Jake Hall

Professor Jizi
Writing 1102
2/1/16

What Does Happiness Mean to Me?

Mahatma Gandhi once said Happiness is when what you think, what
you say, and what you do are in harmony. From what I learned in my 18
years of life is that happiness cannot be forced onto anyone. Everyone in the
world has a different perspective on happiness and can find happiness in
unique ways. By sharing qualities of happiness between each other, people
can slowly discover happiness themselves rather than it be forced. In my
opinion, I have found out that what makes me happy is sports, family,
friends, and traveling.
If I am ever in a dark place in my life or I need a stress outlet, I turn to
sports. My favorite sports to play are basketball and football. I played both
these sports in high school and have always had a passion for playing them.
Not only does playing basketball and football make me happy, being apart of
a team does as well. I say this because when I was on a team, I made really
great friends and memories which translated into me being a more well
rounded and happier person.
Not only does sports make me happy, but my family does as well. Ever
since I went to college, I relish the times I get to see my entire family. Seeing

my mom, dad, and brother always makes me happy because of the

conversations we have and the things we do together. My brother and I are
both in college, so whenever we see each other, we end up working out,
playing video games, and enjoying each others company almost everyday.
Seeing my entire family over the holidays is another thing that makes me
happy. All my family lives in Ohio, so I see them only twice a year and I have
a great time during those yearly two visits.
Another thing that I describe as happiness is being with friends. Having
a friend group is definitely in my opinion a key to having happiness. Being
around different people and hanging out with friends relieves my stress and
anxiety and also makes me a happier person. Hanging out with friends also
makes my life less boring and adds spark to my daily college life. Going out
on the weekends and having a good time with friends makes life a lot easier
to cope with and makes my life better in general.
One last thing that makes me happy is traveling. During my freshman
and sophomore year of high school, I lived overseas in Singapore. During
those two years, I met many different people and experienced different
cultures that I never would have experienced if I did not move there. While I
lived in Singapore I traveled to places like Australia, Vietnam, Borneo,
Thailand, Hong Kong, and Bangkok. I would definitely have to say that these
trips to these different countries were some of the best times of my life and I
got to see what life was like outside the U.S. Anytime my parents tell me

about a vacation or a trip, I always look forward to them because they are
always some of the best experiences and I love to travel.
Everyone has their ups and downs when it comes to happiness.
Overall, sports, family, friends, and traveling are the four main excepts of my
happiness. I have realized that everyone has opportunities to find happiness.
Even though you may feel unhappy, I have learned, there is always a way to
find happiness. You just need to know where to look.

Peer Review Questions: (Use during peer review session when responding to
your classmates papers, include answers in a summary endnote.)
a. Where can the text benefit from further detail or explanation? Where does it
need less?
-There are a lot of components to this paper that give you the
opportunity to provide lots of detail. When talking about your
family, maybe elaborate on specific memories, routines you may
have together, etc. Living abroad sounds absolutely awesome,
and, as a reader, Im definitely interested in learning more about
that, so try to provide more stories/details about your life at that
time.
b. What does this writer do particularly well that you would like to add to your
own writing repertoire?
-You have a lot to go off of in your writing. For me, experiences
area big contributor to my happiness. So, doing more cool things
could help me have more to write about. Maybe not necessarily
live abroad, but it inspires me to experience more things out of
my comfort zone so that I DO have more to write about.
c. Where in the text do you, as the reader, get confused? Point these out to the
writer.
-I never felt confused, however, It was easy to get lost because I
felt that youd be talking about one subject, and instead of
elaborating on it, youd just skip to the next subject and missed

out on the opportunity to provide a lot of details that could make

your piece stronger.
d. Pick out a line in the text that you think is working particularly well and share
this line with the author so that s/he may continue to write at this level.
-The opening line where you provided a quote immediately drew
me in.
e. How well does the text match the three essentials of the personal essay that
were the focus of this assignment:
the personal presence of the author
an engagement between self and the world
the author's self-exploration/ self-discovery
-While there is an engagement between self and world, I dont feel the
authors presence as much because of lack of detail.
(red answers by Madison Carter)
Feedback by Anthony Lott
I am going to be completely honest with you, this paper has a lot of
potential. I first want to hit on the areas in which I feel like you can improve
your essay. Definitely go a little more in depth in each topic. I feel like the
paper is lacking specific details that draw me in as a reader. Talk about that
specific holiday or sports memory that reminds you of happiness. Also try to
elaborate on the time you were abroad, that seems extremely interesting
and is a definite way to draw attention. The one thing you did extremely well
was the fact that everything in your paper had flow. I hope to carry your
expertise in such a field in my paper. Im a little confused at the overall
conclusion of your paper. You state that you need to know where to look
yet your overall essay seems to state that happiness comes to you naturally.
I feel that if one is looking for happiness, they are looking in the direction of
materialistic items. As far as personal presence in the paper, I feel as if
youre not there. This is due to the fact that no specified personal details are
given within the essay. Add a few specific details and personal events and
this paper is golden! Your engagement between self and world is there, but
yet again specific details will aid in a more well-rounded, engaging paper.
Finally, I see evidence of self discovery, but I feel that there is more behind
the author.

After Peer-review: Write two paragraphs

a. The first paragraph should focus on the feedback you received from your
peers. What were the peer suggestions given to you? How did you
incorporate these into your revision process? What feedback did you decide
not to incorporate?
This entire peer review process was one of the most helpful in making
my paper better. I say this because my peers really took the time and
effort to read my essay and point our major keys to improve my paper.
From the two people that reviewed my essay, they both said that my
paper lacked detail on some parts. This means I need to go back and
add more examples from my life into the paper. They also said that my
paper had some elements in it to draw them in as a reader. In the
future, I am going to keep using these techniques to keep making
future papers more interesting. Both my peer reviewers also
mentioned that I lack a presence of author in my essay. I now am going
to add more detailed accounts of my life into the essay to give it more
of my presence. Overall, I am glad I had my paper peer reviewed
because it will make my papers better in the future.
b. The second paragraph should reflect upon the feedback you provided for
your peers. Provide at least three concrete examples of the feedback you
gave.
One type of feedback I gave was to give a more detailed conclusion. In
one of peers papers, they did not elaborate in their conclusion and
made the paper not wrap up the way it should. Another type of
feedback I gave was to add more examples of personal life into the
essay. I said this because putting more detail into the essay really
makes the audience read the essay to a more personal level. One more
example of feedback I gave was to give a better hook for the reader. In
one of my readers essay, the introduction only had one sentence and
really nothing to hook the reader in.