Emotional happiness -- continued...

OK, so reading my last post I obviously was hung up on love. I think because it is such a strong emotion, with that ability to create such incredible highs [as well as horrific lows], that got me going. There's obviously a lot more I could write on that area, and perhaps I'll return to it -- for now, I want to look at other areas that bring happiness, and what we do [or don't do] to set up those situations. Other than love, what other emotions or feelings do we seek to bring us happiness? Camaraderie, a sense of accomplishment, a sense of belonging, comfort -- these are some of the areas that I'm thinking of when considering emotional happiness. Loneliness, loss, stress -- these are the feelings that run counter to above and drain the life out of most of us. Having said that, it makes me want to dissect a 'day in the life' to determine which activities we tend to pursue and how that affects our emotional happiness. Remember, my objective in all of this is to delve into a way to live and a means to achieve that life -- in doing so, my hope is to provide a construct that people can start applying to their lives as well [whether that is viable or not as a society will be need to dealt with afterwards, but first things first].

As discussed earlier, in a 24 hour day, a third is spent asleep, so we're really here to examine what is done with the other 16 hours a day. For most of the population, at least half that is spent working. In today's society of commerce, working for a wage is the means by which we provide the basic sustenance of life -- food, shelter, clothing. And yes, this is why I keep returning to work as a part of life -- barring an expedition to the wild and living off the land [less areas of which exist in our ever-crowding world], we have to create something of perceived value to have the ability to purchase our means of existence. It is not an obsession, but a cold reality that our choice of occupation determines the means by which we live. So work is a significant part of how we spend our time -- and this is one key area where most of us fall short in achieving a sense of happiness. Look at my list of positive and negative emotions above -- in your working day, are you leaning more to the positive or negative? If you're like me, you'll find that most of the day is spent dealing with stress and other negative emotions as you try to navigate the day. This can be compounded by the type of work you do as well -- so much of what our society of consumption does not add value; do we really need 38 different types of toothpaste?

So one area of improvement is obviously in occupation; the luckiest -- correct that, the smartest -- of us work in an area that brings them personal satisfaction [art, entertainment, construction, sports, teaching, manufacturing, technology]. For the rest of us, whether we fell into our vocation or worse yet decided to chase the almighty dollar for the dollar's sake, we've found ourselves in a crowded tunnel we cannot get out of.

I believe many of the ills we face now from an economic basis in the US are a direct result of this pursuit of money as the end, rather than the means to an end. Consider in the '80's and '90's -- many of our brightest minds at our top universities were producing specialists in finance and law; we saw a significant influx in MBA's and JD's over people focused on health, manufacturing, science, etc. Now we take this well-educated group, focused on not creating tangible goods but instead instruments of wealth. Consider that in the early 1980's, there were approximately 6,000 'underlying assets', i.e. stocks, bonds, etc. By the late 1990's, this number had exploded to over 1.5 million investment vehicles -- this was not that we had a sudden burst in companies seeking capital to grow. What you saw was a generation of smart people developing new and different ways to make money off of existing investment opportunities -- the easiest to identify was the mutual fund, where people smarter than you would create combinations of these company investments and sell you a share of the package, one which would profit you as they were better at picking stocks than you. The capitalization of other assets continued to explode, as real estate, commercial mortgage liabilities, even song royalties were packaged and sold. It was a classic case of money creating money, with no real and tangible product being made other than more money. My dilemma with this is two-fold -- one, is there really a true sense of accomplishment in coming up with new and interesting ways to package and resell the profits that 3M and Coca-Cola make, and two, has the net result of this in our society been overall a positive or negative one? It is well worth digging into, but I can only wonder what would have happened if my generation had spent more time focusing on innovation, engineering, medicine, and social issues instead of banking, insurance, investments and other money-making ventures. The current situation certainly gives us indication as to the societal impact -- the division of wealth in the US continues to grow at a substantial rate. The lack of innovation in any area except financial services means that we are losing core industries around which jobs and societies can be created. As the bubble the financial efforts created have burst, we are left looking at the wreckage wondering how much better off we are -- other than a select few holding all of the funds, overall I feel we have reduced the number of occupational alternatives while raising the general cost of living. I am encouraged to see my children's generation gravitate towards smaller being better -- less McMansions, less Hummers, and a little more bohemian existence that does not revolve around money; like every generation, I can only hope they learn from our mistakes.

So back from how to handle what we do and how it affects us, individually and as a society. Remember, my focus goes back to the Law of Existence -- increase overall happiness to all without infringing on the happiness of others [and yes, this is simply a variation on the Golden Rule, as well as the Eight Fold path of the Bodhavistas, etc. -- I never said I was original, I'm just working my way through all of it!]. We have gotten into a situation, thanks as much to the wonderful world of marketing as anything else, that we focus on what we want before we focus on how we get it. Try this on for size -- what if our focus from the start is what we want to do; what brings us happiness? This means as parents, we raise our children from the start to experience the world around them at all times and see what motivates them. It means that as they get older, our education is focused on providing exposure to as many new stimuli as possible -- again, so that the growth of an individual is in determining what makes them tick, whether it's taking apart the TV to see how it works or drawing pictures of the trees outside. As the person matures, education then becomes more tailored to there desires. There should be some basic topics covered for survival -- basic math, English, or whatever the appropriate language is to communicate. After that, it should be desire-driven -- imagine an education not by rote but driven by your interests, peppered with a dose of something new every so often to open you to new possibilities. This carries over into what you do -- society will determine the value of your accomplishments for monetary purposes, and THAT determines your means of existence. Right now, we do exactly the opposite: I want a four bedroom house, a sports car, a vacation home, etc. -- how do I get there. It goes back to that fundamental failure of capitalism -- value is defined in terms of dollars and sense, not overall satisfaction and happiness. It forces us to attack life backwards -- we torture our children to exceed in all aspects of school so they can go to the best college so that they can make the most money to be "successful". Time to redefine what successful means...

I think I've meandered enough for today -- I'm not even sure where the next post will take me...stay tuned...