Posted by Dr. Bob on November 26, 2001, at 10:51:13
In reply to What is the meaning of life? « 3 Beer Effect, posted by Dr. Bob on November 23, 2001, at 8:59:43
[Posted by benzapp on November 26, 2001, at 0:38:40]
> Well, that is simple. There is no meaning of life, it doesn't mean anything. What life is, is you have one. You can live, or not. By living, that means doing something goal oriented every day all the time. Each day you should go to be thinking about what you have accomplished. You need to find something in life that interests you, and pursue it. Whether you want to craft wooden widgets, paint pictures, or medical research, do SOMETHING. If you are in a job that requires no activity or independent thought, get a new one. The other side is if you are doing something, variety is key. Your brain responds to novelty and challenge. Even rearranging your home on a regular basis can be effective. But just because you went to college and have a good job doesn't mean jack. You need to keep learning new things, and keep doing new things. You have your whole life to live, you might as well live it. Why do the same thing every day? Whatever you do, don't make your happiness contigent upon another person. Love someone because they enrich your life, not because you can only be happy if someone else loves you. Have children because you want to share your life with an exclusive audience and raise a better person, not because you feel that human happiness only comes from being a breeding beast. Help others not because you crave their gratitude or indebtedness, but because you genually care for the welfare of your fellow man. Live not to gain praise, but because you appreciate every moment you have to utilize the human abilities with which you are endowed. Don't be a slave to anyone. Happiness can only come from within. No one can give you the happiness you think you deserve all the time, as soon as you have no one else to help, or you are failing miserably at your job and everyone knows it, or your girlfriend dumps you... Bye bye happiness. This also applies to God. All religious teach that this life is a miserable quagmire, given to you by someone better than you in every way to test your resolve in the face if disaster, and your reward for taking all that shit is some wonderful place called heaven, where you just chill, and do nothing but meet with all your dead friends, family, and ancestors. Wow, isn't that a happy thought. If you live every day thinking, "I can't wait until I go to heaven" you will never be happy. Sit down, and accept the truth. You don't know what happens when you die and it doesn't matter. Death is not the purpose of life. Life is the purpose of life.
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> It has been my experience that the people who are depressed are the ones who spend their free time watching TV, trying to live vicariously through the lives of actors. Maybe they are sports fanatics who try and pretend they are athletic by reading the sports page every day. They work at tedious jobs, that become habit very quickly. They flock towards superficial expressions of success, trying to prove to the world they are somebody by buying expensive cloths, eating at expensive restaurants, or other materialistic activities. Depressed men usually have primitive ideas of sex. They believe their purpose in life is to have as much sex with as many women as possible. They get trapped in relationships because the frequent sex makes them happy, but then they get bored, dump their girlfriend, divorce their wife, or worse committ adultery. Women are equally enthralled with sex, but don't admit it. Women are more concerned with being desired sexually, and tend to flirt more than indulge in this desire through outright sex. They tend to desire less variety, having just one man who has sex with them all the time is just enough. Men get depressed when they are bored with their current partner, women get depressed when their partner gets bored with them. Both get depressed when they don't have a partner. Women tend to compare themselves to other women, thus whatever the fashion is, their inability to attain it makes them depressed. Both sexes eat like fiends because of the release of endogenous opiods it causes. Most are religious. Whatever religion they believe in, they believe life is suffering, that their purpose in life is helping other suffering people, and that following a rigid code of ethics is your ticket to heaven, an escape from this hell we call life. Ideally, most religions try and get you to help other people. Religious folk rarely try and help people on an individual level, especially strangers, but they give money to charity, work at the soup kitchen for all alcoholics and drug addicts who try and escape that same miserable life through intoxication, or some other do gooder task. The biggest problem in society, lack of education and lonliness are never addressed by the religious. After all, knowledge is useless, your religion tells you all you need to know. They can't be friends with anyone because they have nothing to talk about but their religion. They would rather convert strangers to their religion than go to a retirement home and just listen to an old person who doesn't have anyone in the world but the ward nurse who cares if they live or die. Sadly, old people start thinking the only person who cares is some fictional God, so might as well make him happy. Most religious people are too lazy to really help society, after all they are too lazy to question their own religious beliefs. What they end up doing instead is thinking a good person is one who follows their religion's code of conduct. They gossip. Oh, that girl is such a slut! Since the purpose of life is doing what God says, people who don't are bad. Since most religious codes are negative, don't do this, don't do that, you can't say "Well, I love being alive because I don't have sex, or don't swear, or don't question the word of God". You can't be happy saying you don't do something. So they turn around and say, "Oh, it is sooooo hard for me to resist having sex, or soooo hard to not swear at that man, or soooo hard to read the bible every day. Those bad people, they just don't work as hard as I do at being good. I feel so proud of myself, and God loves me too!".
>
> What is the quickest way to enjoy life? Buy a bicycle, ride to work every day. Buy some small weights and lift in the evening. Eat a responsible diet so you don't get fat. Be confident in your physical appearance through diet and exercise. Throw out your television. Spend your free time reading a book on a subject that you are unfamiliar with, play a musical instrument, whatever. Activity is the key.
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> And ignore everyone else. It doesn't matter what they think. Move to an urban environment so you feel more anonymous. If you live in the suburbs, your screwed. Nowhere to ride a bike, nothing to do but eat and watch TV. And all your neighbors will realize what a worthless life you lead, and you will know it.
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> Happiness is not a divine right, or a genetic predisposition. Happiness is a biological motivator, it makes you live. Unless you live as humans should utilizing your mind and body to their fullest, you will never be happy.
>
> I highly suggest reading Aristotle's Nichomacean Ethics. I have yet to find a more thorough guide to every day happiness written in the 2500 years since this book was written.
> > I always wanted to ask older people (over 30), what they would do different, or what they wish they knew then that they know now, if they were 23 (like me) and just graduating college again.
> >
> > I am doing much better with social anxiety/depression on a celexa/klonopin combo & haven't drank for a month & a half, so I am trying to find ways to enrich/change my life with my newfound optimism.
poster:Dr. Bob
thread:14220
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20011117/msgs/14332.html