Values change over time and they have changed greatly in the last century. This topic is important because we all aspire and have that tendency towards happiness in our life. In the 21st century if you enter a bookstore, you will find numerous books about happiness and self-helping books. I think that we can learn a lot more from reading philosophical books that were written in ancient times. According to one philosopher, named Epicurus, you need three things for happiness. To be happy you need friends, freedom and time to contemplate on your life.
To begin with, friends and family are important for one’s happiness. No one should be alone in this world. What will you choose? To eat the best food and the best drinks that you can imagined but alone, or to have a decent meal with your friends? It is not just about having friends; it is about being and sharing with those that you really love. Values changed and we also changed. Mentality of consumption emerged in our society, “Earn more, to spend more”. Our main focus becomes material thing. Huge corporation knows what are the true values in this world, what we really crave for. To sell a product such as mobile phone, corporation will feed us with commercials where you can see that if you buy that specific phone you can reach your friends any time. Making that connection between friends and product, saying something such as “Nokia connecting people” is a key element to sell that product. Customer is, subconsciously, actually buying that idea about friends being close through mobile phone. What a perfect mental hook, isn’t it? To buy more things that you essentially do not need.
To continue with, freedom is crucial for happiness. Being free and independent is something that we all strive for, it begins in our childhood. Once we get out from that comfort zone, in which we are dependent on our parents. We enter challenge zone, growth zone. The change is needed in our life, for us to evolve. To free ourselves means to take full responsibility for our choices and our action. To be free means to be yourself the way you are. Living on your own and not being dependent on parents is a first step. That does not mean that we should discard our family towards our freedom, on the contrary ,we should keep them close to us. Never forget who gave you support in your first steep on this road to happiness. The wheel of life is spinning, from being dependent on them, through independency, towards their dependency on you. Again ,we have great example how to insert real values in something materialistic. For instance, buying expensive army boots with inscription “Discover your strength, explore your freedom” is almost as they cover product with some sort of thin layer, artificial mask with flavor of true values. It feels like you seized that freedom, but it is actually degrading true values, putting price on them, as if they can be bought with money. Take everything from a human being and you will have a slave, give everything to a human being you will have a slave also.
FREE WILL
The last idea for being happy is all about living in the present moment, contemplate on your life. It was written even in ancient times on Temple of Delphi: “Know thyself”, one of the wisest men in history Socrates said: “The unexamined life is not worth living”. Time, it is all about good, quality time. In today’s society pace of life has become extremely fast. We are constantly in some rush and there is never enough time. Do we really enjoy that meal or we already think what will we do next? Many of our moves throughout the day become automatic, we stop thinking about things we do. Why do we do things we do? Our addiction to consumed things brought us here, in front of the cathedral. Are we here because we need something or we just want something, anything? Finally, a watch store. Huge commercial: “Precious watch for your precious time”. Once again we are tricked to watch our time slipping away from us.
In the end, throughout history, there were many people that tried to find the best way towards happiness. Ask yourself why do you need a medium between you and your friends, freedom and contemplative life? I think that path to happiness is a different for different people. I believe that each person has that desire for happiness in life, but how far will you go to reach it, it is utterly upon you
.
.
