STRUGGLES GAVE MORALS TO HUMAN LIVES

                               STRUGGLES GAVE MORALS TO HUMAN LIVES

  Our lives are incomparably easier when juxtaposed with the lives of our ancestors. Most of us living in the Western world don’t have to imagine what it would be like to hunt for our own food, grow our own crops, tend to a fire or, worst of all, entertain ourselves without our phones and computers.

    We currently live in the safest and most peaceful time in human history. Don’t let the news fool you. Sure, there may be threats of nuclear annihilation from time to time, but have you looked on the bright side?

• Crime rates have been steadily decreasing over the years, at or near an all-time low (in America at least)
• Life expectancy has risen more than 50 years over the last 1000 years
• Child mortality rates are plummeting due to continuously improving medical technology
• We are better educated than ever and we all have access to better education due to technology and the push for public education
• We are pulling people out of extreme poverty and are continuously expanding efforts to help educate and feed underdeveloped nations and their people

Life for people in the Western world has never been better. So then why are people, specifically young men, choosing to kill themselves and sometimes acting out their vengeance against life in senseless violence against the innocent?

Why are people living at the very top of modern civilization, with their millions of dollars and lavish lifestyles, choosing to end it all through drugs or other means?

Why has there been a surge in depression amongst young people who grew up in what is known to be the best time to live in human history?

I have struggled to find meaning in this world. I have struggled to find purpose, a drive to live life to the fullest, a goal that made this journey worth it.

    Ever since I was young, I was taught to chase the American Dream, to study hard and get into a good college, to get a stable and well-paying job, to marry and have some kids and buy a house and a car, to have the life that my parents could never have and sacrificed everything to give me an opportunity to attain it.

    Is the purpose of life to be happy? Is it to minimize suffering and maximize happiness? It sure seems like a good way to see life. It’s also easy to live in this mindset in the era we live in. Everything is available to us with money. Why not live in constant euphoria, living for the weekend to lose ourselves in our search to feel good through drugs, alcohol, and sex?

    This hedonistic lifestyle will only give us pain and suffering in the long run.

    We have lost what it means to struggle through life. We have become so pampered and want everything to be faster, cheaper, better — more, more, more.

    The people before us built up a great civilization and never got to reap its benefits. We are the recipients of a great nation that has been passed on from generation to generation. Things work now because of the hard work and sacrifice of millions of people who came before us. We came into the world and inherited it ungratefully, thinking like selfish brats and taking credit for the technology and infrastructure we never had to work for, and now we have no idea how to find our way forward.

In our comfort, we have forgotten the one thing that allows us to find meaning in this world — struggle.

    The history of humanity is a consistent struggle with nature and with itself. We have had to face countless adversities, sacrifice loved ones and experienced pain and suffering that none of us today can ever imagine living through.

What makes us heroic? — Confronting simultaneously our supreme suffering and our supreme hope.

Friedrich Nietzsche

    What inspires me about us is how despite all the problems, despite the inherent suffering of humans due to our consciousness, despite the betrayals and murders and corruption we have inflicted onto each other, we have always found ways to survive and carry on.

    We have always found ways to create and improve. We have always had significant figures who led humanity in the right direction, and we have staved off the ones who tried to lead us collectively into hell.

`    But none of the great works of the past could have come without struggle. None of the masterpieces in music and art we herald and enjoy to this day could have been gifted to the human race if individuals hadn’t conquered their own demons.

    We are all fighting inner demons and suffering in ways that no one else could fathom. If it’s not your friends or family members who are suffering, there is always a constant, perpetual and great battle raging in your consciousness.

    Maybe the most important fight that you must deal with in your life is within yourself. Maybe the purpose of your life is to win the inner battle, to defeat the dragon within you, to integrate your shadow into your being, to eradicate the self, the ego, the persona you have created for yourself and live authentically with courage.

    The Myth of Sisyphus tells you to push the heavy boulder up the mountain, even if you know it will fall to the bottom before you reach the top. Why are you pushing a boulder? Maybe it’s punishment for something you’ve done that you’ll never know. Why should you do it when you know that it will inevitably fall and that you will have to struggle, suffer and endure pain in your quest to push it up again? Well… what else are you gonna do? Sit there until you die? Might as well try again. At least it gives you something to do.

    It teaches you of the absurdity of life, but at the same time tells you to smile and do it all over again in the face of it all. Whenever I feel like I’m struggling, I try to not see it as a form of weakness or feel bad about my life compared to the lives of my peers. I know they’re all fighting their own battles in their own ways.

    These days, I try to see it as empowering. I try to see it as a sign that I am currently trying to work things out in my life, and this struggle is telling me I need to face my fears and break through this rut.

    I turn to this quote every time I feel like I need some inspiration. I have used this in several of my articles, but I feel that it is always fitting wherever I put it.

“To those human beings who are of any concern to me I wish suffering, desolation, sickness, ill-treatment, indignities — I wish that they should not remain unfamiliar with profound self-contempt, the torture of self-mistrust, the wretchedness of the vanquished: I have no pity for them, because I wish them the only thing that can prove today whether one is worth anything or not — that one endures.”

                                                                 — Friedrich Nietzsche

    Your purpose in life is not to become so rich that you don’t have to do anything. Your purpose in life is not to get that high-paying, prestigious job and to have everyone jealous of you. Your purpose in life is not to indulge in euphoric conditions through drugs and alcohol.

Your purpose in life is to aim for the highest possible good in your life, to look within and find the things you can change and improve in yourself, to pursue the betterment of yourself and the people around you and society itself. Your purpose in life is to push the boulder up the mountain, even if it means absolutely nothing in the end.

    Your purpose in life is to face the suffering, not avoid it.

    Maybe we need to suffer to find meaning in our lives. Maybe we forgot how to suffer in our age of distractions and expediency.

    Stop looking for the meaning of your life in other things. Look into yourself, find the life path that is filled with hard work, sacrifices, and suffering, and run in that direction. Find what scares you the most, what you dream about doing but are reluctant to admit, and pursue it.

I’m willing to bet that you will find what you were looking for along the way.