谢振礼 托福范文: 人乐己乐
TOEFL Independent Writing
Topic:
Do you agree or disagree with the following statement?
In order to make ourselves happy, we should learn how to make others happy first.
(Similar topic: the best way to achieve happiness is to make other people happy.)
Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
Essay:
By helping other people to be happy, we can learn to be happy ourselves. We should learn that it is not only necessary for us to be happy but also necessary for others to be happy. The feeling being mutual, we give what we want to receive; so, if we want happiness, then make others happy.
The purpose of life is that of making others happy when making ourselves happy. If we make people happy, we ourselves would feel happy too. Happiness being contagious, if we can always remember to offer happiness to others, then we will really be able to make both ourselves and other people happy. Usually, we are concerned with how to make ourselves happy, but ironically one of the simplest ways to gain satisfaction and fulfillment is to help others become happier. Nevertheless, to say that we can find happiness in making others happy does not mean that we should not see our own happiness as a priority. It is important to cheer ourselves up; and it is important to cheer other people up.
Maybe our being happy is as simple as our not being happy, and that depends on what sorts of help or harm we might give to other people. Either we could be pros or we could be cons to other people’s happiness because we have the power to do this or that. For example, we could give joy or gloom; love or hate; harmony or bitterness; optimism or pessimism; hope or resignation. In real life, helping others to become happy is a rewarding virtue while harming others is a moral crime for getting comfort from other people’s misfortunes. Chances are that those who do not want to make others happy would not achieve real happiness; and, in the end, they are unhappy with everything. This being the case, they could not give anything else but unhappiness to others. To be truly happy, we must not only think of how to help ourselves but also how to help others.
Literally speaking, making others happy is making ourselves happy. The more we can make others happy, the happier we may become. In terms of the levels of happiness, we actually rise by lifting others.
