Good Life Award - Winners
2006
Good Life Award Writing Contest
Top Winner
Michael Jacobs
7th Grade, Watts Middle School
| "Live Life to the Fullest" Do you want to know the secret for a fun and happy life? A grand lady named Dottie Yeck believed that being good and doing good give a person a fun and happy life; and I believe that she was one hundred percent right! To me, being good means doing what I’m told and not doing anything wrong. Doing good means volunteering and giving up my time to help people. To be happy people need to feel useful. When they are busy doing positive activities and helping others, life is fun! It’s not always easy to be good. When I’m at home with my brothers, I try not to fight with them. However, when one of my brothers is insulting me, I sometimes want to hit him. But I don’t; instead, I make myself walk away from the conflict. I’m proud of myself when I don’t give in to my temper. As teens, we sometimes need our parents’ help to behave. For instance, I knew I needed to work on my speech for my Bar Mitzvah, but I kept putting it off. Finally, my mother forced me to write it by putting me in a room with her and typing as I talked. In the future, I would like to be good without someone forcing me. To do good, we need to try to help people. For example, once I volunteered at Good Neighbor House, a facility that provides affordable medical care to people without insurance. For several hours I put stickers on pamphlets. This job may not seem very important, but those stickers had the new phone number of Good Neighbor House. The patients who went there needed to know it in case they got sick. Another time I volunteered at Mammoth Cave, by clearing debris out of a cave. This helped the environment and I enjoyed meeting and working with many interesting new people. The people we know can also use our help. Sometimes I grade papers for a teacher, set the table for my family, or listen to my friends’ problems. Both being good and doing good make people’s life happy and fun. I like being useful to society. When I can know that what I am doing makes a difference, that means everything in the world to me. People feel overjoyed when they know that they have changed someone’s life for the better. Dottie Yeck was a smart lady! She knew how to live a good life. In my own life I try to be good by doing what I know is right, by volunteering and helping others, and by living fully and appreciating every day. Now you know the recipe for my successful life. Can you think of a way for yourself to live not only a good life but a great one? |