Are We Slaves Or Are We Free?
http://lawrenceyong.wordpress.com/2008/03/28/are-we-slaves-or-are-we-free/
YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE HAPPY
I woke up today thinking about freedom and what it really means and how those with freedom are the happiest.
I woke up thinking about human rights and related to that, GOD-given rights because GOD made us all to be happy and therefore by association, free.
I woke up thinking why WE are not all happy.
Why are suicide rates in cities so high that people choose to kill themselves when life is the best thing that can happen to you?
How can someone in a wealthy city think that their lives are not worth living when a child in AFrica strives just to live on with a fraction of materials that the poorest of city folks can muster? And yet the child in Africa does not give up easily… well mostly not.
I woke up puzzled, disturbed and kept on thinking.
NO — this will not be a rant about the liberal way of life and freedom, liberty and free speech so forth. Far from it, this will be about HOW happiness is within our reaches, if we succeed in blocking all those who wish to persuade us to give it up.
sounds complicated ? Bear with me.
I think it boils down to this.
Life is worth living and by worth living I mean, you can feel happy, only if you feel you have OWNERSHIP of your life — meaning your time, your body, your mind and your spirit.
We are all born equal, as they say.
Yes we have different talent, different mental capacities and different limbs even. BUt by born equal, I mostly mean that we are born with equal opportunity to do with our time what we will.
It is GOD that decides our destiny anyway. ( I say this because I am Christian but even if you choose to disagree, you still cannot discount what I am about to say.)
And that is this : you have the same 24 hours a day as I do. Most everyone does.
And happiness, essentially comes from using those 24 hours to our heart and mind’s desire, to the best of our ability.
But we can’t all do that can we ?
And that lies the dilemma. We are all slaves — all of us, slaves to something or other.
FIRST OF ALL SLAVES TO OUR PHYSICAL NEEDS:
We want to eat and you want shelter ? we must work, plough the field at the minimal if you are in a rural economy and get a salary, be a worker, if you are urbanized.
SLAVES TO OUR SOCIETY :
Because we function only as part of a community, there is an unwritten pact, a cultural way, in which we must contribute to society and take from it. There is ORDER in which things are done when we come together as a group.
But here is my argument.
How many of us in the rich cities are actually living hand-to-mouth? Are YOU, city-folks, in danger of dying of hunger. In the world today, famine still happens but only to the minority. (the fact that the majority doesn’t care is fodder for another article but … )
FACT : Most of us are not starving. If you can read this, you definitely are not. And more than that, you have shelter, access to electricity and are usually well hydrated.
YOUR PHYSICAL NEEDS ARE FULFILLED. CONGRATULATIONS.
And given the liberal nature of the city society and the focus on privacy and closed doors lifestyle — our obligations to society are also not a demanding factor. In most societies today, we can pretty much do what we choose unless of course it imposes on someone else’s freedom.
So : why is it still that we are NOT Happy? or at least I perceive it as so. (based on my argument about SUICIDE.)
In other words, most of us are no longer slaves but yet we are not happy ?
The answer is of course — 1920.
Yes, this was the first question to be asked at the first crisis of the industrial age in america when machines and specialization had for the first time in human history FREED us from being slave to our most basic needs — food and shelter and privacy.
And that was when the great depression happened. ECONOMICS came to halt because everyone got what they wanted, how do we go forward and create more wealth.
It was moment when it was decided, by a few, for the many, that free and idle time is NOT a good thing.
And what evils have man done if for the sake of using that free time that the industrial age had accidentally allowed him.
IT was the end of simplicity and the begining of PUBLIC RELATIONS and the marketing campaign that turned our WANTS into NEEDS.
examples of incredibly successful campaigns.
Want to be like a man ? smoke Malboro, drink beer. (this includes women too.)
Want to feel FREE? get a car.
And today’s favourite campaign – SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT.
Basically, “it’s green, pay more.”
I read that an airline has linked charging more for baggage handling to saving the environment as such — less baggage, less fuel used, save the environment. hahhaa.
———–
Can you see the difference between WANTS and NEEDS ?
Most of us can’t.
The battle is really over, and for, our minds – we are brainwashed to work for things which we don’t need and worse, for things which are out of reach.
And in return, we enslave ourselves by selling more and more of our time and our talent (if we have one) to corporations who reap our intelligence, our talents, our time and our hard work — so that the few at the top of the PYRAMID can benefit.
So that the government, who carries the whip, with the co-operation of big business can boast of a nation with a growing economy. GDP growth, they call it.
We have NOT only been pulled out of poverty, those of us in the developed or developing world are pushing into the opposite — a world of wastage. A congestion of cars, bulging waistlines, and over indulgence in food, entertainment junkies and major contributors to environmental disaster.
And even some of us who think we are not wasteful, and are working to SAVE our money — keeping money in banks — which guess what? — is wasted also by the bank through high stake in gambling in financial markets.
REcently, UBS wrote off nearly USD30 billion. that is USD 30,000,000,000. more than half of Africa’s annual GDP. YOU must have contributed to it, even if you didn’t bank with UBS, trust me.
SO WHAT ARE WE ACTUALLY WORKING SO HARD FOR ?
If we wake up everyday and spend the best of our times at boring, repetitious jobs and jostle for power and get jealous over our neighbors successes — it is any wonder that we are physically tired, mentally drained and spiritually weak.
And when we have free time — we just want to watch TV and do nothing because this is time out for us to rejuvenate ourselves, prepare us, for the fight at the office.
Many of us who have wife and children have learned even to ignore them, sadly.
And our favourite past time — TV, news and movies – only tells us to consume more.
AND FOR WHAT?
For money to spend during the three weeks vacation that we get every year — 21 days of doing whatever we like?
Can we fit our entire lives into 21 days?
Why should we when we are given 365 days a year. All of us. If you don’t have it, it means you gave it away in exchange for something.
What did you exchange it for?
Was it worth it?
And so I say it again. The formula to happiness is simple.
And yet we don’t get it. Most of the time we don’t anyway.
HE who is in control of his TIME, and we all have the same 24 hours, he is the happiest.
The more you are in control of your life and what you choose to do with it, absence from the persuasion of the outside world.
The more you spend your time doing what YOU love to do, the happier you will be. It is as simple as that.
Start examining your life now. Learn who is in control. When was the last time you spent sometime on YOURSELF or your LOVED ONES, instead of frivolous pursuits for money for some material comforts, when you honestly examine it, you don’t really need.
Is that Armani suit really YOU?
Does a BMW define YOU?
beer and cigarettes are for escaping from what?
I leave you with this thought:
“it was for freedom (liberty) that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery” – Jesus. (St paul letter to the Gallatians. 5:1)
A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do. – Bob Dylan.
