How people live their lives and establish goals
Posted: Thursday, August 04, 2005
by alliet
It’s hard to say what the perfect life would be like. I guess there never could really be a single perfect life. Everyone has their own idea of a perfect life, what’s perfect for some is not for others. And what is perfect for them is not necessarily what is the best for them. However I think I could safely guess that for the large majority of human beings, being happy all the time would be a perfect life. I would have to say that there runner up would be money that just goes to show how greedy people really are.
There are some people that regard money so highly that they feel by giving money away they earn trust and build relationships. Sadly enough many of those on the receiving end accept payment as affection. For example a father feels his 11 year old son is angry because he never spends anytime with him. The father gives his son $500 honestly believing that this will make his son forget about his constantly absent father. For a child who has been raised to value money so highly, this gesture would in fact buy the son’s affection for his father. For those that realize that $500 cannot replace the parental bond grow up to value so much in life.
I take myself as an example. I grew up in what many would consider luxury. Spacious comfortable home, private school, always plenty to eat, and plenty of love and affection from my parents. However I was never given lots of material things. I didn’t have many clothes at all because I wore a uniform to school and my parents didn’t see a need for me to have a closet full of clothes for summer, weekends and after school. I didn’t have lots of toys, I only obtained new ones for rewards, birthdays or by saving up my own money. I never had any kind of game system. When I was about 8, my mom gave my dad a game boy for Christmas. This was the only sort of electronic game I had until my 13th birthday I got a color game boy. At the end of 9th grade my mom bought me a play station because I had finished a stressful year at a stressful school. A private school that my mom had made a deal with me go for at least one year and if I didn’t like it I could attend my first public school the next year. Sophomore year of high school was my first year of public school, I was suddenly not shielded from the larger world and was now in a big sea rather than pond. None the less, public school was where I wanted to be I liked it better than any other private school I had been to. To focus back onto the matter at hand, I grew up in a household of money savers, not spenders. I am an only child with wealthy parents and I have always been far from spoiled. I do admit that I have been spoiled in ways of attention and affection. I have always felt that there has been money dangling in front of me, but never in my reach.
What truly amazes me though is how people’s values and views range from one end if the spectrum to the complete opposite. For example, for some criminals they have a certain mindset in which they feel they are entitled to what the steal, or that stealing is not wrong but justified. Or they just have absolutely no conscience and are not thinking at all. Perhaps they are just feigning for the money or drugs that they usually don’t even realize the outcomes of their actions. The victim and the effect of their actions are never thought of when a criminal does wrong. You would have to be oblivious to who you are effecting, or else your conscience would eat away at you so bad you would not be able to commit these crimes any longer. This is not to say that a criminal has no feelings or values, they are just distorted. They may care deeply about their family, lover, or drugs. What they value is not the same as what one of normal conscience would value. What could be said for the criminals though is that good or bad at least they have a goal and value something. Weather or not they aim to achieve the high for the days or rent money for the family, at least they have goals.
There are many people who live unproductive lives and only burden society, for example street corner bums that just sit there begging for pocket change. They have no goal, subconsciously their goal is to mooch of other people and see how much change they can accumulate in one day. They have no values or goals and this is evident because they simply sit in one location all day with no initiative to support themselves or hold their own. Every one of them could probably tell you a sob story that would make you want to put money in their cup but they could be lying. There is also the factor that if their life is so sad why don’t they try to make something of it and turn it around by being productive, getting a job. These people have simply given up, and don’t want anything to do with society other than to act as a leech. They are useless lumps of humans until they go out and make an effort to make something of themselves. The unfortunate thing is that these people do not see themselves as how they are. They just feel pity for themselves and are unaware of the fact that they are a complete burden on society. The drunken ones are the worst. They get out of control and have to be detained by law enforcement, this only drains tax dollars and in the long run serves no purpose. They will never learn, and if anything they may learn that jail is a warm shelter and a free meal and there could be no end to their behavior. These kind of people do have a warped idea of a life goal-get arrested to have a place to life. Their mindset is there is nothing on the street so if they pretend to be dangerous they have a free place to live. As a tax payer this would make almost anyone outranged.
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)What an odd, yet interesting article, especially in view of the fact that I came across it after typing "people who live their life by squiggles" into Google. This, I did, because it has only just occurred to me that this is how I live my life. Strange, though, that I should meet somebody who is questioning happiness in general - something I often think about.
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