(June 19, 2006) — As the school year nears its end, the one thing that lingers on every student’s mind is the thought of summer. Summer: a time for pool parties, barbeques and trips out of town. The only thing holding students back are the last few weeks of school fi lled with tedious projects, endless assignments and the dreaded fi nals. As I listen to the seniors complain about senior projects, colleges and so on, I cannot help but contrast this with Henry David Thoreau’s belief that the key to happiness is through a more simplifi ed lifestyle, as expressed in more detail in his book entitled Walden. Many students from the junior class have recently completed reading this book and complain about its uselessness in the curriculum and their inability to relate the book to life. In Walden, Thoreau heads into the woods and experiments with a more simplifi ed way of living. He conveys that there is more happiness in having very little than in having too much, a topic often considered boring. As a result, tudents do not understand the true meaning behind Thoreau’s beliefs due to its rather boring nature. They fail to realize his true genius and instead take his experiment in the woods too literally. Because they are bombarded by the wave of books on the syllabus, Thoreau’s Walden is just another requirement for another grade. Teenagers nowadays live such fast paced lives that they no longer have the time to appreciate the little things. They are always too busy doing homework or cramming their brains with information the day before a test. When they aren’t studying, their time is consumed by the media. They watch the hottest celebrities on T.V. and head to the mall to get a taste of the latest trends in Hollywood. But do these things really make one happy? We live in such a materialistic society that people just live by the latest trends and lose their true identity. People are judged based on the clothes they wear and the cars they drive. This is true for anyone, no matter what grade you are in, because people overlook what’s on the inside of a person and only focus on outside appearances. Thoreau fi rmly goes against this tendency. When was the last time you took a day off for yourself and went to a park to just sit and think? Sometimes we need to pause, step back and get away from it all, like Thoreau suggests. This doesn’t mean Thoreau is telling us all to join Greenpeace, frolic in the forest or hug trees; rather he advises us to appreciate all that we have around us, and not be so caught up in the hectic lives we lead.