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Friday, March 30, 2012

Happy little fences,...


Right now I am tossing around ideas for a class. It is my public speaking class. While I am pretty damn sure I do not need this class, I am required to get to attend to attain my degree. I also believe that since you wonderful taxpayers were kind enough to honor my GI Bill, the least I can do to be grateful is to do a good job. It is a persuasive presentation, and our teacher requested we keep it light. I can understand, being that our last attempt at speaking was an informative speech, and well the topics were a little heavy. We dealt with teen suicide, texting and driving (which included that video of the British chicks all getting smashed to hell), a great presentation on body standards, and a few others that hit home. My group took a lighter spin on a darker subject. We dealt with death by talking about our personal bucket lists.

So to keep things light I decided to tell people why they are the only thing between them and their happiness. The pursuit thereof is guaranteed by the Constitution, yet so few people try attempt to find it. I think it is due to a shift in needs, and people are unable to be happy because of the mindset that comes with that shift. So here are some of my ideas that I will be placing on slides to offer advice to all of those wide eyed children that attend my class. I am working out the thoughts and you are all my test monkeys as usual.

First I want to start with the mental state the vast majority are in that prevents them from being truly happy. This thought process that is back by the consumer society we belong to. The externally driven belief that happiness can only come from with out. We define happy as the white picket fence, the big screen TV, the perfect relationship, a large bank account, or perhaps a college degree. Some go a little deeper and thing of it as the smile in their child's face. Either way, while those things might make you happy in a brain chemical stimulation process, they are however not the way to achieve a state of happiness.

You see we are so obsessed with the grass being greener on the other side that we forget to water our own lawn. In that we find happiness is a feeling. While feelings can be influenced externally, it is the internal workings of our mind that allows the state to exist in the first place. We have to give thought to validate our own right to be happy. We are trained to look to external validation. We have this driving need to seek the approval of our peers, our parents, or just society in general. When in reality all we need is our of approval. We are all we need to validate ourselves. We decide if something taste good, feels good, or is just plain good. While the human experience is filled interactions with others, it is how we lay all that information out, and process it, that gives form to our universe.

Think of life as chance to gather data. The world, and the people on it, are giving us blocks. They start giving us all these blocks the day we are born. While they can tell us what to do with these blocks, it is only our hands that place them where they need to be. Some will sell there blocks to you, as if their blocks are better than other blocks, but at the end of the day they are your blocks. You decide with your own thoughts what to do with these blocks. You can choose to build walls, or roads. You can build bridges or prisons. You can set the stage for your own personal reality.

So you need to define your parameters to be happy. It is you and only you that gets to decide what you do and do not like. It is you that sets your mood and processes the data of the world. I look at it like this; You call me an asshole, I decide if it's true. If I am indeed an asshole, I decide how much I care. I validate the data, based on what you tell me, and at the end of it, it is me and only me that gives it value. This process still happens regardless if you are influenced externally. Become aware of it just gives you control.

All of the crap people throw your way, only carries the weight that you allow it. I only worry about how things make me feel, and how I can feel good. I do not mean I am going to masturbate on the light rail, but I mean feel good internally. Can I look at myself and feel good about myself. I decide, who or what makes me happy. I try to surround myself with people that make me happy. I stop waiting my time on people who not deserve my attention or affections, and look for value added relationships. I do not worry what others think or feel if they are just consumers. Now if I find people sharing this human "Do"ing expierence with me, I will share my life with them. I try not to worry, because worry is just the dark side of your imagination. In the end of it all, I try to find the deepest love I can, and that my friend is when you can love who you are in spite of yourself. When you find that love, then you can love another, then you will also find love in life.

3 comments:

  1. Comments, quotes, more info, all of this would be helpful. I plan on banging most of this out tonight so I have time to write, revise and review before the fourth when its due.

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  2. parameters -> persuasive speech, the pursuit of your happiness is the road you pave yourself

    the intake of data leads to the decisions to define and identify the state of happiness.... most fail in the ability to identify happy farther than __________? how does one identify than happy past this point ? put the words in the mouth of the cow this is what i do to be happy?

    but first clearly identify what the shift is . what was the starting point and then how did it shift to the later point being the position of unhappy

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