Professor Latif and Shy

UPADM-GP 260
Integration paper 9
11/6/2022
Integration Paper #9

To me, happiness is something that is short lived and only lasts for the moment. It is a

period of enjoyment, satisfaction, or joy that could be triggered by an event. Happiness can be as

simple as eating a piece of chocolate or enjoying a piece of cake, and can be as significant as

being accepted by a dream college. This positive energy that could be felt from the inner to outer

parts of one’s body, peaks at a particular moment and eventually fades away. In general, I am a

person that can find happiness in very little things. As a result, I experience happiness very

frequently. In a sense, happiness is also tied with gratitude, which is the ability to feel thankful

for the things that happen to you. I tend to be very vocal with showing gratitude towards others

and to little things in life. I experience happiness when I hang out with my friends, when I talk to

my parents and grandparents, when I eat delicious food, when I am doing the things I enjoy

doing. I do notice a difference between surface happiness and deeper contentment. Surface

happiness is directly linked to pleasure, the feelings tend to be instantaneous but may be

followed by a subsequent feeling of emptiness, which tempts oneself to constantly pursue surface

happiness. Oftentimes, surface happiness does not have a meaning, but is essential in one’s daily

life regardless. On the other hand, deeper contentment has a longer lasting impact on one’s

mental wellbeing. The cause of deeper contentment tends to be much more significant than that

of surface happiness.

Usually, I do not solely rely on motivation to work, as I find that it would often cause me

to procrastinate and wait for the perfect “moment” where I feel like I am “in the zone” to

complete my work, which tends to make things rushed and last minute. Regardless, when
completing motivation or purpose driven tasks, I find that it is useless to indulge in self blame,

and that it is much more helpful to practice self-compassion or self-forgiveness. For example, as

university students, we often experience cramped schedules throughout the semester where a

large amount of assignments are often due in the same weeks. Ideally, we could all be time

management experts and plan out the semester perfectly so that the tasks are distributed and

completed in a timely or manageable manner. However, reality is often complex and spontaneous

things tend to come up that can disturb our schedule. When I first started college, I indulged in

self blame when this happens, blaming myself for not organizing my tasks well enough, and

seeing asking for an extension as admitting that I have failed my responsibility as a student.

However, this did not help me whatsoever. Instead, it just made me feel more anxious and

disappointed in myself, leading to a negative perception of myself. Gradually, I was able to shift

this to self-compassion, I realized that this is a common, if not, the most common struggle of

college students, and that having to balance work, social life, mental health, physical health,

co-curricular activities, and academics simultaneously is not an easy thing at all. It is this process

of acknowledgment and understanding that had a more positive effect on my motivation. These

days, I no longer put as much expectation on myself, and instead focus more on the quality of my

learning and my work, which I find to be much more motivating and helpful.