Dear Reader, 

A good life is just a big cup of chai. Each ingredient in the chai plays a role that executes the taste for your liking. Milk creates the foundation, sugar collides with spice that gives meaning to the bitterness, tea gives it a meaning, and love pours it in the cup for you to enjoy it further. The metaphor is different for everyone. I was just too excited to showcase my Bangladeshi background and my understanding of a good life by giving away my secret chai recipe. I hope you can muster up the courage to create your recipe one day that will give you a taste of a good life. 

When I first signed up for this course, I expected to be exhausted with multiple pages of readings and quizzes that are ridiculously long, but my prediction was wrong. Since the very first time I opened the Happiness Hypothesis book,  each chapter has been addictive. I would be lying if I said I did not enjoy this course. Every page of the book was a life lesson and tips to navigate it with a shiny new torch. It was like sitting in front of a therapist who had their advice backed up with researches and facts. This course taught me what is truly important in life- happiness. A good life is a composition of so many little elements that go unnoticed because some of us are just effortlessly living it, but the ingredients are specific to its core. This course has made me look deep into whom I have become. I did not realize where I stood with my religious belief or where my relationship with my parents was leading to, or what career to pick, but I slowly realized that no matter where the current is shifting in this sea of life, it must go on.

I started this ePortfolio with no understanding of what the finishing product would resemble. But as we already know, the journey was more important than the destination. Throughout this course, as I was piecing together the artifacts, I learned that happiness is a product of our perception and continuous effort to be positive. Happiness stems from our curiosity about social life, choosing to be altruistic, dedicating our time to habits and people we love, or by accepting the hard roads and learning from them.  Everything I have done in my life has a trace of happiness and an ingredient of what Haidt would consider a vital part of a good life. 

At first, this ePortfolio project seemed pointless. However, as time progressed, staring at those artifacts made my heart melt. I am living a happy life.  I had the opportunity to reflect on my life. We all go through struggles and situations we are too afraid to give a voice to.  However, reflecting over those little moments and your accomplishments will make you realize that every piece of that is related; it is woven like a story where everything makes sense at the end, and we are so lucky to have this life. I was fortunate enough to reflect on my life with artifacts that are true to my heart. 

So now that you have seen it all, I hope you can take something away from this. Do not hesitate to make yourself a cup of chai. You deserve the taste of it. 

Sincerely, 

Zarin Khan 

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