What makes us happy?
Vera Lennartz:
I think the most important are the people around you and the connection that you have with them. If your together with the right people then it doesn`t matter where you are. So my friends, my family and my boyfriend make me happy. It makes me happy to be outside, to be in the sun, to make sport. It makes me happy to think and learn and to inform myself. Music makes me happy and to dance and to party. The most important for me is the balance. The balance between time together and time alone, activity and relaxing. I think if you find your balance you will find what makes you happy.
Ágnes Illés:
One of the most important thing is the music. It is good to every mood. If I am sad or angry it helps me to relax.
A good conversation with my friends or family members worth more to me than any party. I really like to meet with new people. Sometimes you just met with someone but you feel like you have known this person for a long.
Food always makes me happy. For me eating is a common program with friends. We like to try new tastes, find the best hamburger in the city, the best pizza place, the best icecream etc.
I really like to be in the nature, a bicycle trip, hiking with good company, the beautiful view also makes me happy. I like to travel, discover new places which is different than I used to.
Although every season has its own beauty, but my favorite is summer. On these days everyone is more cheerful and open. The city is full of life.
A good movie also makes me happy which give me something, i feel like I've become more of it, I learned something new about life, the society.
Julian Heyder:
I am really happy everytime I meet my friends.
Edina Szathmári:
My best friends always make me happy, I enjoy every seconds I spend with them, on the other hand I do not have to be with them all the time, but knowing they are to me everytime and this stands the other way around as well, that’s happiness for me. Just watching our dog, Marci, gives me smiles just as many as it gives when I play with him. I also love pancakes, brownies and ice cream, they give me happiness hormones when I eat them. They are my favourites. I would say helping other people, making other people happy make me happy too.
Bertalan Dudás:
What makes me happy? First of all money doesn't makes me happy at all... I remember for the time when i was working for good money and i was able to buy every essential thing for myself, but i didn't spend it on silly things. Nowadays you must have money to live your life in a normal way. I know some of my friends are really chasing the money and it's important for them. There's other type of "non material" people like me, who's chasing dreams and adventures. For me it's more important to meet with people try out new things and to have experience from all around the world. To leave my footmark in different levels of life. I'm open minded, talkative, and easygoing. With this attitude to life easy to be happy and make friends. With more friends, you have more memories. More good memories will makes you more happy and i really hope when I'm gonna be old, i will think about my whole life as a big happy adventure with all my good acts and with all the silly mistakes.
Karolin Rippich
At home in Cologne: Seeing my friends, listening to music, visit concerts and theatre , cooking, travelling
In Serres: And on a bleak day during our time here in Greece I also found (maybe slightly different) things that make me feel happy and are uplifting me. One of them for example is music and another one are books, but there are a lot more things that have the power to enlighten my mood.
The sunshine and the sea are two of the things that can always lighten my mood. Now that the days are getting longer again and that the sun finally starts shining a lot more everyone is able to feel the rise in motivation the sunrays are providing us with. The people are more energized, happy and also active. Feeling a warm breeze and smelling either the salty air of Thessaloniki or the fresh and much cleaner air of the valley in Serres are tickling all senses and sometimes are even able to give one or another volunteer with a fresh view and/or even a new opinion on things.
Receiving letters from my friends is another thing that always puts a smile onto my face. On the one hand, because these letters come with greetings and stories from home which allows me to really imagine the happenings and feelings of the people involved and inform me about what is going on in my hometown. On the other hand it does so, because they are partly from former volunteers that already left to return back home or other people from abroad that can either share their experiences and EVS-related wisdom about similar situations with me or since I get the feeling like they are bringing the world to me to Serres.
I read stories about Kangaroos in Australia and saw pictures from the beaches in Tel Aviv. I learned from experiences from an Estonian friend and I got insights from the work of other volunteers in other parts of Greece. All of this is firstly helping to not lose the connection to these people in an as fast-paced world as ours nowadays as e all truly have to take out time to sit down and put some words to paper. Secondly, it is also giving me assistance in times where I may don’t know what to do.
Moreover, one more way of making me or us happy is planning all the trips we still want to do and places and things we wish to visit during our EVS. Looking for bus timetables and search for accommodations in all these amazing-looking locations is always a mood-lightener.