<p>Prompt 1
Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below.</p>
<p>People use the term "wisdom" to mean many things. They describe someone as wise if that person is intelligent, well-informed, or capable of making good decisions. These descriptions, however, are not really useful in distinguishing wise people from unwise ones. Happiness is a better measure of wisdom: a wise person is a happy person. Even the most intelligent people should not be called wise if they are not happy.</p>
<p>Assignment: Is it best to determine how wise people are by how happy they are? 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>
<p>Essay:</p>
<pre><code> Happiness is not an apparatus for wisdom. Wisdom goes on beyond a person's happiness or sentimental state, in fact ; a Chinese proverb says" Wisdom is not a man's state but rather a man's trait and experience.'' If we were to conclude that wisdom does indeed measure happiness, then we can also say that the world's greatest pioneers and philosophers were rather dull for not being ''happy enough.''
The all known philosopher Rene Descartes suffered from depression and pessimism in his last years. Rene Descartes was the man who evoked human logic and understanding; he was the one who proved human existence as an intellectual being through his famous statement, '' I think, therefore I am.'' Following the argument's cons logic, one would have to say that such wise man who contributed to humanity is not wise, for he lacks the happiness demanded out of him.
It's not ultimately necessary for a wise man to be happy, for the logic behind the notion that ''as one becomes wiser , he becomes happier for he understands more of life.'' is flawed. To substantiate my point, Confucius, china's first philosopher and the man known as china's wisest man, has displayed that that wise understanding of what around us is by mind and not by state. Confucius is the man who put ''ground rules'' for righteous human behavior. For all those who denounce examples of such man for their mere state of sentiment, Confucius once said, '' Wisdom is the stream of the mind and not the heart.''
Last but not least is a leader, a weeping leader, a leader who has wept for his country both as a free man and as an imprisoned man: this man is the South African leader, Nelson Mandela. In the 1900s apartheid has been set by the White government in south africa to ''preserve'' black south african rights, but the blacks knew what it was and they did their best to regains their rights. Nelson Mandela led those people with wisdom and integrity , but he was imprisoned by the White government so that the government would be able to weaken the south african spirit, and thus Nelson Mandela was extremely depressed of the civil war that erupted. Does such depression make the hero that affected the south africans as well as the world an inane person? does it take away all his wisdom? No for Nelson Mandela has said in prison, '' Wisdom does not mean that you always take the positive turn in life it rather means that you know how to deal with life either positively or negatively.''
To wrap it up, I personally believe that one's understanding of life is a nourishment that comes from the mind and not from one's own sentimentality. If we were to proceed by a logic stated above, then we would have defamed and rather discredited great people who shape our world today. After such intruiging argument, do YOU think that the best way to determine how wise people are is by how happy they are?
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<p>Thanks a lot and please I need to know your grade and your opinion below in the comments.</p>