✅ THEME 1: Inner Transformation, Happiness & Mental
Resilience
Core Idea: Essays focusing on internal states like happiness, joy, gratitude, wantlessness, and resilience.
Past Prompts:
There is no path to happiness, Happiness is the path (2024)
Joy is the simplest form of gratitude (2017)
Courage to accept and dedication to improve are two keys to success (2019)
Philosophy of wantlessness is Utopian, while materialism is a chimera (2021)
Mindful manifesto is the catalyst to a tranquil self (2020)
Adjusted Universal Introduction – 1
On a cold winter morning in 1944, a prisoner in Auschwitz gave away his last piece of bread to a fellow
inmate. That man would die within days. But another prisoner watching this act—an Austrian psychiatrist
named Viktor Frankl—realized something profound: even in the bleakest suffering, human beings can choose
to find meaning.
Frankl, who would later survive the Holocaust and write Man’s Search for Meaning, argued that life’s purpose
is not comfort, but the ability to endure with purpose. For centuries, we’ve chased happiness as a destination—
something to acquire, preserve, or protect. But the deeper truth may lie not in the absence of pain, but in how
we respond to it. Whether it’s the silent strength of a mother enduring loss, the quiet resilience of a student
who fails and tries again, or the monk who smiles without possessions—inner transformation begins not when
life is easy, but when we choose to grow despite it.
Conclusion for Sample Intro 1 (Viktor Frankl / Auschwitz)
In the end, the greatest act of resilience is not the denial of suffering, but the decision to find meaning within
it. Viktor Frankl emerged from a death camp not hardened, but humanised—because he saw that man is
capable of transcending circumstance through purpose.
Whether in the silent endurance of a teacher, the strength of a grieving parent, or the hope of a prisoner sharing
bread, the path to inner transformation lies not in avoiding pain, but in walking through it with dignity. It is
this choice—to grow in adversity—that makes happiness not a destination, but a way of being.
Sample Intro 2: Indian Analogy + Philosophical Lens
In the Mahabharata, Yudhishthira is asked by the Yaksha: “What is the greatest wonder of the world?” He
replies, “Day after day, countless beings die, yet the living believe they will live forever.” Behind this answer
lies a deeper truth—not just about mortality, but about our fragile understanding of life’s meaning.
We spend our lives preparing for external battles—exams, careers, relationships—yet often neglect the inner
landscape where resilience, joy, and contentment are forged. True transformation does not come in moments
of success, but in how we carry our wounds. Whether in ancient texts or modern psychology, the journey
within remains the most challenging—and the most necessary.
Conclusion for Sample Intro 2 (Mahabharata / Yudhishthira)
Yudhishthira’s answer to the Yaksha was more than cleverness—it was wisdom born of reflection. To live
with the awareness of suffering, yet not be paralysed by it, is the root of strength.
Our times may not test us with mythical wars, but with quiet crises—stress, failure, loss of purpose. In each
of these, we are called not to conquer the world, but to master the self. Meaning is not given; it is made. And
in that act of creation—in choosing to find light where there is none—lies the essence of inner resilience.
