Wednesday, December 6, 2017

Final report 1st installment

Does Love equal Happiness? Bob Marley used music as a way to make the world find peace and love. He believed that maybe his music could make everyone calm down and just feel love. His message is one that can from his soul and not from a political party. He wanted the world to overlook our differences and just love one another. The quote below is one I think our society is in dire need of.

Not a day goes by where a race debate or race problem is brought up in our media. This is doing nothing but diminishing any sight of love. Our society is making race a problem when it shouldn’t be. The bible says “Above everything, love one another earnestly, because love covers over many sins.”(1 Peter 4:8) By not embracing love we are giving way for anger and hatred to move in .This appears to be preventing many of us here in America from being happy.

We let our media and groups of angered people control what we take in our hearts. Constantly we are shown where a white guy does this to a black guy or a black woman does that to a white lady. We must avoid this and fill our hearts full with love.

What is so different in race? What is it that is so different for one another that we cannot love each other as our brother or sister? Bob Marley was also quoted with the statement below

Image result for bob marley quote only love can overcome the devil

The answer to that second question is hatred. Or as Bob Marley said, “the devils.” In the world, there are many factors that separate us from one another but that does not make it a bad thing. We should look at it with happiness, for we were created as individual. We should also take these differences in with love and compassion for these differences are not “wrong” but simply different. They are things that make us unique and who are we to be upset about how the other chooses to live. If one allows themselves to make these differences a problem he then is sacrificing is happiness. One should love all and free himself from any clouds of hatred.

What does a person have to lose by loving one another? The answer is nothing? What does one gain by hating another? Once again, the answer is nothing. So, if we have nothing to gain for hating other then why do we do it? There are a million answers to the question and not a one is a valid reason. If each and everyone one of us do not choose to love one another then we are giving up a piece of our happiness.

Yet again, the bible provides us with a quote in 1 Corinthians chapter 13 verse 13 saying “Right now three things remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.” To me, this is one of the most powerful verses in the Bible. Without Love we are nothing. The greatest thing we could ever do is love, and if we can ever achieve complete and absolute love for one another then we will be hatred free and have no choice but to be happy.

So, if one were to ask me if Love equals Happiness then I would whole heartedly say YES.

6 comments:

PhilDecember 7, 2017 at 10:32 AM
The Beatles said it, "all you need is love..." That's a bit of an oversimplification, but if there's any single human attitude/behavior that can trigger a cascade of positivity, love's gotta be it.

Bertrand Russell said it too: “The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge. Neither love without knowledge, nor knowledge without love can produce a good life.” And what's the most important thing we know? "In the end the love you take is equal to the love you make..."
ReplyDelete
Replies
UnknownDecember 7, 2017 at 5:27 PM
I love this because love really heals all. and not just romantic love.. but love from your friends, love from God, love from the universe, love from your dog. You can even take the perspective that an apple loves you enough to nourish you. If you find love and have love in the aspects of your life I do believe you're already happy
ReplyDelete
Replies
UnknownDecember 7, 2017 at 5:32 PM
I think a lot about if I had accomplished everything I wanted, had all the money I could ever need, and was healthy, if I was lacking in love I would feel the loss in my soul and would not be able to find happiness.
ReplyDelete
Replies
UnknownDecember 8, 2017 at 1:45 PM
Great post! I also believe that one of the biggest hinderance to happiness in our society is hatred. Where hatred resides, there is no happiness. A lot of anger and bitterness in the world are due to the fact that we attach so much undue importance to the color of our skin. I believe that a lot will change if we stop judging each other based on the color of our skin but rather the content of our heart. I also believe that this can be done. As the Great Nelson Mandela puts it, "No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite." LET'S SPREAD LOVE! LET'S SPREAD HAPPINESS.
ReplyDelete
Replies
UnknownDecember 13, 2017 at 12:23 PM
I really enjoyed this post because I was pleasantly surprised it wasn't about romantic love but love of humankind. I believe the world has forgotten that we are all humans, no matter the race or background. By accepting eachother's differences a change could be made positively.
ReplyDelete
Replies

Add comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Happiness returns to the MTSU campus (on ground!) August 24 2021, TTh 2:40, Peck Hall 206.

TEXTS:

Also recommended:

Enlightenment: The Pursuit of Happiness, 1680-1790
The Art of Happiness, by Epicurus
How to Be an Epicurean: The Ancient Art of Living Well
Stoicism: A Very Short Introduction
The Conquest of Happiness, by Bertrand Russell
William James, tba

"Happiness is the only sanction of life; where happiness fails, existence remains a mad and lamentable experiment." George Santayana

“If one can’t be happy, one must be amused, don’t you agree?” Nancy Mitford

But, beware "amusing ourselves to death"...

Previous announcements posted at the bottom of this page.

Natural happiness

“It is a scientific fact that the occasional contemplation of natural scenes of an impressive character, particularly if this contemplation occurs in connection with relief from ordinary cares, change of air and change of habits, is favorable to the health and vigor of men and especially to the health and vigor of their intellect beyond any other conditions which can be offered them, that it not only gives pleasure for the time being but increases the subsequent capacity for happiness and the means of securing happiness.” Frederick Law Olmsted

Happy Quotes

“Happiness depends upon ourselves.” ― Aristotle

They are fools who live without enjoyment of life
- Democritus

“For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Of all ridiculous things the most ridiculous seems to me, to be busy — to be a man who is brisk about his food and his work." -Soren Kierkegaard

"To pessimism and despair, the healthy-minded respond: 'stuff and nonsense, get out into the open air!'" -William James

"If we were to ask the question: 'What is human life's chief concern?' one of the answers we should receive would be: 'It is happiness.' How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness, is in fact for most men at all times the secret motive of all they do, and of all they are willing to endure." William James

	Albert Einstein (@SaidByEinstein)
A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy? #Einstein

“You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.” ― Albert Camus

"Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.” -Dr. Seuss (Or Vin Scully, or...)

"Happiness is the only sanction of life; where happiness fails, existence remains a mad and lamentable experiment." George Santayana

"Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared." - Buddha

Happiness: A History

“Like Rousseau, Hegel appreciated quite early on that in modern commercial societies, individuals' desires and needs were generated by the desires and needs of others. Implanted by advertising, dictated by fashion, and determined by style, individual desire was always socially determined, shaped by the particular contexts in which we live. [..] Hence the need for greater comfort does not exactly arise within you directly; it is suggested to you by those who hope to make a profit from its creation.”

“No one could work harder to be happy," Tocqueville observes of Americans, marveling at the ceaseless, restless energy they expand in search of a better life. Rushing from one thing tho the next, an American will travel hundreds of miles in a day. He will build a house in which to pass his old age and then sell it before the roof is on. He will continually change paths "for fear of missing the shortest cut leading to happiness.”

“What if virtue, work, all our striving and sweat was simply not enough to make the animal man a happy creature?”

Darrin M. McMahon

"Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence." Aristotle

"There is no other light, no other shade; this very sun, this moon, these very stars, this very order and disposition of things, is the same your ancestors enjoyed, and that shall also entertain your posterity... The utility of living consists not in the length of days, but in the use of time; a man may have lived long, and yet lived but a little. Make use of time while it is present with you." Montaigne

"Formula for our happiness: a Yes, a No, a straight line, a goal." Nietzsche

“You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.” Camus

"A life that partakes even a little of friendship, love, irony, humor, parenthood, literature, and music, and the chance to take part in battles for the liberation of others cannot be called 'meaningless' except if the person living it is also an existentialist and elects to call it so. It could be that all existence is a pointless joke, but it is not in fact possible to live one's everyday life as if this were so." Christopher Hitchens

The Meaning of Life

"The solid meaning of life is always the same eternal thing,— the marriage, namely, of some unhabitual ideal, however special, with some fidelity, courage, and endurance; with some man's or woman 's pains.—And, whatever or wherever life may be, there will always be the chance for that marriage to take place." William James

“The chances of finding out what’s really going on in the universe are so remote, the only thing to do is hang the sense of it and keep yourself occupied.” Douglas Adams

"Well, it's nothing very special. Try to be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations." M. Python

I can't stand it

Though the ULTIMATE state of the universe may be its extinction, there is nothing in physics to interfere with the hypothesis that the PENULTIMATE state might be a happy and virtuous consciousness...

In short, the last expiring pulsation of the universe's life might be, "I am so happy and perfect that I can stand it no longer."

William James

There are unhappy men who think the salvation of the world impossible. Theirs is the doctrine known as pessimism.

Optimism in turn would be the doctrine that thinks the world's salvation inevitable.

Midway between the two there stands what may be called the doctrine of meliorism, tho it has hitherto figured less as a doctrine than as an attitude in human affairs. Optimism has always been the regnant DOCTRINE in european philosophy. Pessimism was only recently introduced by Schopenhauer and counts few systematic defenders as yet. Meliorism treats salvation as neither inevitable nor impossible. It treats it as a possibility, which becomes more and more of a probability the more numerous the actual conditions of salvation become.It is clear that pragmatism must incline towards meliorism...(continues)

whanging & skimming

Remember when old December's darkness is everywhere about

you, that the world is really in every minutest point as full of life as in the most joyous morning you ever lived through; that the sun is whanging down, and the waves dancing, and the gulls skimming down at the mouth of the Amazon, for instance, as freshly as in the first morning of creation; and the hour is just as fit as any hour that ever was for a new gospel of cheer to be preached. I am sure that one can, by merely thinking of these matters of fact, limit the power of one's evil moods over one's way of looking at the cosmos.

Jefferson the Stoic-Epicurean

"Before he attained domestic happiness he had probably worked out his enduring philosophy of life; it was marked by cheerfulness not gloom, and he afterwards described it as Epicurean, though he hastened to say that the term was much misunderstood. He came to believe that happiness was the end of life, but, as has been said, he was engaged by the "peculiar conjunction of duty with happiness"; and his working philosophy was a sort of blend of Epicureanism and Stoicism, in which the goal of happiness was attained by self-discipline."

Dumas Malone, Jefferson the Virginian

The Philosophy of Happiness

Up@dawn 2.0

Wednesday, December 6, 2017

Final report 1st installment

6 comments:

Upload to Google Docs

That's

Five Books (@five_books)
The eternal question: how to be happier? Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project, passed us some tips buff.ly/2txxMnv