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Joel Sawyer
Professor Jizi
UWRT 1102-010
January 19, 2016

What Happiness Means to Me

To define happiness seems so simple, although my definition will vary
drastically to what someone else might think. I took some time to think long
and hard about it. I could think of a million and one things that make me
happy, but I focused on the things that genuinely make me happy.
I guess it all started when I was a child, my father was a collector of old
cars when I was growing up. He was a successful business man and one of
his hobbies was restoring old cars. I got to work around all of them. and Hhe
would take me out on rides and he would squeal the tires racing off down the
road. I remember how happy it all made me and how I looked forward to
being around the cars. Nowadays itsits not so much the old cars that make
me happy or even working on them, but its the pure experience of driving
that put a huge grin on my face. Thinking about belting down a back country
road or around a track pushing the car and myself to the limit is pure
happiness to me. The adrenaline rush that I get from it is something that I
cannot get enough of. Now I know that seems like risky behavior to define
happiness but thats not the only thing to make me happy. Sometimes its
more than an exciting adventure sometimes it can be someone who makes
you happy.

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You should take into account the people in your life, and the
experiences that you can have with them. My beautiful wife makes me so
mad at times, but she also can makes me happy. I think that I can say that I
am happiest when we are together. We do not even have to be doing
anything, but be sitting around and watching a television program that we
both enjoy. Words may never be exchanged just sitting being happy in one
anothers presence. Dont think for a second that we dont talk though.
Remember the driving thing that I was talking about before, well we like to
take a lot of road trips when we travel and in the car we discuss everything.
From life and our future in it, to religion and the views of the world through
different cultures. We push our thought processes on different topics and I
get so involved into what we talk about I usually have a big smilele knowing
that I am authentically happy. Our talks about where we would like to go
someday and where we have been in our lives are some of the best.
Traveling and the thought of traveling makes me overjoyed. My family
growing up got to go on many trips around the USA and Canada. I liked to
explore different cultures of where ever it was we went on our trips. So
looking forward in my life I plan to do much more traveling to places across
the pond, as some may say, and get to see England and much of the other
European countries. I get an excited feeling when I think about planning a
trip somewhere and it is even better now that I have my wife to share it
with.. Compile all those things and I believe you can get a pretty good idea of
what makes me happy.

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Thats another definition of happiness to me.
Just because I used these three examples doesnt mean that they are
the only things that define happiness. I challenge anyone to truly look inside
yourself and remember those moments in life were you were genuinely
happy. Those are your defining moments, those are where your happiness
lies.

Peer Review~UWRT
1) First Step: Identify Your Concerns
Write down 3-5 concerns you have about your paper. (Complete and bring to peer review
session.)
I hope that it is written clearly and you dont get confused.
Are there any gaps in my stories that I should fill in.
Do I give enough detail to get my point across.

2) 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?
Maybe go more in detail about what true happiness is and more into the meaning of
happiness.
b. What does this writer do particularly well that you would like to add to your own writing
repertoire? When he was telling me about what made him happy, I started feeling happy. I could
see the joy through his writing. Im not sure if my writing has that same feel when people read it.
c. Where in the text do you, as the reader, get confused? Point these out to the writer.

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I dont get confused at any point. You were very clear throughout the whole essay.
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.
I challenge anyone to truly look inside yourself and remember those moments in life
were you were genuinely happy. This is a good line for this essay because self-evaluation is the
first step to determining what makes you happy.
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

THREE STEP RESPONSE

1. Velcro Words and Phrases

The things that make me feel like a child again.

Pure experience of driving that put a grin on my face.
Words may never be exchanged just sitting happy in each
others presence.

2. Feelings

Loving
Inspired
cheered

3. Questions
What are some more things that make you feel like a child again?
It matches the first two very well. You explain to us what makes you
happy in the three body paragraphs. You state in the first paragraph that
your happiness may be found in other places from the average person which
is comparing yourself to others. The third one isnt displayed as much I dont
feel like. I expected to find something deep about what happiness meant to
you not just the things that made you happy.
Reviewed By Lucas Hall
Peer Review~UWRT
2) First Step: Identify Your Concerns
Write down 3-5 concerns you have about your paper. (Complete and bring to peer review
session.)
I hope that it is written clearly and you dont get confused.
Are there any gaps in my stories that I should fill in.

Do I give enough detail to get my point across.

The paper is written very clearly and it is easy to understand. Everything that makes you happy
is stated clearly but you could maybe include more in the traveling paragraph. I think it would be
good to include a family trip, be it with your wife or when you were younger, that you remember
a lot about.

2) Peer Review Questions: (Use during peer review session when responding to your
classmates papers, include answers in a summary endnote.)
f.

Where can the text benefit from further detail or explanation? Where does it need less?
Everything is detailed well but like I said earlier you could possibly put in a favorite trip, if
you think it will fit in.
g. What does this writer do particularly well that you would like to add to your own writing
repertoire?
At one point you explain how traveling makes you happy and how you look forward to
travel in the future. I think I could reflect more on what I want to do in my future.
h. Where in the text do you, as the reader, get confused? Point these out to the writer.
I dont get confused, good job on organization.
i. 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 paragraph with your wife is easy to relate to. Even though I dont have a wife I can
see the happiness when I read that paragraph.
j. 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

1) The personal presence is displayed in the second paragraph

when you talk about your dad and how driving makes you
happy.
2) The engagement between self and world is displayed
throughout the whole paper. You talk about things that are
important in your world and how they make you happy.
3) The self-exploration is a little hard to find. An easier way to
make the self-exploration stand out is to explore new things
that make you happy, if you have any.
REVIEWED BY: AUSTIN POETHREE STEP RESPONSE

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Velcro Words and Phrases
The things that make me feel like a child again.
Pure experience of driving that put a grin on my face.
Words may never be exchanged just sitting happy in each others
presence.
Feelings
Loving
Inspired
cheered
Questions
What are some more things that make you feel like a child again?

I think that getting a lot of the feedback could have been beneficial
had my reviews been more experienced. I did take into account one thing
that both of them mentioned though. I added some information about one of
the trips that I got to take even though I do not think that it truly added to
the paper. Even though I dont typically like the idea of anyone reading my
work it was nice to get outside feedback.
Reviewing the other two papers proved to be much more challenging
than I thought. I couldnt really find a lot that I think they needed to improve
on. For one of the papers I just advised them to go into a little more detail
regarding the things that he and his friend did. On the other paper I noticed
how he did a good job in challenging me as the reader to think about how I
think of happiness. I do believe that they both could have been more
prepared because they did not have the top part filled out. Therefore I

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couldnt have any idea what they were looking for me to do in reviewing
their paper. Over all though I think it was a great exercise.