What makes a life worth living?
According to Socrates, the unexamined life is living under others’ rules, in a continuous routine when you have not examined the specific things that you want in life, and it is not worth living. He disagrees with the fact that humans must scrutinize their life to live a satisfying experience. However, saying that unexamined life is not worth living and unreasonable is not necessarily true. This is because, besides examining one’s life, other important things contribute to the well-being and happiness of an individual. These things include: reaching success in life, memories, being with family, and life experiences. Whether examined or not, things that bring happiness should always be prioritized (Brooker, 2008).
In order for humans to survive, we need shelter, food, and water. Additionally, we need meaning to live. Life seems empty if we don’t have a purpose and meaning to the basic needs that we require. According to certain philosophers, life can be dealt with in three different ways, that is, religious, ethical, and aesthetic stage. Each aspect above can answer the question at hand.
The first stage is the ethical aspect. This is where people seek to comprehend the meaning of life through values, for instance, finding an authentic life, building wealth, working and taking care of friends ad family, and being a good and honest person. In this stage, people seek a job with purpose, that is, something that would enhance themselves as well as improve the world as a whole. They also want to establish deeper and stronger bonds with other individuals. However, there is a problem in this stage; that is, it disagrees with the world. The life events do not follow human justice sense, for instance, being an honest and good person does not mean that you’ll be protected from unfortunate incidents such as accident, misunderstood by others, lose something, or even suffer unjust violence. Therefore, regardless of our morality, misfortunes can happen to us (Mathews, 1996).
Secondly, there is the religious stage where people find shelter and comfort for their anguish through seeking a spiritual belief. For religious people, their belief helps them in hard times. For instance, they believe that if they suffer now, then the universe or God will reward them in the future. Also, they believe that in the end, their difficulties will transform to be a greater purpose. However, the failure in this stage is that people give up their personal freedom, that is, to make their own choices. Therefore, exchanging religious morality in order to feel protected from life and safe is not a fair trade. Other philosophers also believe that faith should not avoid anguish. A faith that denies personal freedom ceases to become just a consolation during difficult times but also a legitimate spiritual path without guarantees (Wong, 2013).
The third stage is the aesthetic one, where people believe that being happy and enjoying to the fullest is what makes life worth living. Things ranging from travel and romance to sex and food make someone happy. Also, showing up with the hot body, attending parties, enjoying with lots of friends, driving a new car, dating beautiful people, and discovering other countries are things that make people happy. However, it is a bottomless activity to chase happiness. The more someone looks for beautiful experiences, the more he realizes that there are other, more satisfying experiences. There are also limits in satisfying the aesthetic adventure, for instance, time limit, energy limit, and resource limit. Therefore, it’s very frustrating because the pursuit never ends (Brooker, 2008).
Conclusion
We face these stages in different experiences, and they are part of our lives. In summary, as humans, we need to feel happy and enjoy our life experiences; it is essential to find a way of living that is ethical, thus live well and connect with other people. Similarly, we need to find a religious life which will help us conquer and go through hard times. Putting a focus on one element won’t solve our problems.
References
Brooker, D. (2008). What makes life worth living?.
Mathews, G. (1996). What makes life worth living?: How Japanese and Americans make sense of their worlds. Univ of California Press.
Wong, P. T. (2013). Toward a dual-systems model of what makes life worth living. The human quest for meaning (pp. 49-68). Routledge.