If it makes u happy, it cant be that bad.

[serenity]

Allyuh remember that song?

Anyway this is not about the song but about what guides our decisions and how much of it is based on satisfying our need to be happy.

Happiness has seemed to usurp one's sense of duty.
Ppl seem to have adopted the philosophy that life is short and live it to be happy.
I disagree with this approach where this 'happiness' is at the cost of one's morals, committments and duty. In other words, where one lives for oneself only.

Whats your take?

[vaio]

well you can be happy and still live within moral conduct...

i agree with life is too short so live and be happy but only within certain limits...which i will decide on based on my beliefs...

[serenity]

I'm not saying that happiness and morality are mutually exclusive by any means.
But there seems to me, more ppl who live for their own satisfaction at the price of their duty.
For example, a married man with a child who later meets is soul-mate (who is not his wife). Should he abandon his family and pursue his own happiness? Or should he honour the vows he made and sacrifice his opportunity to live in true bliss with the one person he may find true love with?

What of the security guard in the Mall? Its Christmas time and he has four kids at home who he barely has time to see and who he can barely afford to maintain. Should he accept the $500.00 payment per car, to look the other way thereby guaranteeing himself and his family the kind of Christmas he would love to give them. With the kind of presents he sees piled high in backseats of vehicles leaving the compound while he sits in a little booth clocking in his $12.00 per hour. Or should he stay true to his contract and perform his duty?

[vaio]

oh now i hear you serenity....

it is hard to strike the balance sometimes....esp when you think you see "happiness" at the other end of the pastures....

[Scorpio]

I cannot be truly happy if I know my happiness came at the expense of others.

In serenity's examples, I don't see how I could be truly happy if I left my wife and more importantly, my child for a new found soul mate. If I was the security guard with 4 kids in the mall, it would make me more unhappy everytime I saw the car thieves make off with someone's car.

[serenity]

Perhaps if u were really in those situations, Scorpio, and were faced with the reality of those emotional dilemmas, the situation would not be so black or white. But then again, u know yourself better than I possibly could.

I just find that there is generally too much emphasis on achieving the ever elusive happiness rather than acceptance of one's duty and doing the right thing at the expense of said happiness.

Ppl tend to live for themselves, buttressed by the notion that its one life to live and u might as well be happy.

[dancerboy]

SERENITY, these are situations one responds to, in the here and now. In other words one never knows what one will do until the situation arises. When one is faced with eviction, and doesn,t know where the next meal is coming from, morality does not exist. " MORALITY IS NOT PROPERLY THE DOCTRINE OF HOW WE MAY MAKE OURSELVES HAPPY, BUT HOW WE MAY MAKE OURSELVES WORTHY OF HAPPINESS" [IMMANUEL KANT] DANCERBOY

[serenity]

Nice post Dancerboy and I definitely agree with u that there are circumstances ion which morality is realistically a scarce commodity. But this discussion is less on morality affecting the choices ppl make but rather how does one's pursuit of happiness affect one's committment to duty. We're not looking at situations of survival which, to use the phrase best known in politics, 'has a morality of its own'.

[Scorpio]

Perhaps if u were really in those situations, Scorpio, and were faced with the reality of those emotional dilemmas, the situation would not be so black or white. But then again, u know yourself better than I possibly could.
.

Serenity, who knows, if I were faced with the reality of those dilemas, I may give in to temptation and do the wrong thing, but I know it will not make me happy.

Happpiness isn't always people's motivation for doing wrong things.

[serenity]

Happpiness isn't always people's motivation for doing wrong things.

Then we're discussing the situations where it is. ;)

[Scorpio]

Happpiness isn't always people's motivation for doing wrong things.

Then we're discussing the situations where it is. ;)

What I should have said was that happiness isn't people's primary motive for doing wrong things, its more likely to be jealousy and/or greed (as in the security guard) or lust (as in the case of the married man who finds his 'soul mate'). People try to get sympathy for their wrongdoings by coming up with all these lame excuses.....soul mate & happiness my arse, it's more like lust mate.... :x

[serenity]

So scorpio, u dont think that a person can fall in love with someone else AFTER they're married? A genuine and sincere love?
You dont think that the security guard more concerned with the looks of his children's faces on Christmas morning than mere greed? To know that for once, they dont have to look longingly at the neighbour's kids' toys?

[Scorpio]

Serenity, the security guard is more motivated by jealousy than greed, in your example, he sees the cars driving out full of christmas shopping bags, and he thinks his kids should have the same ...that is jealousy, and the whole excuse about making his kids happy is just that...an excuse, because if he was seriously concerned about his family's happiness, he wouldn't do anything to risk going to jail and hence not being able to provide for them.

As for falling in love with someone else after you're married possible, but that is one thing, however, acting on that "love" it is a completely different thing, especially when children are involved. To act on one's attraction to another person while in a committed relationship is more about lust than anything else. Once again the excuses, like "oh she's my sould mate" is just that, an excuse for lust.

[serenity]

Ok, what about someone putting their aging relative into a old person's home. The dont have special needs. They just old and is a pain to have around the house.
Or what about someone who to go away and live and leave their widowed mother alone. Income not being an issue for either person.

You see, what i'm getting at and trying to rouse a discussion on, is whether living for one's own happiness trumps doing what may be perceived as one's duty. Is that selfish living? Or just living?

[Scorpio]

Our duty to others, whether children, parents, signifiacnt others will often conflict with our own personal happiness...I know someone who is struggling with that choice right now, and I don't envy the person at all.

[snowbird]

Ok, what about someone putting their aging relative into a old person's home. The dont have special needs. They just old and is a pain to have around the house.
Or what about someone who to go away and live and leave their widowed mother alone. Income not being an issue for either person.

You see, what i'm getting at and trying to rouse a discussion on, is whether living for one's own happiness trumps doing what may be perceived as one's duty. Is that selfish living? Or just living?

Each instance cited earlier in the discussion is so different that it really warrant's seperate discussions as every aspect of life is different.

With regard to the 'warehousing of the elderly', now here is a contentious issue playing itself out as we now seem to be on the cusp of that radical change that has taken place in the last couple of generations.

In the past it was always 'understood', the moral code as it were, was that you were 100% accountable 'to' your parents or elders, you were also 100% responsible 'for' them in their Senior years; however, the Parents of the last couple generations having experienced the 'shackles' of that type of thinking, and also having experienced the 'guilt' of not living up to those expectations, have gone out of their way to raise their own children to believe that ...... 'your life is yours, what I do for you I do because it is my responsibility, but you are in no way beholding to your parents for what they have provided ect', in other words, they have done a pretty good job of changing the rules.

Based on the above, do I hold it against them or think that it is selfish if a child makes the decision to have a parent warehoused? Absolutely not, after all, the child has been told all his or her life, "I am not your responsibility". More and more Parents do firmly believe this, and for that reason have structured their lives and made provision for themselves financially and emotionally. Being of that mind-set, they have save enough money so they are not a financial burden to their children; they have also sought out 'accommodation' for later on in life, where they can continue to live fruitful, independent lives.

If this is done correctly, it can be a very rewarding and natural experience as both move on to the 'next stage' sans guilt.

[mammadon]

Allyuh remember that song?

Anyway this is not about the song but about what guides our decisions and how much of it is based on satisfying our need to be happy.

Happiness has seemed to usurp one's sense of duty.
Ppl seem to have adopted the philosophy that life is short and live it to be happy.
I disagree with this approach where this 'happiness' is at the cost of one's morals, committments and duty. In other words, where one lives for oneself only.

Whats your take?

It's natural to only live for oneself since one's own happiness is all that a person can ever feel. because of this, nobody owes anybody else anything.

And you mention morals, but to me morality is simply a set of rules designed to make a society cohesive. So even following a society's morals is based on self-interest. I'm not an ethicist, but that's why I think morality exists.

[Babygirl]

I disagree to some extent because some people derive selfish happiness or happiness at the expense of others' unhappiness.

There are people who find happiness in murdering others for no apparent reason.