To be given life is the ultimate gift. When we are first born we have the right to cry or laugh. When we grow up we have the freedom to choose the way we want to be. Humans were born with rights equal to every other living thing but because of our unlimited desire human life is often of less quality than most other animals.
A small bird wakes up early in the morning singing a song waking the other birds, merrily looking for food, spending a short time to get all the bugs and grain she needs to fill her small stomach, then spending the rest of her time playing, singing, and courting. She spends a few days to build her beautiful nest. She doesn?t work too much to get the food she needs everyday. Her life is easy. She has a lot of time to play and enjoy living together with the other birds.
Humans have small stomachs as birds do. Just to have enough to eat we too do not have to work a lot in one day. If we want to build a house, we can build one in a few weeks. We can then have a lot of free-time in our life to play and enjoy life together as well. Now days people choose to work very hard, at least 8 hours per day. They work like machines just to have some food to eat even though the food they eat is not good quality. They eat the old plants and animals that have been dead many months in a can or in frozen packages. They have to live in a crowded house like a termite. If they want their own house they have to spend at least one half of their life or maybe all of their life to work for that house. Life is busy and hectic all the time.
We can see only complications with no space for beauty and freedom. We create suffering for ourselves because we don?t know the purpose of life. We are blinded and our soul turns to darkness. We can?t see beauty. We can?t enjoy living. We have only fear growing in our minds everyday. We begin to distrust other people. We cannot be friends with others around us, even relatives or family members. Our lives are lonely, even though the world is full of people. Even though we have a lot of material goods and wealth we still feel like it?s not enough. Even thought other people give us love, we still don?t trust them. We are even disturbed by the rooster?s morning call and we?re proud to say in the middle of this confusion and suffering that this is development and we are civilized.
Why do humans choose to live their life in a difficult and complicated life like this? What do we receive from our hard work all our life? Why is the simple and peaceful way not attractive to people? Life is easy, why do we make it hard?
If we think we are the most clever animal in the world, why do we make our life full of bitterness and suffering more than any other animal? Why do we have to work harder than other animals? Why do we make our lives so boring? Why don?t we have time for our kids and family or even time for ourselves? These are the instincts of all life. In 24 hours we spend more than 10 hours struggling with what we call work or said nicely, ?making a living?. We spend on average less than 8 hours sleeping and 2.5 hours a day eating, maybe .5-1 hour bathing/dressing. This leaves 3 hours left for ourselves and our family in our day. Mostly we spend this time intoxicating ourselves with entertainment such as drinking, going to parties, shopping, watching movies or watching TV. Even on our day off we love to spend the time on entertainment. We don?t see the importance of spending time with family or ourselves because we think we don?t have time. So we are not different from machines or robots because we have lost our heart and soul.
Our kids are like our pets. We take care of them enough to feed them and keep them safe but we neglect to think about their mind and soul. Kids want to be loved and cared for and to feel close to their parents but we think it?s a burden so we push them away by sending them to pre-school. Then we appease ourselves by telling ourselves we?ve done the best by them by giving them good food and expensive schooling so we can have more time to give to working and we can tell ourselves that we work for our kids. But we don?t know if the kids want what we give them or not. We assume we have given the best to them. If the kids know how to compare, they must be jealous of other animals like ducks seeing their whole family playing and looking for food together. But to be born as a human kid is so lonely. They become orphaned even though they have parents. They spend more time with strangers than their parents.
We are losing our instincts. We are destroying the system of life which our ancestors developed and lived successfully with for many thousands of years. Now we become the only animals that work this hard. Even in the past people didn?t work as hard or long as they do now except slaves and prisoners. What made people see slavery as progress or development? What is the reason people choose to live like this? Life is easy, why do we choose to make it so hard and complicated? What makes us think life has no choice when in fact we have a lot of choice?
Why do people make their life so unhappy and difficult?
Desire is the root cause of suffering. Desire for things one does not have, desire for things one cannot have. Desire for things that have been lost. Desire is nature's biggest motivator for progress and at the same time, the source of much of our pain. It's not just humans that suffer from desire, animals do as well. Its at the core of the natural world. The only way to escape the suffering caused by desire is to strive to seperate yourself from it. This is what is at the core of many world religions. It is the central tenant of Buddhism. In Christianity, the state of mind resulting from the temporary release from desire is called "grace" (not the prayer before meals).
Reply:An EXCELLENT and well worded question.
The reason for our contraryness to obtaining an easy life, firstly, is in the humans sense of self. This is at odds with anything else in the animal kingdom. Ego, alas, creates separation.
Further, our society is so constructed to make living an alternative lifestyle an almost impossible dream. We NEED to earn money to continue to exist in the system. Sadly, we cannot just go out and build a home in a few short weeks, as the land would be owned by someone else, there would be the needs for planning and building approvals (in most countries) -and subsequent land rents or taxation, otherwise, the government or others acting on their behalf would buldoze our new dwellings flat.
In short, we are tied into our prisons of misery by the monetary system. Sure, we could opt out, move into a forest and eat plants or bugs, but who would want that?
Our prison is entirely of our own making.
Reply:Abraham Lincoln said that most people are as happy as they make up their minds to be!
This is a sinful, fallen world...we all have a sinful, fallen nature. We choose to do the very things that aren't good for us or others. Like seeks like...even when we know better we can't do the right thing and it makes us miserable. Without God's help and salvation we can't make right decisions and will be unhappy and mess things up for ourselves and all around us!
Seek ye the Lord while you may! Choose joy! Choose life with God! John 3:16.
Reply:Well first off we spend so much time working in part because we have to put ever increasing amounts of money in other peoples pockets so there's less and less for us to live on and second we spend so much time trying to keep up with the neighbors or the guy on TV or whoever else tells us we're not adequate if we don't have the latest and greatest gadget or widget or whatever. Then we screw up our kids because we follow some bonehead who writes an equally boneheaded book and we end up having no idea how to actually be a parent and either try to be a friend to our kids which is wrong, parents need to be parents not friends or at least parents first friends second or they heap mounds of false praise on their kids which: when the kids go out in the real world and those heaps of praise are no longer there end up making our kids think there's something wrong with either them or the world around them which screws them up even more. What this all ads up to is we have screwed things up, badly and it may be more difficult to fix than we have time to do it.
Reply:Happiness is a state of mind but many people are just worried about keeping a roof over their heads no matter how modest and don't really have their heads turned by extravagant desires. Sometimes your choice is working two jobs or working 3 jobs to survive. You're right. That is a crumby way to have to live.
Reply:Our knowledge gets in the way of basal instinct.
Reply:no idea
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