What is the Good Life?
...e virtues cowardice, fear, and gullibility are controlled. One need not follow the advice and tested techniques of philosophers and theologians because every individual has self-power, which is the only essential tool towards happiness and a good life. Most people have bought into the "so called” experts who tell us that if we are unhappy there must be something wrong with us. We spend hours reading self help books, attending support groups, staring out windows and regretting all the things we never tried and all the wasted years. There is nothing wrong with us! What is wrong is that we are not living the life that we have always wanted. We are taught that we must keep our noses to the grindstone, that we must achieve success by attaining a certain dollar figure. Society tells us that we must stay in jobs we hate and buy houses that look like every other house on the block. They pressure us to acquire credit cards and debt, buy expensive clothes, expensive cars, send our children to private schools, be seen at all the right places, attend all the right functions...the list goes on. What I believe is that the Good Life is not buying into all the hype. To me, financial freedom is the second most important factor of the Good Life. This does not mean making a million dollars. It does not mean winning the lottery. What it means is that you create a plan that will fit your personal and financial needs. Short of winning the lottery or hitting it big in the stock market, most of us have to have some kind of income to sustain us. I can either work at something I love or hate going to work every day. I can spend my time working hard or hardly working. It is not the work; it is the attitude about the work that matters. If I choose to work at what I love I have adjustments in my attitude that must be made. I have to be willing to live on less, if that is what it calls for. I must be willing to learn new skills, become self-sufficient, thrifty, and financially aware. If I think I may want to move on to a different career that will pay a lesser salary will I be able to? This is an important question to ask myself before deciding to change my life style. There are ways to start working towards a simpler life: Get out of debt. Reduce my consumption of goods and services by recycling, buying used, or refurbishing discarded items, using what I already have, and conserving energy. From there it is just a matter of figuring out what it is I really love then go for it! To me, I want to be happy and I want to be happy while figuring out what it will take to get me there. As previously mentioned, employment is basically a tool which will provide me with the finances to acquire some of what will make me happy. Part of the Good Life for me would be security, a nice home in the country and a reliable vehicle, all of which cost money. There are many things that would provide me with the happiness I desire that do not cause money. The first is a loving, giving, monogamous husband in which to share my life with. A husband could provide me with support, comfort, and the feeling of being loved. It is not easy to find a “good” man these days and so this could be a potential problem toward accomplishing one of my long term goals. It’s quite a lengthy process weeding through all of the bad men to find the one that was meant for me. It’s time consuming and often causes the opposite of what I’m looking for…unhappiness. Next, I would like to be blessed with beautiful healthy children to make my family complete. However, having children is one of those critical, no turning back decisions I struggle with almost every day. Becoming a parent is especially scary to me these days. What if I’m not a good mother? I sometimes believe I would make my children miserable by being overbearing and overprotective. I am afraid they may turn out hating me. In this day and age I wouldn’t want to send my kids to school. I know fully well that they need socialization in order to develop properly mentally, but what if they were to get shot? What if the school was bombed? And then there are pedophiles, rapists, drugs, alcohol, sexually transmitted diseases, AIDS and teen pregnancy. I know I could go on all day about what ifs but I just couldn’t stand losing something as precious as a child. So maybe happiness to me would be living without having children. I may make myself miserable worrying all the time. In a perfect world I would have a houseful of children, but in this day and age I’m just not so sure. Finally, I would love a home. As previously mentioned, I understand that it takes money to buy a house but I want a home. To me a home is full of love with a wonderful family comprised of two children and two dogs. A home is full of laughter, fun and ultimately full of happiness. That brings me to my goal and my goal is simple, I want happiness. No matter what, I need to take the time to find what motivates me. What makes me happy, what fills me with excitement, with magic. Then do whatever I have to do to make it happen. That is when I will be living the kind of life that will make me happy. I think each of us owe one another respect and honesty. The one thing that helps me to know who I can count on are those individuals who keep their word. The moral issues behind keeping promises in almost every relationship between two people involves the making of promises to each other. It involves giving each other words that must be followed given any certain circumstance. Therefore, making a promise implies that one will keep it, as in staying true to one’s word. ...