In this work-and-spend world, "happiness" is simply a marketing gimmick.
We're taught that we "should" enjoy this and we "shouldn't" enjoy that. That drinking sharpens your social skills and helps you pick up the girls, that doing drugs is bad (but fun), that sex is a need and a requirement and basically the only consolation to our lonely, dreary mortality.
The cultural message today is that stuff will make us happy, and that in turn, happiness is what we want; that status gives us power, and that power is what we want; and overall, that what "everyone else" finds pleasurable and motivating is what YOU should find pleasureable and motivating. But as long as we all are individuals - with individual hopes, fears, beliefs and dreams - this message is entirely false.
We may strive for ideals that are infinite and undefined; joy, love, recognition, intimacy, companionship, peace, spiritual harmony, intellectual fulfillment, and something like Maslow's "self-actualization". Not all of us define or prioritize these ideals in the same way, and life is a journey which may not allow us to realize each of them.
Follow what you believe and don't be swayed by what "everyone else" thinks you should do, say, or enjoy. Forcing yourself to conform will only cause anger, unhappiness, and cognitive dissonance. Don't waste time ruminating on past failures and potential problems. Act in harmony with your values, with consideration for others, and - in everything - respect all life.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment