Happiness, Love, Freedom and Money

If you would rank Happiness, Love, Freedom and Money in order of importance, how would your list look like?

A warm up Gaby and I made for our D morning class, twelve wonderful 17, 18 year old girls and boys who everyday arrive what a huge smile on their faces and high ambitions. Students who every day has the courage to talk a little bit more, realizing that a mistake is not the end of the world, what matters is if you talk and try. 

We did this exercise during my first week, however it is still one of my favorite ones. 
As soon as we announced the assignment and wrote these slightly powerful words on the whiteboard, their brains immediately started processing. Everyone got quiet and just started to write. And write. I had already made my list in my head, prepared to answer if the class really wanted to.

I made it clear that there are definitely no incorrect nor correct answers to this task, what is important is simply your opinion. After a while their pencils stopped moving and their concentrated faces had turned to smiles of satisfaction. 

Surprisingly everyone was willing to read their lists out loud. The beauty of this assignment was all of the mixed answers. Coming directly from each and every one of their hearts, moreover the honesty to a school assignment was for me something unusual.

 - I would have picked Love, Happiness, Freedom and last Money. Because I believe as long as you have love you will have everything else. Because when you have love you smile and when you smile you feel free, and then the money will come to you.

-I would choose Money, Happiness, Love and Freedom. Because if you have money I know that you would be very happy and love will come to you if you have money and happiness. And also if you have money I think you will be free.

 The variety of answers of these four statements were remarkable. Every student twisted and turned this task and made it into their own.  

I was honestly amazed by their descriptions and I could really comprehend with every single one of them, in their own way. Everyone had an opinion and declared it surprisingly well, that it made me think twice about my own theories.

How about you then teacher?

Well, my list would probably look like this

Happiness
Freedom
Love
Money
  

I believe happiness is the foundation of life. I you are happy, life is a blast.
 Freedom is essential for me, to have the ability to do what your heart desires and what your tummy tells you to.
Love, love is everywhere and love keeps us alive. But then again, in order become alive in the first place, you need both happiness and freedom.
  Money. Money is important in lots of cases, however, I don’t believe you can buy pure Happiness, freedom or love with pieces of paper. On the other hand you can buy possessions which might help you reach what you desire.    

Some nodded,and agreed, and some didn't,  however we all knew that today we all got straight A’s.

Sunset at Gili T this weekend