How 'Life Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness' Defined My Life

FIRST PERSON | "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" is one of the defining phrases of my life. I heard this phrase as a young child in school growing up and learning about the founding fathers, but never really tried to understand what that truly meant. It took me until I turned 16 to really contemplate what those words mean.

I was going through a rough patch in my life. Even as a young man, my higher intelligence insured that I would be the nerd instead of the jock, and wouldn't have the ladies and all of the friends. I felt as if my life was a mediocre existence. I was successful in school but had no happiness in life. I felt like a slave to society's perception of what my future would be. Graduate high school, go to college, become a doctor or a lawyer. I felt like I had no control of my life.

I took Advanced Placement U.S. History my junior year of high school. Thinking, "Well I have to do this so I get college credit," I didn't think twice, but just dove into my studies and tried my best to do well. Of course, in the beginning of the class, we began to study the French and Indian War, and went into the pre-Revolutionary War period. Growing up, we all learned about taxation without representation, and about the Declaration of Independence. Before that class, it was all just points in history with no significant meaning to me.

But the more I learned about the events that lead up to the war, what took place during the war, and what the colonists were subjected to under British rule, I discovered what it meant for the founders to sign the Declaration of Independence. They would have been executed for treason had the British won. But they were willing to die for the notion that they could live as free men, deciding their own destiny for themselves.

"We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among these the pursuit of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." After learning the events that led up to the signing of the Declaration of Independence, learning that men would have gladly given their lives, and did give their lives, in the pursuit of their own life and happiness, all of my problems seemed unimportant. I did graduate, and went to college, but I made who I am, not someone else, and have decided my own destiny, making my own happiness. These words echo true to me now as they did then.