On the road to happiness: what is most important in life?

We all think sooner or later: what is the most important thing in life? Why do we even live? Where are we going and what should be the way? These questions must be resolved. Having learned the meaning of life, one can understand the meaning of death.

What is the most important thing in life?

Desire to know the purpose of your stay on earth and distinguishes us from animals. "A man without a goal always wanders," said the ancient philosopher Seneca.

It is difficult to unwind the entangled tangle of life's vicissitudes since birth, but you can try to do it from a very definite and obvious end - death, which is the result of human life. If you look at this angle, it becomes clear that a person's life is meaningless and illusory, because the most important stage of death is not taken into account.

Meanings are misconceptions:

1. The meaning of life is life itself. The phrase, of course, beautiful, but completely "empty"! It is clear that we are not sleeping for sleep, but for restoring our body. And we do not breathe for the sake of breathing, but for the oxidative processes necessary for the organism to take place.

2. The main thing in life is self-realization. Often you can hear what is most important in Life - to realize their dreams and opportunities. You can succeed in different spheres: politics, art, family, etc.

This point of view is not new. And Aristotle believed that the most important thing in life is success, valor and achievements.

Man, of course, must achieve the set goals and develop. But to make this the meaning of life is wrong. In the context of the inevitability of death, it does not matter whether a person has been realized or not. Death will equalize everyone. Neither the self-realization, nor the successes of life can be taken to the next world!

3. Pleasure is what's important

Even the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus argued that the meaning of life in obtaining pleasures, achieving bliss and peace. The cult of consumption and pleasure flourishes in modern society. But Epicurus also noted that one can not live for pleasure, without coordinating one's desires with ethics. And in our society, no one does this. To live for the sake of pleasure calls for advertising, talk shows, reality shows, numerous serials. We read, see, hear calls to take everything from life, catch luck "by the tail", "break away" in full, etc.

The cult of pleasure is inextricably linked with the cult of consumption. To have fun, we need something to order, buy, win. So we turn into meaningless "half-people", for whom the main thing in life is to drink, eat, satisfy sexual needs, sleep, dress up, walk, etc. Man limits the importance of his life to the satisfaction of primitive needs.

Pleasure can not be the meaning of life, at least for one simple reason: it passes. Any need brings satisfaction only for a while, and then arises again. We are in the pursuit of pleasure and earthly goods like drug addicts in need of the next dose of pleasure. This perception turns into, ultimately, an emptiness and a spiritual crisis. We live as if we were going to live forever. And only death shows the falsity of the consumer direction.

4. The meaning of life - in close people

Often it seems to us that the meaning of life is in parents, children, and spouse. Many people say: "He is everything to me! I live for him. " Of course, to love, to help go through life, to sacrifice something for the sake of relatives - this is right and quite natural. We all want to have a family, to love and bring up children. But is it possible to make this the meaning of life? In fact, this is also a dead end road. Dissolving in a close person, we, at times, forget about the main needs of our soul.

Any person is mortal and once deprived of a loved one, we will inevitably lose the incentive to live on. It will be possible to get out of this grave crisis if you find your true true destiny. Although you can "switch" to another object and make it meaningful. So some people do. But such a need for a symbiotic relationship is already a psychological disorder.

You will never find the meaning of your stay on earth if you look for it among the above. To find the most important thing in life, you need to change your viewpoint, and for this you need knowledge.

A person has always been interested in the question of his destiny, people have faced the same problems before as we have. At all times there were troubles, lies, betrayal, emptiness of the soul, catastrophe, despair, sickness and death. People managed to cope with this. And we can take advantage of this colossal amount of knowledge that the previous generation has accumulated. Instead, we brush off this invaluable experience. We use the knowledge of ancestors in medicine, mathematics, we use technological inventions, and in the main question - understanding our existence - we reject their knowledge.

And our ancestors saw the meaning of their being in the education of themselves, their souls, self-development and approach to God, recognized the afterlife and the immortality of the soul. All earthly goods and needs lost their value in the face of death.

The main thing begins after death. Then everything falls into place and makes sense. Our life is a school, training, testing and preparation for eternity. It is logical that the most important thing now is how best to prepare for it. The quality of our life in the eternal world depends on how responsible we have come to learning in the "school".

Our stay on the earth is similar to the period of fetal development, because being in the womb for nine months is also a lifetime. No matter how nice and pleasant, calm and comfortable there was no child in this world, he would have to leave it. The misfortunes and pain that occur to us on the way can be compared to the pain experienced by an infant during childbirth: they are inevitable and everyone passes through them, they are temporary, although they seem sometimes endless, they are insignificant compared to the joy of meeting with the pleasures of a new life.

Paris Pascal

The French scientist Blaise Pascal wrote several philosophical works, one of which is entitled "Paris Pascal". In it, Pascal talks to an imaginary atheist. He believes that we all have to bet on whether there is a God and a life after death.

If there is no God, the believing person does not lose anything - he just lives with dignity and dies - this is his end.

If He is, and a person has lived all his life, based on the conviction that he does not expect anything after death, dying - he loses everything! Is this risk justified? To risk eternal happiness for the sake of a short stay in a ghostly world!

An imaginary atheist exclaims that "he does not play these games." To which Pascal objected: "It is not in our will to play or not to play," recalling the inevitability of choice. We all, regardless of our desire, are involved in this bet, because everyone has to make a choice (and no one will do it for us): to believe in a future life or not.

In any case, the one who lives is more reasonable, proceeding from the fact that the Creator of everything exists and the soul is immortal. It is not a blind hope that "there" is something or someone there, but a conscious choice of faith in the One God, who already today, in the present, gives the person meaning, peace and joy.

Here it is - a medicine for the soul and finding a quiet and happy life in this and other world. Take and use. But no! We do not even want to try.

A person resists the acquisition of truth, namely everything connected with religion. Why does this resistance and rejection arise even after understanding what is most important in life? Because we all live in a certain degree in our fictional world, in which we feel comfortable and cozy, we all know about it and understand it. More often this world is based not on a sober assessment of oneself and reality, but on changeable and deceptive feelings, therefore the reality before us is presented in a very distorted form.

And if a person makes a choice in favor of faith in God, he will find the true meaning of his being, then he will have to reshape and rebuild his whole life in accordance with this knowledge. As a result, the supports on which all our worldview was held are falling apart. This is quite a stress for everyone. After all, we are all very attached to our usual life. In addition, we are afraid of working on ourselves. After all, on the road to truth, we will have to make efforts, remodel ourselves, work on our soul. To go along this road is laziness, especially if the person is already fixated on material needs and pleasures. Therefore, we are satisfied with surrogates, which cost a penny. Is it not better to make efforts and change the imaginary comfort for true happiness!

Injustice triumphs

For many, the stumbling block to the sincere faith in God is the thought of the injustice of the world. Suffer those who live with dignity, children who did not have time to commit any sin, but who repair dishonor on the earth - prosper. From the position of the earthly life, if you believe that everything ends in death - the argument is very wealthy. Then it is really impossible to understand the prosperity of the unjust and the suffering of the righteous.

If we look at the situation from the position of eternity, then everything clears up. Good or evil is seen in this case, not from the point of view of being on earth, but of the benefits to man in an infinite life. In addition, suffering, you realize a very important fact - this world is damaged and it is impossible to achieve absolute happiness in it. This place is not for enjoyment, but for training, studying, fighting, overcoming, etc.

Eternal happiness, free from all melancholy and sorrow, can be comprehended only through the realization of all the sorrow of this world in isolation from God. Only having felt "on the skin" all sorrow of this world it is possible to grieve about break with the present source of happiness - the God.