Photo by TON70

Is it possible to be aware of our lives in every moment, rather than in the ones we consider most important?  We all have things to look forward to, sometimes an entire life could be viewed as a series of these things, big and small, that we look forward to.  What happens in the time in between these events?  If I go through the week looking forward to a trip on Saturday, how is my experience of the week affected?

If we are living in a life full of tasks that we don’t enjoy, tasks that we are simply doing for survival, the chances of us living for these meaningful events is greater.  The more that this is true, the less that we are able to be present in every moment of our lives, because we want to escape the mundane.  We create these little things to look forward to so that we get pleasure from the wait.  In most circumstances, at least from what I can extrapolate form myself, the time spent waiting for the event to arrive has more aggregate pleasure than the event itself.  The expectancy gives us a little pleasure each day that we have to endure the mundane.

The downside to this kind of living is that all the time in between events is not really lived.  We are either escaping boredom or daydreaming the future.  We leave no room for the present.  The second downside is that even otherwise bearable or even pleasurable things could become a burden in the expectancy of something much larger.  Recently a friend recounted to me a story where he was trying to get to the top of a hill with a great view.  The entire hike up the hill was to him an annoying event because he was anxious to get to the view and that’s all he had in mind.  If perhaps he had not decided on a destination to head toward, he might have enjoyed the hike up as well.  The events we seek in the future have a habit of creating comparison with the present.

The future is not yet happening, not yet experienced.  This being the case, it should not keep recurring in our minds, much less dominate it.  It is one thing to plan things or create goals, but to live in the arrival of future pleasures is a waste of the present.  The present was the future at a past time in our lives.  Why don’t we try to absorb the most out of it?  There is some sense of pleasure to be attained just be being completely aware of one’s own existence.  This can happen in the present only, because we cannot feel the past or future completely.  With this pleasure in awareness, there ceases  to be a reason to dwell on the future as a source of satisfaction.  The future will become the present as we approach it and we can continue in our same state of consciousness.

Photo by Zabara Tango

Is it possible to live a life without passion?  Can one go through life without a single passion for anything?  It seems that I’m encountering more and more people that don’t seem to know what they really love to do in life.  Most of my peers are college seniors, and inevitably, the most asked question of the times is “what are you doing after graduation?”  Most will reply that they are seeking a job in a field which corresponds to their major.  Some of these people will actually like their major and are excited about working in it.  The majority however, are going with the flow and either say that they don’t really like what they will be doing, or they claim that they do with feigned excitement.

Then, out of this group of people who are not really interested in their chosen paths, there are a few who will know what they are truly passionate about.  Out of those, some will plan on pursuing it at some level, and the rest will be to fearful to take a chance on what they truly love to do.  I can understand these people, even the ones that don’t pursue out of fear have something to live for, they can still cultivate that interest in solitude.  But what I don’t understand are the rest of the people that are uninterested in their paths, and also have no idea what they really like to do.

We as human beings have been able to use our innate cleverness to rise above the daily struggle for food and survival.  At some level, I like to think that all this progress was made to give us the chance to attain a higher level of satisfaction.  Satisfaction that is gained through pursuing to do with our lives what makes us happy.  The group of people that are choosing uninteresting paths are doing so out of necessity for money, for stability, for survival.  If we do this, then we’re just propelling ourselves back to what we already broke away from.  If we sacrifice our passion for stability, we might as well go back to hunting and gathering in the forest, because we are giving up our uniquely human opportunity.

The people without passion perplex me.  What drives someone to survive when there is nothing to greatly stimulate them?  Most people who don’t think they are passionate about anything might be overlooking important aspects of their behavior.  If we took a little time to question ourselves, we might discover a hidden interest we never noticed before.  Maybe passions are sought out.  Maybe we have to try out everything we can in the hopes of finding something that truly captures us.  Isn’t it worth it to take a chance on being rewarded our our work internally at the cost of a stable but suppressing job?  Or at the very least, cultivating a passion on the side while holding a stable job.  But with no passion at all, I fail to see what reason there is to keep struggling.  I fail to see the great benefit in my humanity.

Photo by ShawnCampbell

The most successful ideology to spread across the world in the past century is consumerism.  While so many people argue about political ideologies and which ones are more successful, consumerism seems to have slipped by unnoticed since it can thrive in almost any political system.  Basically, it is the idea that a person’s happiness is directly connected to the amount of material possessions they amass.

To think that buying things is what will make us happy seems downright silly.  Sure materials can give you temporary pleasure or even long-lasting pleasure, but to equate this pleasure with happiness is wrong.  Most of the time, the pleasure gotten from buying things is not even a result of the intrinsic value of the object, it is a result of how it satisfies our egos.  The demand for luxury products is in large part driven by the need for people to feel superior to others.  The Lexus is better than the Toyota, the $2 million house vs. the $1 million house.  What do extra bedrooms have to do with our happiness?  Will I not be able to achieve contentment in my life if I don’t have leather seats in my car?

This idea can cause us to run blindly toward the objects we desire without paying attention to what we are doing to get them.  People end up working jobs that they don’t like so that they can pay for things they don’t need.  College students are studying subjects that will make them the most money so that they can get the best house and car.  If a person’s life is spent doing things without passion just to obtain these goods, in the end, life will have been a complete waste.  The happiness comes in the way we live every second of it, not just in the moments where we finally are able to buy that new flat screen.  We end up suffering to achieve these ends.

Every time a goal is met and a purchase is made, the pleasure dissipates quickly.  The new suit will not bring the same excitement everyday.  So then you have to find something else to desire, to work toward, to get the next high from.  With this ideology, we end up living from object to object, never realizing why it never lasts each time.  The idea of a life lived in a futile pursuit is horrifying, yet people are not horrified at themselves.  Desire and pleasure should not be confused with happiness, that is the first mistake.  Now, even the younger generations are being programmed to operate this way, along with other cultures who had escaped this thinking before.  There’s a reason why there is starting to be a shift in thinking toward Eastern philosophy in the United States.  Some are realizing that materials are not the source of happiness.  But all of this starts with questioning.  We must constantly question our motives and examine our definitions.  It is only with constant oversight that we start to shift our own minds.

Photo by Hamed Masoumi

According to research by economists and psychologists, the level of happiness in the population has not changed in almost a century.  In spite of advances in medicine and technology, we are not happier than our ancestors.  Characteristics such as age, gender, income level, and health, do not account for a lot of the variance in happiness between people.  This kind of evidence inevitably leads to the question of why this things that have seemingly improved our lives so much, have not really increased how happy we feel.  It’s important to note first that happiness in these studies was determined by the responses of the subjects themselves.

The first thought I have is that if all these improvements going on externally are not impacting our perceived happiness, then maybe the next step is to go inward.  People tend to rate their happiness based on how much they have externally, so they are in a constant state of wanting more.  I think it is this condition that has persisted over the century studied.  I’ve felt this desire in myself as well.  As soon as a desired improvement, the next step externally, is achieved, we immediately think of something else we have to have.  There are always going to be a million things we don’t have, and this is why this type of thinking will never lead us to feeling happier.  In fact, it is this greed itself that prevents the subjects in these studies from rating themselves the maximum level of “happiness”.  If we always think we have to have more, then even when asked if we are happy, we’ll think “well I could be happier.”  This is why income level was not a good predictor.  The billionaires and the unemployed all want more.

The second thought is that most people’s definition of happiness tends to coincide more with pleasure than contentment or peace.  True happiness either is or is not, there is no “happier”.  So if we are to seek this peace within ourselves, then it is not going to come in the form of a new phone or a more convenient washing machine.  We must go within and sort out the conflicts within ourselves if we want satisfaction.  But none of this can even begin to happen if we first don’t realize our blind rush for “more”.  It’s not going to happen if we don’t realize that we are seeking pleasure, not peace.