March 30, 2009
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What Makes the Fulfilled Life?
Fulfillment is not, IMHO a label dependent on other's opinions. A person can be perfectly content and fulfilled even when others question: "Why didn't you accomplish more?", or "How can you live with that on your conscience?", or "How can you base your life on that superstitious nonsense?"
This raises the question: How much should society's expectations influence your sense of personal fulfillment - How much is satisfaction and personal fulfillment based on what you have been told it should be?
Are there any Social, Moral, or Religious necessities for anyone's fulfillment? What are they?
For me - A fulfilled life is purely subjective - A life I am satisfied with; one in which my goals have been or are being accomplished. A life with which I am happy and a future I look forward to. How about you?
Comments (7)
I've linked you
Dear Dick,
Thanks for the recent visit and link to the Betty Boop video. I own a copy of that documentary. I recognized Steve Allen's narration as soon as it began! (I also have copies on VHS of all her cartoons. King Features, which owns the rights, has released the early Popeyes on DVD, which I've collected, but not the Boops for some reason! Popeye and Betty Boop were both Fleischer cartoons)
Our CEO at work, Jack, is 85 years old. He had a stroke last Friday, and is still in the ICU. He's improving, but will probably not be able to walk again. He is one of those people who live for his work. Of course he owns the company, and it is his life. On weekends, he's always designed switches, and maybe watched a little football or some other sport, but his mind is always on the business. Most of the folks at work wish that he would concentrate on a retirement, but he always said he'd "die at his desk". (His very words) Now we wonder if he's going to be able to make it back at all. He could live another 10 years, and I shudder to think what his "quality of life" will become. Since he's satisfied working. In fact, up until a few years ago, he came in earlier than most of his employees, and left later.
Just by knowing this great man, I've realized that quality of life is what one makes of it. Some people are perfectly happy being homeless.
I also liked your perspective below concerning Digital Natives. I've always maintained that for young folks, "online" life and "real" life are both parts of life, and not separate, like it is for me. If my online "world" collapsed overnight, I probably wouldn't care all that much, because I lived most of my life without being "online". However , for the digital natives, the computer feed is as much a lifeline as their bloodstream.
Michael F. Nyiri, poet, philosopher, fool
As baldMike says. Just by knowing this great man, I've realized that quality of life is what one makes of it. Some people are perfectly happy being homeless., Many people live for or feel themselves to be defined by their occupation and work. If you must have a job - would you believe, some of us don't? - that's the best kind - one you love.
The problem for many of us is planning for what comes after you retire from or must end your employment. Can you adjust to life after work?
How do you do that? How do you prepare for "life after work"? Or perhaps for life at a job you aren't too keen about because your preferred occupation is for some reason no longer available?
Perhaps being defined by your occupation isn't the best of all worlds and is not enough for personal fulfillment.
What should be added?
BTW: Can a person be perfectly happy being homeless?
I can never find the book I want when I want it. In a day or so, I'll find it and it will be where I looked before. Just a mild gripe. I was looking for Richard Bach's "Illusions." At one point the reluctant messiah turns to the crowd and asks them, "What would you do if God looked you in the face and said, 'Be Happy'?"
Although I go through periods of depression and am not happy, it isn't because I don't want to be. I think people choose to be happy or not. Of course, it helps somewhat to be introspective - that is, to be able to determine for oneself what it would really take to make them happy. When my kids were younger they would often say, "if I just . . . . I'd be happy." If they just had more money, were prettier or handsomer, got that job or that raise, etc. And I felt the same way before I got "old and wiser." Before I realized that I needed to find out for myself what I needed to be happy. And partly to choose to be happy.
Just take a look at all the rich and famous people who can't stay married, and/or have troubles with drugs/alcohol, get into fights, shoplift, etc. All that fame and money doesn't seem to be making them happy. I saw Michael J. Fox on tv the other day, talking about his experience with Parkinson's Disease, and he said he just chooses to be happy every day. Whatever else happens, he chooses to be happy. It sounds so easy and it is so not easy, but it is the only way to go, I think. So, yes, I think a homeless person can be perfectly happy if they have chosen that way of living.
@anniemomz - Yeah. I agree. I link Bach's Illusions too. One has to be willing to be happy, or it won't happen.
I am still trying to find the answers. But I am holding on to my belief that happiness (wherever it may be) is something better shared with others.
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