By: Brooke Byrne, Lion’s Eye Staff Editor, bzb5183@psu.edu

On Wednesday March 18, students were treated to the happiest 50 minutes of their day when Matt Glowacki spoke during Penn State Brandywine’s Happiness Week.
Throughout his presentation about “doing happiness,” Glowacki taught students about communicating with people they love, gave tips on how to increase happiness, and explained how every person’s own perception of the outside world plays an important role in how happy we all are.
One of Glowacki’s biggest points of the day was that our happiness is all about the way that we view events that happen. One way to do this, he said, was to change the channel of our minds. He showed us the importance of this by playing a movie montage in which clips from well-known films were taken out of context to reveal a more uplifting message. Looking at things in this way takes practice and an open mind. “The people in your life who are the least happy are the ones who are most sure,” Glowacki said. He explained that this means the people who close their mind and anticipate that a week will be bad or a class will be disappointing are usually proven right.
This sort of thinking not only affects ourselves, but also everyone we come into contact with throughout the day. Glowacki gave tips on things we can all do to have our happy thoughts make others happy too. For example, he said that people who call us can hear us smiling over the phone, so by smiling when we record our voicemail outgoing message, we can reach a variety of people in a simple way. Smiling is an easy way to show people you’re happy and having a good life.
Darryl Thomas, a student who attended the Doing Happiness event, enjoyed hearing about Glowacki’s own life and some of the obstacles that he has faced. “I liked when Matt shared his story with us and seeing him smile while he talked about everything,” Thomas said.
Thomas and other students in attendance not only got to play with bubbles and eat free food, but some also even got to participate and win prizes during several portions of this happy event. Some of this included a demonstration on the importance of a six second hug, a lesson on how to correctly eat a piece of chocolate and a little game of Let’s Make a Deal.
The Doing Happiness event was a fun addition to our campus’ Happiness Week. Enthusiastic attendees and a passionately animated speaker created a memorable afternoon that sparked a desire at Penn State Brandywine to spread happiness around to all whom we encounter.