The main things in my life that have made me happy are school, friends and my family. These components of my life have made such a positive impact because of their continuous ways of making me happy. Firstly, I think school has made me an overall happy person because of all of the people that I have been able to meet. School is one of those components in my life that serve as a reminder of how fortunate I really am. Secondly, I have made a few friends throughout my life that have gone out of their way to help me when I need it. They have been a consistent source of happiness as they serve as a comfort zone to express my extreme emotions when I need to. Whenever I fail at something, feel insecure, or need to rant, friends have always been there in my weakest and frustrating times that have helped me become more of a happy person. Lastly, my family has raised me into the happy individual that I am today. I would not be writing this essay if it was not for them. Having my family around has made me an overall happy person because it has created a strong pursuit of happiness to show my family that they have done a great job in raising the person that I am. Significantly, these pursuits of happiness have led me to obtaining various sources of happiness that have shaped my personal view on the world making me the happy person that I am today. Ultimately, going to school, having great friends, and living with a strong family, has increased my baseline of happiness as it has taught me so much about life and how fortunate to have the life that I live.

Something that I have learned about myself is that I am very sociable with people and I think that from being sociable, I have allowed myself to add more meaning to my life. Hanging out with people like at the beach or at the movies is something that I have valued from a young age. Furthermore, I think that I have changed my perspective on life a couple of times because of the stories that I have been able to learn from with many different people. I enjoy viewing other peoples perspective on the world and collectively have found people interesting in their own way. I think its very interesting how people act in different ways and are unique. Additionally, I took a psychology class at my community college and have learned about the baseline of happiness in that class. The idea of baseline happiness is that after you have a feeling of contentment and that it does not tend to last that long when you receive something but if you have a higher baseline of happiness, that feeling of contentment tends to last a little longer. I remember my professor telling me that the way to increase your baseline of happiness is by hanging out with your friends or family or people that you value in your life. Ultimately, this component of myself has allowed me to learn about different perspectives while staying happy.

If I had the opportunity to share a sentence with the world it would be ¨Don't let age define your youth.¨ I would share this sentence with the world because I personally feel like you can still be ¨young¨ despite how old you are. It's the idea that someone may be this old by age but still has a youthful spirit. I feel that a lot of the time we may feel that since we are older we cannot have fun when I strongly believe that is not the case. I do think that age can influence how mature someone is, but I do not think it should not prevent someone from having fun or being active. I think this sentence serves as a reminder that it's never too late to be active despite your age. Additionally, I think it also serves as a reminder that life is what you make it and that your age should not be something that influences it. Ultimately, living by this sentence allows someone to add value to their life at any age.

When in public, I try to act like a nice person since I tend to be very sociable around people. I think that growing up I have learned how to be nice to others because of my upbringing with my family. I think that I have always reminded of the golden phrase ¨treat others the way you want to be treated¨ Growing up in Hawaii, I´ve always heard the word ¨aloha¨ which has many different meanings and one of them is ¨love and fellowship¨ this sense of having a word that means kindness has led me to valuing the kindness that I receive from others. Significantly, this has created a norm of treating others with kindness which allows people to be more positive and cooperative towards one another. Ultimately, having this positive social stigma of a place where respect and aloha become a standard has led me to be more kind to others in my community.

Throughout my years of high school, I think my favorite way of helping others would be helping other students with their assignments and working collaboratively on group projects. Personally, I think I have an inclination to help others with their work because I feel that I have had many times in the past when I did not understand the content. It definitely felt like a situation where I was stuck and was not able to be productive in my work. My efforts in helping others are to try to decrease that feeling of being stuck so that they’re able to be more productive in class and are not behind. Significantly, by helping others with their work, I am able to check my own work and practice my collaborative and communicative skills. Furthermore, I see helping others with assignments as an opportunity for me to connect and bond more with my classmates, it's also that special feeling of contentment that is obtained after successfully helping someone have a better understanding of the lesson. Ultimately, helping others with their homework has allowed me to check my own understanding in the class as well as to connect and bond with my classmates.

From all of the challenges that I have with school and work, I think that I have put a great amount of effort into taking care of my mental health. I have to admit, there were many times when I felt that I was overworking myself with different commitments. While this was happening, I saw others actually relieving stress and balancing out life and work while being productive in different parts of their lives. When I saw this, I thought ¨Why don't I try putting more effort into balancing out my life so that I can relieve some stress.” The first step I took was to find out what really made me happy and then set aside time when for it when I could. By doing this I would be able to work in a productive manner while relieving the stress and tension which was a byproduct of my productivity. I realized that I really enjoyed spending my time with my friends and family. I enjoy talking about what others are interested in and the future goals that they have whether that be long-term or short-term. I think that I am a person who tends to make the most out of the small nuances with people such as complimenting others or cracking jokes that I still laugh at today. That is why spending time with friends and family is such an important aspect of life that I truly value. Significantly, this source of happiness has led me to make great use of my class periods so that I have more time to spend with my family and friends. Ultimately, making use of this positive habit has led me to manage my time well while relaxing and caring for my mental health by spending time with others.

Right now, I have a small bucket list. Some of the things on my bucket list are to; visit a location out of state, visit a location out of the country, explore underwater through a submarine, graduate high school, go to college, eat a bug, go to Disneyland, and last but not least go bungee jumping. So far on my bucket list, I have already completed four items; I’ve visited various states such as Nevada, Virginia, Hawaii, and New York. Secondly, I have visited my family in the Philippines which is a location that is out of the country. In the terms of graduating high school, I have maintained a 4.0 GPA and have continued to study for my school exams when needed. When talking about college, I have already committed to the University of Oregon and have completed my housing registration. I am definitely looking forward to finding some roommates next month. In the terms of eating a bug, I have eaten a bug in class when our Spanish teacher offered us different bugs to eat during my sophomore year. Lastly, in the terms of going to Disneyland, I was able to do that a while back with my cousins when I was in my middle school years. Ultimately, I have completed a few items on my backlist, but I am looking forward to doing more of these. I am definitely looking forward to eating more bugs, traveling in and out of the country, and graduating high school. Life has given me so much to work with it that I cannot take anything for granted. With that being said I look forward to overachieving on my bucket list.

I would want my legacy to be something that motivates people in the community to collaborate and communicate with one another more often. While growing up, I think that I’ve been strongly influenced by my community to have respect for those who are older than me and to also give back to them when I am able to. This has led me to involve myself in different community service projects such as participating in beach clean-ups as well as assisting with vaccination clinics at my community college. By involving myself in my community I always have this internal feeling of contentment that I have given back to my community when I was available and that's something that I want everyone to experience. With that being said, I would want my legacy to be strongly involved with the community. I want my high spirits to be left behind to inspire others on serving their community with the intention on paying them back for what the community has given them.

One great example of personal mentorship would be helping other students with their homework. During my years of schooling, I think I have had many occasions where I have gone out of my way to help my fellow classmates with their homework. Significantly, setting some time aside to help others has earned me the award for student of the month for the word “Aloha” which is a word that is used many times for greeting one another. From this type of mentorship, I hope students who have similar values that I do are impacted in a way that motivates them to help others in any way that they can. Since I had the opportunity to set some time aside and help others I hope that they keep this moment of me helping them in their minds when they have the opportunity to help someone. Ultimately, I hope this type of mentorship will motivate others to slightly change their mindset when it comes to sacrificing a bit of their time to help others in order to create a significant ripple of people continuing to help others.

My life so far has been such a rollercoaster. I had just finished my AP exams this week and am in the middle of preparing for graduation. With all the chaos that has been going on, I have put some effort into setting some time aside to spend time with both my family and friends. I have to admit in the beginning it was a bit challenging as I had just gotten over a cold, but now that my AP exams are finished, I am able to relax more with my friends and family. I know that I should relax a bit more since graduation is really close but I had promised myself to finish strong towards the very end to ensure that I will take my personal time during my summer break to relax and relieve my stress. These crazy moments have shaped my hopes for the future because it has motivated me to set aside time for different parts of my life such as spending time with family and friends and walking my dog which is what I am anticipating after this school year ends.