The Good Life
Sometimes I like to ponder what most of us aspire and dream about every day: The Good Life. What does is entail really? Is it something that only existed "back in the good ol' days"? Is it when you have all your material ducks lined up properly such as house, job, car, yearly trip down south (or wherever suits your curiosity and/or allows you to "relax")? Is it that idea of never having hardship? Or is it a concept that is in the eye of the beholder?
I was also just thinking about a funny post that someone put up on Facebook yesterday. It was an article about people posting up "lies" in their status box about how great their day was, with the sun shining etc. all the while the real crap was happening in the background where no one sees what's really going on. So, how do we view our day to day and does it affect or influence us? Perhaps some of us dream of such serene lifestyles because the reality is too busy, stressful or plain old dull. I mean, it is proven that visualization or a little mental escape does create the same physical chemical reactions that does the real thing, but how much of it is healthy? That's totally subjective I agree. Which spirals me into my other thoughts back to the "simple" life and how it differs from modern life.
There is no right or wrong here, I just thought it would be fun to speculate how life, say maybe fifty or five hundred years ago, might be considered better than today. I mean, there were far less distractions to keep us from enjoying the simple pleasures found in nature, or pure food, or family fun. Today we have so many things to keep us from enjoying such things, like the internet, media, and work work work. Understood, people have always worked, hard, but was it accepted in a different way? Ten hours a day in the fields or at the factory was par for the course. Today, there are unions (for most of us anyway). And arguably today more of us do choose to work at something we actually like as opposed to what is available.
A recent conversation with my mom also touched on this topic when she mentioned that her new grandson (our new little boy!) would be part of a totally different world than she once knew. Even my schedule and responsibilities as a new mother compared to hers is quite different than when I was growing up. The sheer speed at which we are now exposed to world news, products and information in general is so much more to process and in turn to form an opinion on what we believe in, want to fight for, and choose to have in our "good" life can be that much more complicated. When things move more slowly, perhaps we have that time to experience things a little more in depth.
On the same note, how we chose to interpret our daily life is what makes it a good or a bad one.
Since I was having a bad week, I thought it was a smart idea to say thanks for all the things that I am happy for in my life. For me, the good life is not about where I live, what I do for a living, how many pairs of shoes I can cram into my closet (although this has been a fun pass time in the past), but it really is the greater picture of how do I treat others, and myself, as well as remembering to smell the flowers when there is a big pile of dog poo right beside them.
I was also just thinking about a funny post that someone put up on Facebook yesterday. It was an article about people posting up "lies" in their status box about how great their day was, with the sun shining etc. all the while the real crap was happening in the background where no one sees what's really going on. So, how do we view our day to day and does it affect or influence us? Perhaps some of us dream of such serene lifestyles because the reality is too busy, stressful or plain old dull. I mean, it is proven that visualization or a little mental escape does create the same physical chemical reactions that does the real thing, but how much of it is healthy? That's totally subjective I agree. Which spirals me into my other thoughts back to the "simple" life and how it differs from modern life.
There is no right or wrong here, I just thought it would be fun to speculate how life, say maybe fifty or five hundred years ago, might be considered better than today. I mean, there were far less distractions to keep us from enjoying the simple pleasures found in nature, or pure food, or family fun. Today we have so many things to keep us from enjoying such things, like the internet, media, and work work work. Understood, people have always worked, hard, but was it accepted in a different way? Ten hours a day in the fields or at the factory was par for the course. Today, there are unions (for most of us anyway). And arguably today more of us do choose to work at something we actually like as opposed to what is available.
A recent conversation with my mom also touched on this topic when she mentioned that her new grandson (our new little boy!) would be part of a totally different world than she once knew. Even my schedule and responsibilities as a new mother compared to hers is quite different than when I was growing up. The sheer speed at which we are now exposed to world news, products and information in general is so much more to process and in turn to form an opinion on what we believe in, want to fight for, and choose to have in our "good" life can be that much more complicated. When things move more slowly, perhaps we have that time to experience things a little more in depth.
On the same note, how we chose to interpret our daily life is what makes it a good or a bad one.
Since I was having a bad week, I thought it was a smart idea to say thanks for all the things that I am happy for in my life. For me, the good life is not about where I live, what I do for a living, how many pairs of shoes I can cram into my closet (although this has been a fun pass time in the past), but it really is the greater picture of how do I treat others, and myself, as well as remembering to smell the flowers when there is a big pile of dog poo right beside them.
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