Students say if they wrote a message in a bottle that was to be found 100 years later, they would write a either a meaningful message or one about what current life is like. Just this August, a 108-year-old message in a bottle appeared on the shores in Germany, discovered by Marianne Wrinkler. (telegraph.co.uk)
The bottle was one of the 1,020 bottles that was released into the North Sea by George Parker Bidder as an experiment by the Marine Biological Association to test sea currents from 1904-1906. Inside the bottle were notes telling them to break the bottle and to contact the Marine Biological Association with a promise of a shilling.
BYU–Hawaii students said that they would write a message more meaningful than a promise of a coin.“If I KNEW that 100 years later, they were going to find my message? I would say, ‘Happiness is not a matter of luck,’” said Kryssa Stevenson a sophomore from Utah majoring in TESOL Education.
When asked why, she said, “Because it’s true. I feel a lot of times in our life, we get caught up in thinking we need something to be happy. For example, ‘If I had this, I’d be happy,’ or ‘If I looked like that, I’d be happy.’ But the truth is you can choose to be happy.”
When asked how her words would help those in the future, she answered, “I feel like it’s a universal concept and I don’t know about you, but I get caught up in feeling like I need permission to be happy. It’s like sometimes I feel like there’s a lot of things that make us feel like we’re not allowed to be happy, like tests or homework or whatnot, and I’m sure it’s like that in the future.”
Joseph Yang, a business major freshman from Taiwan answered: “I’d write the story of my life. That’s a song right? But seriously though, I’d definitely write some of my ideas, my values in life, and what I’ve been through. For example, I can imagine if I was a rich man in the future. I am the boss of my own large company. Then one day I went to mediate realizing that the life I’m living is not the one I wanted because all I do is work. I have lost the meaning of life. So I write down my feelings and then throw it in the ocean.”
“It sounds cliché, but I would write something that would make them smile or tell them to smile,” said Penelope Stewart, a freshman from Hong Kong studying TESOL Education. “I was thinking of myself, if I were to pick up a bottle on the beach, written from someone 100 years ago telling me to smile, I guess that would make my day.”
She added, “Also, I would write ‘The Church is true.’”
Yukina Soga, a freshman from Japan studying Hospitality and Tourism Management said she would write her favorite quote in hopes to inspire someone. Her favorite quote is from The Little Prince, “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.”
“Don’t give up because you’ll find a better way,” said Summer Chan, a senior from Hong Kong studying International Cultural Studies.