12/7/2012
Name: Lê Thị Thuỳ Trang
Topic: Discuss the reason why people define happiness differently and how to obtain happiness.
Task:
Nowadays, living in a comfortable age, everybody is fully aware of defining his own happiness and how to get it. Undoubtedly/Unarguably, it is interesting to find that people take different stances towards the abstract concept of happiness and the ways to obtain it. As far as I can tell, the perception of happiness varies from one to another due to several aspects of life. Therefore, at different life stages, one will have different ways to realize his ambitions
People are likely to have different objectives to pursue in their lifetime and it is obvious that their perception of happiness will change according to their age. To illustrate my point, owning/possessing an awful lot of doll models is, for sure, a truly lovely dream of a little girl. But when she becomes a youngster, hardly does she want to keep this hobby of collecting dolls. Instead, she would rather follow the latest trends of fashion or hair styles that she regards as her new aims which are so-called happiness. However, in some years to come, after getting married, she probably just longs for a decent job with high /well-paid salary to support life but nothing more. Interestingly, maybe at that time, she would take her childish hobbies into consideration as a wasteful expenditure of time and money. In short, with age, one’s attitude towards the nature of happiness is subject to change.
Another fact to note is that people with different aims commonly will not have the same methods to make their dreams come true. Take one example of the value of money, it is clearly seen that each person has his own views towards money. To clarify, someone just has one big dream that is to possess a big monetary treasure, accordingly, he spends his lifetime making as much money as possible, even willingly sacrificing everything in his pursuit of wealth. By comparison, money can at times mean little to someone else because he values his family, relatives and friends as top priority. This also accounts for the reason why people react dissimilarly to some events, situations such as marriage, lottery winnings, philanthropy, to name but a few, as well as bad luck, disasters, for example, divorce, accidents, conflicts and so forth.
From the above-mentioned discussion, one realizes that people are to have different concept of happiness in accordance with their age. One significant factor which matters is that he should evaluate his dreams whether they are practical or not. Setting attainable objectives is extremely important, otherwise, high expectations will bring nothing but high levels of stress and a sense of powerlessness/ disappointment, which is also the determining factor to happiness in life.
TOEFL listening discussions: What will the student try to do with his next essay?