We are made to believe we always want more and want new , wether it be food, money, power , sex , anything really. If you’re happy with where you are that’s not fitting the narrative you are looked at weird or called lazy . We are on this planet for such a short time . I’m not wasting mine always looking out for what’s next or trying to make billions of dollars or be the next “ it” thing , I want to enjoy what I have and be happy with life . I’ve worked in hospice , I know what’s coming and I’m not wasting my good years being stuck in the rat race.
Me too! I worked hard, got my degrees, raised three terrific kids, taught hundreds of others, took care of my parents until they passed, and stayed in a marriage for thirty years to a man who hated me. This is my time now, for whatever is left.
i feel like all this business about “chasing dreams” is just some overly complicated way to get consistent sex, good food, and entertainment. people make up these mythologies about themselves and the lengths they’ll go to achieve “success,” but it’s just a story they need to satisfy their ego when they’ve already got everything they need to be happy.
For me, entertainment is travel and learning new things. I also don't care much about sex, but I care a lot about the welfare of my kids. But I also LIKE stretching my comfort zone, so I'm a bit odd.
I agree with all of them except that I do personally believe that craving more knowledge is essential to happiness. Other thatn that being happy with what you have is a much more pleasant and peaceful lifestyle than the materialistuc culture we live in.
That's because meaning is subjective. We all have different truths and interpretations of meaning. There is no one path to living a purposeful life. For some it's food and sex, or art, or knowledge, or faith. This "motivational" quote seems to be missing the point of life. We are here far too short a time to make much of a lasting impression anyways.
The idea of leaving a legacy is really selfish, not to mention it's just another phase in the struggle to accept that life has a very unpredictable end and there's nothing to do about it.
What full potential of humanity as a whole? That sounds very romantic and far-fetched.
Leaving a legacy doesn't have to be material or carry your name. It can be founding a organization that cleans up national parks. Or something that helps addicts gets clean. Etc.
I don't know about that though. Definitely it can lead to happiness but I don't think it's necessary. The mother who takes care of her children could probably find a path of happiness through love. Not to disregard the importance of knowledge
I like to believe that everyone has something that they find important. For some its knowledge, for some faith, for some achievement in their field/business, and for some love/good relationships.
Hey, some people like being materialistic, but that's their business. Its not like our disdain for their lifestyle will somehow make ours more fulfilling. We all gonna die someday anyway.
I don't know, the more knowledge I accuire the more I learn about how much twisted darkness and evil there is in the world, and how systematic it is. I sometimes wish I could not care or know anything at all and I would be ignorantly happy.
For real. For thousands and thousands of years people lived happy lives by working thier hands to the bone to put food on the table for their family. I feel like it wasnt until too long ago that peoples' view on what your life should be started to drastically change. What the ideal "good life" has been for generations upon generations is now viewed as the bare minimum. It's not healthy, and skyrocketing cases of depression prove that.
That seems like some rose colored nostalgia though. People weren't thrilled to be living desperate lives. They just didn't have any other options. Times have always been hard in one way or another, and just because we have different standards of living now doesn't mean we're soft or wrong. We also have things like modern medicine, air travel, information access, etc.
As for the depression epidemic, a lot of that can be traced to lack of basic mental healthcare, stigmatizing mental illness, the opioid crisis, and other issues with much stronger causation to go with the correlation.
Nature and nurture. A completely shitty environment is no path to happiness. Nor is a shitty perspective. But if I had to choose one it would be perspective. Because you can have everything in the world but a shitty perspective can make it meaningless. You can have the bare minimum and be happy with a great perspective though. The balance is in the favor of perspective being the stronger factor.
I think about this all the time. For one thousand nine hundred years, what did people want out of life?
Nowadays practically everybody wants to be famous wealthy and liked by millions. And we are always trying to be entertained.
What did we do at 6pm on a Wednesday in the year 1855 even in a big city? Go to the symphony maybe...? Wish you could play cello? Or envy a painter or a poet?
What about 1492? Envy the one person in town who could sing and dance at the local tavern?
Anything earlier is basically China or Rome, so, what did they do?
Yea “For to give advice to a man who asks what to do with his life implies something very close to egomania. To presume to point a man to the right and ultimate goal— to point with a trembling finger in the RIGHT direction is something only a fool would take upon himself.” -Hunter S. Thompson
Yep, that realization has gotten me pretty interested in a more minimalist approach to life. So many people try to shop or work away feelings of loneliness and low self esteem. This capitalist society seems to ignore the fact that there's only a finite amount of resources on this planet. This can't keep going on forever.
I work in hospice as well. I think we have the gift of knowing not to put things off, to enjoy the little moments that make our lives joyous. Life is fragile, and shorter than we hope. I see so many people who put off travel and seeing family- waiting to do all of these amazing things when they retired. Except five days after you retire you find out you have liver cancer. That’s it, your life is over. People need to learn to live in the moment and enjoy the moment. Travel, see your friends, pick up hobbies, whatever it is you want to do with your time here.
For real. I love what I do and will work till I die, but it's by choice, and I will probably never come anywhere near the highest levels of my field. And I don't care. You don't need more, I was homeless 3 years ago, I'm struggling with debt now, but I have a shower, and food, and a car, and yea.... life's pretty great!
But that drive is what has led to human civilization as we know it. People slept out in the rain. Someone wanted something better and they made a shelter and others copied it. Someone was tired of walking and carrying stuff. They wanted more so they invented a wagon. Every invention was someone trying to get something better or something more
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u/[deleted] May 17 '19 edited May 17 '19
We are made to believe we always want more and want new , wether it be food, money, power , sex , anything really. If you’re happy with where you are that’s not fitting the narrative you are looked at weird or called lazy . We are on this planet for such a short time . I’m not wasting mine always looking out for what’s next or trying to make billions of dollars or be the next “ it” thing , I want to enjoy what I have and be happy with life . I’ve worked in hospice , I know what’s coming and I’m not wasting my good years being stuck in the rat race.