Yan Yan, Class 5, Senior 1, Shenzhen Xin’an Middle School Instructed by Tang Ying We try to make our life colorful. Nevertheless, we can’t be successful all the time because of the complexity of life. But no matter how hard our present life is, we shouldn’t miss any happiness in life. Life is a journey, and we should enjoy any happiness that occurs in the process, instead of leaving it to the end. For me, when I answer a question in class, even though my voice may be soft and can’t be heard by the teacher, I feel a sense of accomplishment. Last week, my oral English teacher Tang Ying wanted to find someone to write a composition. However, my excellent classmates were too shy to accept this task, and most of them even ran away. What a pity! I immediately joined the conversation and convinced my classmates that they could be the top students who can write good articles. Even if only one person added the teacher’s QQ, willing to finally write an article, it made me happy. These trivial things are valuable because we do them to help us enjoy our life. Secondly, people’s happiness is mostly determined by themselves. Therefore, it is extremely essential for us to have a positive attitude and keep a strong heart. Life has ups and downs, I always encounter things that are not satisfactory, such as failing an exam and falling out with my classmates. For example, recently, our school held a debate contest. Half of the classes were eliminated in each round. I’m honored to be the third debater of our class team. For the first debate, our argument was that “Learning needs more independent thinking” while our rivals’ was “Learning needs more group communication.” We actively discussed, formed a lot of useful points and invested most of our free time. Enjoying the process of debate, we won the game and the respect of our opponents. After winning several debates continuously, we were defeated in the semifinal, and we were a bit disappointed for the moment. We were well prepared for the first debate, but gradually we paid more and more attention to winning and losing, which greatly lowered our interest so that we were too nervous and timid to have a good debate. After the competition, a teammate earnestly said, “Why are we happy with the wins and sad about the loss? When time was urgent, we didn’t have time to celebrate the hard-won victory. Now we have time, but we feel disappointed because of the loss.” The happiness of life is never determined by what has happened, but by our state of mind. | 