Tag: happiness

Why the truth doesn’t have to be a black pill

FRIDAY 15 SEPTEMBER 2023

Once again, what is life about? It’s a struggle for survival, and for some degree of happiness to make the struggle worth it. And at the end, you hope you don’t die a painful death. And when you are dead, a few people will miss you for a period of time, but the rest of the world will continue as if you were never alive.

These are cold, hard facts.

But one is tempted to wonder if the pill is not a little too black to swallow.

The key is in the degree of luck.

There are also different degrees of survival. If you are optimistic and you believe in the wide range of possibilities available to lead a good life, your survival can be relatively comfortable – from the food you feast on three to five times a day, to the drinks you pour down your throat, to the bedding you sleep under, and the amount of time you spend exploring the world and with your loved ones and friends.

The quality of your survival also contributes to your sense of happiness.

And if you assist other people in their struggle for survival and their efforts to make life worth living, it increases your own awareness of a life worth living.

However, the ending is usually not your choice.

Which makes it that much more important to be happy before the end comes – slow and gruelling, or mercifully quick.

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Better than no plan

MONDAY, 16 JANUARY 2023

If a sensation of happiness is not a regular experience in your daily existence, or if a net positive consciousness is not something that characterises your life, some people might come to the conclusion that their daily existence is not worth the effort and the occasional hardship.

If your daily existence is not worth the effort and the occasional hardship, some people would argue that you might as well end your own life. Unless – your life-ending act will do too much harm to people you care about. In such a case, you simply must make the effort to survive and endure the occasional hardship.

If you are religious, you may have other reasons to continue with your life – even if you don’t think it’s worth it. You may believe that it is not your right to end your own life, or that the god you believe in has a plan for your life. That you simply must endure the hardship and the effort until the plan is revealed, or until the time comes for you to do what you were put on earth to do, so to speak.

Sounds bleak (especially for a first piece of text of the year), but this was also the idea behind a piece from a number of years ago: Life is sometimes hard and difficult. Experiencing happiness sometimes balances the hardships and struggles of daily existence. It’s also easy enough to end your own life. If, however, you don’t want to cause more hardship and misery for your loved ones, do what you can to make your life worthwhile. In this way, you may also facilitate your loved ones’ (and even strangers’) efforts to make their lives worthwhile, so that they don’t end their lives making your life more miserable.

In other words: I make myself happy so that my life is worth living, and in doing so I help you to be happy so that your life is also worth living.

Doesn’t always work, but it’s better than going through life with no plan at all.

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