<p>Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below.</p>
<p>We are often reminded that acquiring and owning material possessionsmoney, property, jewelry, even clothingwill not lead to true happiness. While it is certainly true that material possessions alone cannot bring happiness or provide us with genuine meaning in life, there is something to be said for having material possessions. Not only can they make us comfortable, but the happiness they can provide, while it may be momentary, is still happiness.</p>
<p>Assignment: Do material possessions make us truly happy? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.</p>
<pre><code> In no way do material possesions hold a one-hundred percent guarantee of making any person happy. I know this from a close relationship I have with my cousin, Maya. Despite recieving anything she could ever want, she is a girl who honestly feels hollow inside.
When Maya's mother found out she was pregnant, she was overjoyed. Being a 45-year-old woman, she had lost hope in ever building up the family of her dreams. Maya was invited into the world with designer booties and gourmet baby food. Her Christmases and birthdays built up fortresses of boxes in shiny wrapping paper.
Here's the kicker. Maya was diagnosed with clinical depression at the age of fourteen. When my mother told me about this, I was not surprised. Maya and I were close friends and spoke frequently. She told me that she knew her mother gave her everything, but she no longer felt the same joy in having all of the gifts she asked for.
She felt she did not deserve any of it. When she realized that she did nothing to receive everything she did, Maya felt worthless. She would constantly feel her self-esteem drop with every new present her mother presented. Seeing everything she had would only make her feel worse.
Maya received professional help and is doing much better. However, she taught me an important lesson. Material possesions are nice, but when we know that they are not truly ours, they can make us feel worse than we had ever imagined.
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