Essay about "Is childhood the happiest time in a person's life?"

TOEFL pratice essay. Hope it isn't very incoherent.

Life is a neverending journey towards happiness. As people grow up and become adults, they often cherish the times when they were little children as the happiest of their lives, when they had no worries and almost no responsibilities. But is it really true that we will never be as happy as we were during our childhood? I think every person can be as happy during his or her life, if he or she chooses to.

Happiness is a matter of choice, its a way of approaching life in a positive way. It means learning to be grateful for who you are and what you have. It is evident every single human being will go through harsh times, no matter how decided he is on being happy, but his choice can indeed help him approach such times in a better way. Following this definition of happiness, one can choose to be as happy or even happier than he was during his childhood, assuming he was a happy kid.

Regarding chilhood happiness, I believe human beings tend always to think that past times were better, and this fact affects the way we see our childhood. We now think that problems and dissapointments such as not getting an expected toy as a Christmas present or not being able to play a little more in the playground are quite silly, but if you think about it, it means a lot to a little kid. It is only our current perspective that allows us to believe we as kids didn't care so much about it, but maybe we did.

Other dubious assumption one tends to make is that every person had a happy childhood. Maybe many of us had a blessed childhood, with at least a mother or a father, or any kind of relative who loved, cared and nurtured us when we were kids. But this is not the common situations. Many kids go through very harsh childhoods, due to various factors, for example living in the streets, suffering from hunger and lacking a place to sleep at night. Others could live in a dismembered or disfunctional family, or even they could have been abused.

In conclusion, even though childhood may have been a very happy time during a person's life, it doesn't mean one cannot expect to live the rest of his life as happy as he was. It is a matter of choice, which means that, regardless of how harsh or happy his childhood was, any person can long to be happier every day.