Keys to a happy life & Meaning
People need three things in life to have meaning:
1# Ability to make choices
2# Responsibility
3# Goal that is fun to progress towards
Purpose
"To find it, do what brings you pleasure in the moment AND helps you reach meaningful goals in the future."
https://medium.com/@SparksRemarks/choosing-goals-how-to-figure-out-what-you-really-want-101ae562a560
https://www.jackcanfield.com/blog/finding-life-purpose/
https://edlester.com/set-goals-life-dont-know-want-yet/
https://markmanson.net/life-purpose
Power of Hope & Love
Nietzsche:
"He who has a Why to live for can bear almost any How." He describes poignantly those prisoners who gave up on life, who had lost all hope for a future and were inevitably the 1st to die. They died less from lack of food or medicine than from lack of hope, lack of something to live for.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man%27s_Search_for_Meaning
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amor_fati #love_of_fate
Meaning of Life:
For Peterson, this is at the root of all our actions. We are not compelled to act because we are rational-but because we have faith that what we have chosen to value is important. This applies to everyone.
"'Happiness' is a pointless goal. [#Paradox of Hedonism] Don't compare yourself with other people, compare yourself with who you were yesterday. No one gets away with anything, ever, so take responsibility for your own life. You conjure your own world, not only metaphorically but also literally and neurologically. These lessons are what the great stories and myths have been telling us since civilization began."
Peterson's 12 rules
Rule 1 Stand up straight with your shoulders back
Rule 2 Treat yourself like you would someone you are responsible for helping
Rule 3 Make friends with people who want the best for you
Rule 4 Compare yourself with who you were yesterday, not with who someone else is today
Rule 5 Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them
Rule 6 Set your house in perfect order before you criticise the world
Rule 7 Pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient)
Rule 8 Tell the truth - or, at least, don't lie
Rule 9 Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don't
Rule 10 Be precise in your speech
Rule 11 Do not bother children when they are skate-boarding
Rule 12 Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street
"Life is suffering
Love is the desire to see unnecessary suffering ameliorated
Truth is the handmaiden of love
Dialogue is the pathway to truth
Humility is recognition of personal insufficiency and the willingness to learn
To learn is to die voluntarily and be born again, in great ways and small
So speech must be untrammeled
So that dialogue can take place
So that we can all humbly learn
So that truth can serve love
So that suffering can be ameliorated
So that we can all stumble forward to the Kingdom of God"
Sins
- Lust - Lust is a strong passion or longing, especially for sexual desires.
- Gluttony - Gluttony is an excessive and ongoing eating of food or drink.
- Greed - Greed is an excessive pursuit of material goods.
- Sloth - Sloth is an excessive laziness or the failure to act and utilize one's talents.
- Wrath - Wrath is a strong anger and hate towards another person.
- Envy - Envy is the intense desire to have an item that someone else possesses.
- Pride - Pride is an excessive view of one's self without regard for others.
Traps
Present Fatalism & Nihilism are the worst type of time & life perspectives.
-If you find your goal to be too hard to be achieved, that it makes you angry and envy those who did take the hard way to earn their goods/status/reputation.. makes you jealous so much, that instead working on that goal yourself and/or framing him as a hero/heroine that should be followed, you give up and rather destroy the ideal.. #Cain & Abel
What you do matters & will have consequences.
Transcendental future
...blowing up yourself as a shortcut to Allah is a terrible action; and neither is sacrificing your one and only life that is granted for something better afterwards that may never come does not make much sense; however the second option might help you to endure the pain suffering, and may give hope.
The truth might never be known; in the end it does not even matter as long as there is hope for the better and no harm caused to others (including self) due to religion.
Choose what you are spending your energy on.
- You'll became what you practice.. even if you fake it!
Learning from ancient stories one can deduce that even when both choices are terrible, usually the worst choice to make is to not make a choice; because in that case you fail all those who you represent or fight for.
Motivation
Life is suffering unless you live in a bubble; but even bubbles burst after a while.
Our actions matter, and we can change things for the better.
We are all alike, much more than you'd think; we are stardust; small piece of this impossible reality/simulation.. whatever it be. After all it doesn't matter what the truth is, the only thing matters what you THINK, and how you act upon it.
Be humble; treat others as you'd like to be treated, think of all living beings as your own relatives, think of them as they were you; we are alike, you live with them on the same tiny planet in this enormously huge uni/multiverse.
Be grateful, even if you think there is nothing for you in this world.
Family who loves you, healthy body, friends, being smart/nice/funny/important..
but even if none of these apply to you - you are here! and there is nothing else. There is this one chance, and you gotta make the most out of it!
Imagine being neck deep in khaki - literally! not being able to move, feeling that smell, not knowing if you are going to starve to death, or die from dehydration.
You still can breath, and you can think.
Suddenly the future plans start to dismantle on the scale of importance.
You are right here, right now!
You can re-frame your past, to be happier in your current situation, you can also swear that you followed this doubtful path which lead you here; but what can you do about it now(?), else than learn from it, if you survive somehow.
If you do, it will make you prouder of yourself, that you endured & haven't lost your mind.
That bad experience will be fun thing to remember if you allow it.
-you can of course do the opposite, and be angry about it. It is your CHOICE!; but why would you want to feel miserable if you don't have to; right?
The best time to start doing something was yesterday, and the second best time is TODAY!
Don't believe in prejudice, that its all scripted. It cannot be.
