What is it that we call good life? If we introspect thoroughly it will appear to us that fundamentally we call those things good, which are accepted as desirable, for all, by our conscience. Let us have a closer look at the statement.
Different persons have different ways of life. People have different tastes as far as the different aspects of living are concerned. For most of the common people this is largely governed by their social status as well as their nature. Also, as social beings, our relations with other humans contribute to our behavior, both towards our own selves and others. We are usually required to optimize our behavior and actions to a large extent, in view of our peaceful coexistence. Such optimizations are manifested as our different ways of life.
But, as human as a creature, we have some attributes in common. We all look for a few common feelings, irrespective of our apparent differences; even if, as individuals, we are of different nature and how different our culture or social status might be. We look for stability for instance. These feelings help us enjoy life. And if we have a very close look at our psych, we will see that we are constantly striving to be happy through enjoyment of every moment.
These feelings help us form the ideas and senses of the desirables in life. So long a person conforms to the definition of one who is neurotically healthy, even if he is very offensive or obnoxious in his ways, when interrogated closely, he will also show his longings for the same common feelings as those of a person who is very fine and amicable.
At different junctures of history, great men came within us who came up with solutions for problems of life. Their teachings had a common agenda: they tried to delineate ways of life which help us find those desirables. They told us about actions directed in quest of those feelings we all long for, as human beings.
Life changes with time as we come up with solutions to myriads of problems we face against our efforts to live. By and large, search for convenience is the motive force behind the present day concept of civilized life. This search has made it possible for new technologies to come up. At times, maintaining the processes helping convenience, need prop, supportive systems. Thus technologies have their byproducts – even more new technologies. Terminologies change, so do understandings and interpretations. Such proliferations tend to make life inwardly complex. We do not always find ourselves to be readily equipped with the solutions to such complexities. This situation takes away the feeling of good living. We find ourselves perturbed by the nagging feeling of discomfort, which is not at all desirable. Thus it mars the stability we look for.
This is sort of a vicious cycle. We started with an intention to find convenience which might help us enjoy our life – but are ending up in a situation where we are in discomfort. To get rid of this, both life and old teachings need to be reviewed constantly.
New discoveries and inventions are enlightening us every other day. Such new knowledge may help us venture beyond the boundaries of our existing ideas. Our day to day life mostly goes by some time proven rules and habits formed by and guided by such rules. New ideas and knowledge change the rule at turns of life. We need to look at life, both present and the old ways, in the light of such new ideas.
But life concerns our own selves; we live to satisfy our own desires, we enjoy according to likings and shun the things of our disliking. Thus, life is about our own feelings. If we remain unaware of our own persons, we can no way understand our life.
Such situations are not very uncommon. In fact, we mostly go by the habits we form starting from our childhood through our lives. But we fail to understand why we do that way. We develop habits from repetitions of our reactions in life situations – but such reactions are often involuntary. Our conscious selves are not involved in such reactions. We come to know the rules for the reactions from the visual and other type of sensory data we gather from around us. Such data normally adhere to a pattern for considerable time and changes in such patterns take place very slowly. Hence, even if there is a drift in life situations, they often remain imperceptible. So, change in our behavior pattern, also do not take place very often.
Lack of synchronization in the changes of life situation and our behavior pattern gives rise to stress as we find ourselves inadequate standing in face of radically new situations. These stresses create perturbation within us – which is a state far from what is desired.
The best way we can equip ourselves for handling these stresses is to expand our repertoire of information about ourselves. Except for such situations where we have to find solutions of problems of physical or natural science, we have to work our ways out through situations concerned with human relationships. Physical science is a far too specialized field for our day to day life. Situations concerning human relations are far more frequent as compared to such problems which call for the specialized knowledge of a scientist. Hence, the more we know about ourselves, the more we know about other human beings similar to us. This knowing has to concern the human mind, because human relationship is built on the space of minds.
We have to be aware of ourselves, and for that purpose, fundamentally, first have to know ourselves – our longings, our desires. We have to be acquainted with our true feelings.
Dynamics of our social life often force us, someway or other, to behave the way others want us to. This fact is often reflected in our habits and expectations also. So, in the process of knowing oneself, one have to scrutinize one’s expectations to see whether they are really one’s own or they are the projections of others ideas. We also have to revisit our habitual behaviors and ideologies. If we are open enough we can find ways for ourselves to overcome the rocks of discontent jutting out in front of us when we want to sail through life enjoying every moment of it.
