The
theory that “happiness is the ultimate purpose of our life” belongs to
Aristotle. His theory proposes that the end goal of everything that we do is for
an end of happiness. If one would think that everyone strives to do the
ultimate best to achieve their happiness, then my question is where is all this
hate coming from? I cannot help but to
think about how much unhappiness surrounds us all and how much happiness is
wasted because of our selfishness, need for self gratification, strife, unfairness, unfaithfulness, unkindness, vanity and violence towards others. If we (humans)
were parallel lines that never intersected each other, would we have happiness
then?
Aristotle
describes happiness as the end goal. He is not referring to the immediate feeling
that we get when we see someone we love or when we eat a Philly cheese steak.
He is talking about the final moment at the end of the road. So, I wonder If Aristotle is referring to old age or is he only referring to a couple of
minutes before we kick the bucket?
Aristotle says, “for as
it is not one swallow or one fine day that makes a spring, so it is not one day
or a short time that makes a man blessed and happy.” It is like eating
strawberries, some are sweet some are sour. I cannot say that the box of
strawberries is sweet if I have only eaten one.
I
agree with Aristotle’s theory, but it seems that in this day in age “Ain’t
nobody got time for that”. We want to see immediate results for everything that
we do, including our “sum of” happiness. I want to be able to do good, feel
good and have that action count at the last minute where my full potential as
human being is measured.
"Ain't nobody got time for that" is pretty spot on! The need for instant gratification is definitely a problem we and future generations are going to deal with. I see it in myself now. If a video is more than 30 seconds I always ask myself, "Do I really want to see it? That's, like, more than eight vines!" How can we measure a good, happy life then?
ReplyDeleteI'm not really sure a life can be measured, to be honest. And if happiness is a virtuous life, then most of us are then probablly unhappy, which I'm not sure I agree with.
My pops always tells me the secret to life is learning to be happy with what you've got. If you've ever seen the movie the pursuit of happiness, Will Smith says something about the founding fathers putting the pursuit of happiness instead of just happiness in the Constitution. He says that maybe the founding fathers knew that happiness is a life long pursuit. I personally think the problem with most people is they have a shallow understanding of happiness. They seek material things and respect from those around them, believing that stuff like that will bring happiness to them.
ReplyDeleteI think happiness is something you make for yourself. It's nothing wrong with wanting Immediate results from doing things, and it's totally possible to do so. All you really need to do is change your outlook on things, as corny as it sounds. It's like when you spend time training for a competition, and you still lose. You can't deny you've lost, but you can't deny you've won either. After all you're probably better at whatever you where training for than when you started, and you've gained the experience from the competition on top of that. So when the next competition comes you'll likely have less in your way. If you keep that positive outlook you'll notice your misfortunes less and be happier. I think eventually you'll become content with your life this way.
I feel that we cannot live without other human beings. We are a very social species, we would be lost without another one of our kind to bounce ideas and theories off of. It is because some humans take this to an extreme that we have hate.
ReplyDeleteThey believe that because someone does not see the same path to happiness that they do, that that person is to be punished for thinking differently. We want to be liked and loved and the way to do that is by being similar to our peers. If we stray too far from ideals of our peers, we will be seen as 'sick' or undesirable and be shun ed and punished.
Let's flip it the other way, if we all were happy with each others opinions and didn't cringe at things that are different, then we would all soon come to an agreement about what the true way of happiness is and it will be considered the ONLY way to obtain happiness because everyone agreed on it. To find happiness any other way, would be blasphemous. I do no believe that we can escape hatred simply because humans can't help it. Hatred is the fear of something that may be dangerous and what is more dangerous than something that is different?