"The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well." Ralph Waldo Emerson

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/64541-the-purpose-of-life-is-not-to-be-happy-it


Why the pursuit of happiness might be what's making us miserable.

https://www.psycom.net/why-pursuing-happiness-makes-us-miserable/

"At some point in life—probably when we’re just old enough to understand the concept of goals and achieving them—we’re taught that happiness is something to strive for. And that it’s tied up in the milestones of life—getting that promotion, making a lot of money, graduating from school, getting married, you get the picture.

The problem is, this notion of happiness becomes a constant chase and we’re always moving the target, says human behavior expert Patrick Wanis, PhD. “We place our happiness somewhere off in the future and therefore we’re never able to enjoy where we are now because we’re always thinking we’re only going to be happy when we get to be, do, or have something.”

it is up to me to make them happy. It gets to be a HUGE load.

What do I want in life--peace, stability. No big ups, no big downs. I've already had plenty.

If you chase happiness, it is illusive. I have a home, a few dogs, food on the table, and a decent job and retirement should be financially stable, too. I should add my 2 kids in there!!! They have their problems, but they have made life worth living.

I did learn long ago thanks to the lds church that happiness is overrated.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/18/2021 11:59AM by cl2.

Just cuz a famous name said something does not make it so.

There is no purpose to life. None.

You are born. From there you have choices though it often doesn't seem to be the case. Sometimes you have to be very clever and brave to even have choices.

All actions we choose to engage in carry a consequence or a reward. Being kind often brings kindness. But often as well your kindness will be taken for weakness. Same for compassionate and honorable.

Happiness finds you. The more you look the less you find. A dog chasing his tail. The search for happiness does not benefit the searcher. The search for happiness does richly reward those selling self help books containing the secret to success haha, and those selling beauty products insinuating happiness is found in being attractive haha and sexy or selling expensive cars to boost the ego.

Ego is a poor route to happiness but a nice source of comedy as we see people with overplumped fish lips and ridiculous make up--Real Housewives of SLC-- and creepy men who think their Ferrari or BMW makes the women want them. Well, I guess the real housewives do.


Happiness is a butterfly that flutters about pausing here and there for a moment.

Accomplishment brings contentment. Beautiful birds and flowers bring awe. A loving touch brings healing. Reciprocity brings peace.

Sez me anyway.

>>There is no purpose to life. None.

I disagree with that (/cabdriver philosopher voice on). Life has the meaning we give it...

I did not say that life does not have meaning. I would never say that. My life is filled to the brim with meaning.

Purpose is very different to me than meaning.

The purpose in life is to live. Some can find contradictory purposes to this one pure purpose in sacrificing their life in not living anymore. Everything else is window dressing. And that is the icing on the cake. Aristotle wanted us to live well however that was to whatever individual. Even in are darkest hours I think we can find some window dressings...

Done & Done Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Just cuz a famous name said something does not
> make it so.
>
> There is no purpose to life. None.
>
> You are born. From there you have choices though
> it often doesn't seem to be the case. Sometimes
> you have to be very clever and brave to even have
> choices.
>
> All actions we choose to engage in carry a
> consequence or a reward. Being kind often brings
> kindness. But often as well your kindness will be
> taken for weakness. Same for compassionate and
> honorable.
>
> Happiness finds you. The more you look the less
> you find. A dog chasing his tail. The search for
> happiness does not benefit the searcher. The
> search for happiness does richly reward those
> selling self help books containing the secret to
> success haha, and those selling beauty products
> insinuating happiness is found in being attractive
> haha and sexy or selling expensive cars to boost
> the ego.
>
> Ego is a poor route to happiness but a nice source
> of comedy as we see people with overplumped fish
> lips and ridiculous make up--Real Housewives of
> SLC-- and creepy men who think their Ferrari or
> BMW makes the women want them. Well, I guess the
> real housewives do.
>
>
> Happiness is a butterfly that flutters about
> pausing here and there for a moment.
>
> Accomplishment brings contentment. Beautiful birds
> and flowers bring awe. A loving touch brings
> healing. Reciprocity brings peace.
>
> Sez me anyway.

You contradict yourself a number of times in this. It also depends on which context we find ourselves in.

And many people help others when they are just trying to find happiness.

You are here only because of sex. That's what created you, and that's what you were created for. Get busy.

Nature Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> You are here only because of sex. That's what
> created you, and that's what you were created for.
> Get busy.

That's not even true. We're here because our ancestors survived and that is not just because of sex. They survived because of a) luck, b) intelligence and c) preparation.

No food, drink and shelter = no conjugation

It is probably more accurate to say we are here because of fertilization than sex. Many sex acts produce no offspring.

> Many sex acts produce no offspring.


I always give it my best ...

Can't you do both?

Only if someone famous says you can.

Whaddaya think the rate of pay is for being an RfM Influencer?

Like, say, in terms of an hourly rate?

And what if I don't own a bikini?

Then you'll have to earn your wages with your brain.

'Nuff said.

By the sweat of your forebrain you shall tweet.

Yes you can.
There.
Satisfied?

Most people are not happy no matter what they do or how much they have I am realizing. Especially lately.

I've had self proclaimed "successful" and rich people target and attack me on youtube. Why is someone that claims to have it all in life and maybe even a millionaire targeting and attacking some nobody on youtube.

You have to be miserable as hell to have all those expensive things and still attack a poor person, at least financially, basically on youtube. Like insanely miserable. Like, narcissist level of miserable.

Anyways, maybe christ is the answer to feel their empty void inside that can never be filled who knows? Maybe christ only knows. I definitely can't fix those people that is for sure.

I've outlived my usefulness.

The jury may still be out on that one. You got away from religion and family influence which is impressive in itself. No easy feat. How do I know? Walking the same road.

One persons use is another persons waste.

One persons happiness is another persons sadness.

Does a gazelle in Africa contemplate its happiness? Its usefulness? Its purpose?

Just because we can contemplate it doesn't make us any different.

If anything our purpose is to reproduce, like all the other species on the planet.

What's the gazelle's name?

When you are indiscriminately useful, you are wasting your energy and attracting leeches.

Agreed. The useful are often used. But maybe thats their purpose in life and it makes them happy.

I think the purpose of life IS to be happy, but happiness includes a lot of things like being useful, honorable, and compassionate. It's not an either/or situation.

What if you're happy being useless?

Or what if you just use less...So others can use more?

You definitely use the least toilet paper with your fancy bidet haha we know that much.

You've seen my youtube video?!

Again, it's all part of my plan to be an exmo effluent. So far, so good!

Dale Carnegie wrote a book on that topic: How to win friends and Effluence People.

To think you built an entire career on a typo. . .



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/19/2021 06:03PM by Lot's Wife.

Well, it's not like I can just flush it all away!

elderolddog Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What if you're happy being useless?

I would never dream of interfering with your happiness, EOD. :)

Please be careful with unattributed quotes from the internet.

I know a lot of Emerson and this quote rings no bells and also rings as uncharacteristic, and I would add unworthy, of Ralph Waldo.


A better way to frame this question is to invoke Socratic paradoxes. It leads to paradoxes either way, but it isn’t clear from Plato’s Dialogues whether Socrates argues that virtue is a craft like any other with the aim of happiness, or if Socrates meant that being virtuous is in itself happiness. (Vlastos versus Irwin, if you’d like a deep dive.)

A great ends and means argument is found in Plato’s pupil, Aristotle. Read his Ethics.

No.

I mean where did *Emerson* write it, not where you happen to find it on the internet.

I tried to find a citation but gave up. I don’t believe he wrote any such thing.

Unlike many here, I don’t mind writing that proceeds from quotations, provided the quotations are real. I would further add, which was stressed to year one University students once upon a time, to *only* use quotes from works that you have personally read and understood. For example, if I quote from Martin Luther King Jr.’s Why We Can’t Wait, it’s because I have read and understood the book.

Otherwise you are merely adorning your own thoughts with “great names”, which is a kind of fraudulence best avoided.

MY GHAWD!!!

Why have I never noticed the relationship between 'fraudulence' and 'flatulence'

Thank you, Human! May the Tao bless you!

I think you need to take this course to get your thinking right,

https://www.inquisitr.com/opinion/4474210/michio-kaku-introduces-free-online-berkeley-course-the-science-of-happiness/

Wait just a second! I went to the site and right there in the title of the course, it says 'opinion'.

You know very well that the OP deals only with hard, cold, cruel facts!!





What? ... he doesn't?

Oh.

Sorry.

For me, purpose and meaning are becoming much a matter of only where *I* draw purpose and meaning.

Perhaps too, where you draw the line?

Has a lot to do with it for me.

I like that the church draws the line in pencil. I mean, ghawd draws the line in pencil...

Useful to who though? I know Emerson and Thoreau had a sympathetic take on this, but through most of our lives we are used by others. Usually through a contract that was signed before we were born.

> Useful to who though?


Figuring that out ranges from 'easy-as-pie' to 'you'll-never-believe it!'.


Without any direct evidence, how could I ever prove that the CIA pulled the strings necessary to get my friend's daughter accepted to FDR Beauty College back in 1980, so that she could be available to prep the wig Dolly Parton wore the night in 1990 when Dolly performed at the White House for George H.W. & Barbara Bush, with said wig video-taping EVERYTHING that went on there in the White House!!

Get out yer push-pins and colored strings, make the connections!!! Eventually, you will figure out who did what, to whom and why!

We're all pawns!!!! Even the people pulling our strings are pawns to yet another level, and then another level, and then another ...

Until you finally get to Danny DeVito! Go ahead, try to prove me wrong!!

Brilliantly done. He won't get it but will worry, probably for a day or two.