeper truth about what really gives you happiness and how money can help facilitate that.
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