Welcome to the adventure of determining your Life Ideals. My name is Art, and just like most people, I've given a good deal of thought to the question of what are the correct Life Ideals for myself.
In this website I'd like to share my conclusions with you and get your opinion about, and any amplifications you have to offer about the various areas of life.
The Search for Life Ideals:
In this website, I'll share my adventure of inquiry and discovery with you. There is no intention to claim or imply that what I've found for myself will also be the right answers for you. What is right for you is what you decide is right for you based on your own investigation, examination, and discovery of alternatives.
As a young child, I found the world to be a magical place full of all sorts of new and exciting things to know and discover; life was fun! My neighborhood friends would come around after dinner to see if I could come out to play. And usually, the answer from my parents was "OK, but come in when we call you." So, in many ways, I had an ideal childhood with loving parents watching out for me and good friends to play with.
Somewhere along the way, however, life became a bit more serious and I began to realize that I had a few responsibilities other than just having as much fun as possible. This is when I became a "philosopher" along the lines of the ancient Greeks who devoted much thought to the question of what constitutes an ideal way to live. The whole field of philosophy is concerned with the most fundamental questions of human interactions and society. It examines good versus evil, what is good government, what is required of a good citizen, etc.
Philosophers usually attempt to formulate their answers to these questions in a way that is general enough to apply to everyone. However, all of us, philosopher or not, will be attempting to find our own answers to these very fundamental questions about life that we can apply to our own lives.
As I see it, there are two ways to go about determining our Life Ideals:
- search out and find our own answers, or
- take someone else's word for it.
I personally favor the first approach, but many people throughout history have adopted the second approach.
For those who take the second approach, the crucial question is "who is it best to listen to?" One might select their favorite philosopher, or perhaps the head of their particular religion.
"Religion" is really just an extension of philosophy into the realm of spiritual questions such as:
- where do we come from?
- who made the world as a whole (and us in particular)?
- what spiritual responsibilities does this place on us?,
- etc.
As you can see, the scope of these questions is enormous. They embrace virtually everything and anything about life and living. With questions this large and all-embracing, we need to approach the search for answers on a gradient scale of increasing complexity. In other words, we first try to understand something pertinent to our immediate life, then we expand our horizons to take in a little larger picture, then a little larger, etc.
Having been through this process myself, I believe that I've arrived at a fairly broad viewpoint and understanding of life and living. So at this point, in my eighth decade of life, I feel that I'm in a position to say that: "I will talk with anyone about anything!"
Not that I want to be everyone's guru and supply them with all the answers; I simply want to help them in their own search and exploration so that they may be able to find their own answers a bit faster and more efficiently.
In order to start your own dialogue with me, simply post your thoughts or questions on the Forum and I'll give you a thoughtful reply at my earliest opportunity.
What should you do?
If your life falls short of your idea of what an Ideal Life should look like, what should you do?
You can either:
- Accept things as they are, or
- Try to do something to Improve Your Life.
Option one is called “fatalism” which is the idea that all events are predetermined and therefore inevitable. I don’t subscribe to that idea. I believe that there is always something you can do to try to Improve Your Life.
Those who choose option one or feel that there isn’t anything they can do to improve their lives, often seem to resort to drugs and/or alcohol as their “solution.” Drugs and/or alcohol are never a solution to life’s situations; they only make things worse!
What do you think?
Let’s talk about it in the Forum. Just add your comments to the topic “What Can You Do to Improve Your Life?”
Or, if you would prefer to have a more private conversation with me, just shoot me an email at winatlifetx@gmail.com with your contact information and we can talk about it one-on-one via email or by phone.