Spirituality/religion:
“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
We should not try to assert that we are all mere pawns in a higher power's chess game, living to please someone else. If one chooses to live their life practicing a religion and worshipping a higher power, this should be celebrated. However, we must also celebrate our uniqueness, individuality, and independence and make the decision that is right for us in terms of religion. If I choose to join together a preexisting religion, that's cool, however, no religion should imply superiority, shame, restriction, pressure or control. There should be no pressure from others to be religious or not, as this defeats the purpose. We should encourage each other to interpret and work with religion in a way that works for us as individual people. We should be free and safe to believe what is right for our own selves. Religion has the power to bring us together, and also encourage our uniqueness if we also worship on an individual level.
Love:
“Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.”
- Robert A. Heinlein
Love is important because it is what brings us together. It is obvious that you cannot live a happy life without connections to others. We must work together and combine our strengths to be the best community possible. Though love is often regarded as an emotion between multiple people, inner love is equally, if not more, important. We must learn to love ourselves to achieve ultimate happiness in life. Love provides both excitement and peace to our lives. Knowing that we have others who love us gives us the motivation to live good lives, and the support to push through hard things we are faced with. Though we all struggle, love is the thing that keeps us going. Because love is the most complex and powerful emotion, if we learn to love, we can do anything.
Learning/education:
"There is no end to education. It is not that you read a book, pass an examination, and finish with education. The whole of life, from the moment you are born to the moment you die, is a process of learning."
- Jiddu Krishnamurti
Learning is important because it is what gives us the tools to do what we want with our lives. We must establish a passion for learning early on in children to create successful and productive adults. Curiosity and the desire to learn more about the world causes us to fulfill our potentials. Learning makes us feel like we have a reason to "keep going". For 18 years of our lives (as privileged third world citizens) we wake up every morning to go to school. The education we receive sets us up for the life we will live; if we are in an enjoyable learning environment, our desire to be an educated person will be much greater. Learning gives our lives purpose because if we did the same things every day of our lives, we would not feel that life was worth living. Education and learning fulfill our need for intellectual stimulation. Through teaching and learning, we share our greatest passions and interests with each other and enrich the lives of one another.
Growth/change:
“We are not trapped or locked up in these bones. No, no. We are free to change. And love changes us. And if we can love one another, we can break open the sky.”
-Walter Mosley
Growth and learning go hand in hand, but I see growth as more social and moral than intellectual. We grow and change through our interactions and relationships with others. When we listen to and work with other people, we learn to fix the things we don’t like about ourselves and improve our lives. Happiness is a result of change and pushing ourselves out of our comfort zones. We must learn to let go of our fear of change because it is inevitable. If we open our minds to change, we have the opportunity to add things that make us happier into our lives and leave behind things that detract from our happiness. If we disconnect ourselves from toxic people, we make room for new friendships and relationships that will help make us better and happier people. If we change jobs when we are not happy working somewhere, we will start spending our days doing things we enjoy. The key to being comfortable with change is holding onto the people and things that give us comfort and support, and being patient allowing ourselves to adjust to new aspects of our lives.
Balance:
“The best and safest thing is to keep a balance in your life, acknowledge the great powers around us and in us. If you can do that, and live that way, you are really a wise man.”
- Euripides
Another key to happiness is balance. We are always trying to find the midway point between extremes. Too much or too little of anything makes us uncomfortable. We find comfort in knowing we are not trying to strive for more or do away with excess. If we work to find a balance between things, we will be satisfied and at peace with our circumstances.
Danica, I really enjoyed this blog post! I thought the way you included quotes really supported the moral ideas you were talking about. I liked how you included balance because whenever we are faced with an ethical issue during a class discussion, many of us say we feel half and half about many issues. Morals aren't just black and white or else everyone would have the same set, which is why the idea of balance is key. Your ideas seem really close to mine with the idea of achieving happiness; however, I wish I read this before creating mine because I never thought about how learning and growth improve happiness in life. Which of these aspects of life do you feel is the most important?
ReplyDeleteI agree with Casey, that it was unique to include quotes! Your belief of religion and spirituality is very similar to mine in that I don't believe we should be living for anyone else. Our lives are our own and whether we chose to believe in a higher power or not doesn't justify us as greater people. Though I agree with most of what you spoke about in your passage about growth, I find that we have the ability to grow intellectually, as we don't always need experience in order to grow as people. For example, the content and experiences of others than I have been exposed to in this class has helped me grow and develop my own set of morals. I didn't necessarily experience them myself, but I learned about them. So though I agree with most of your view points, I would have to add that on if it were my own. Your points are well thought out and tied together, I thought it was a great post!
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