Honors College Art & Science of Emotions Fall 2017 (1:20 p.m.) Happiness Group Journal | Page 9

The Calendar
The floor of our room is
made of a giant calendar.
Sometimes in life we are so
focused on the future and
maintaining structure that we
forget to actually experience the
world around us. In our artwork,
our person could be walking on
this floor, looking down at the
calendar, making sure that
everything is going according to
plan. By only looking down at the
calendar, the person will be
missing everything that is going on
in front of them. Missing out on
the best parts of life, or even the
small happy events, is a problem
many people have. Appreciating
the little things and living for the
moment would make people so
much happier. One of the most
basic things listed on calendars are
holidays. Holidays have the power
to make people either happy or
sad. Since they’re listed on a
calendar, every time you look at
this calendar and see the holiday,
you’ll start feeling happiness or
sadness. The calendar isn’t directly
making you happy or sad, but it
provokes your mind to start
thinking about holidays coming
up. Without this calendar
reminding you of a holiday, you
wouldn’t have emotions about
that holiday, unless something else
reminded you of it. Calendars are
also only temporary, meaning
that they are only good for one
year. Since calendars are
temporary, and are disposed of at
the end of the year, this can
remind us that our lives are only
temporary as well. In society, this is
especially important. Once you
outlive your ‘usefulness’, society no
longer cares about you. This is
what happens to us as we age.
Once you reach retirement age
and are no longer working, society
declares you expendable. Feeling
unwanted and useless make us
sad. Calendars also directly
represent time. Days get crossed
off and eventually pages get
turned, never to seen again. Time
only moves on direction: forward.
This is something that makes us
sad. The anticipation to an event
marked on a calendar, such as a
birthday party, can be huge. Once
that day is over and we cross the
day off, it doesn’t necessarily
matter anymore since that
moment is over and will never
happen again. The only way that
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