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you are here: > Self > 1.
Introduction > 1.1 What is it you seek?
| 1.1 |
What is it you seek?
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| Lets begin with a simple question- what is it you seek? | ||
| Is it to find the partner of your dreams? Even if you are currently married and/or in a long term relationship, divorce rates have never been higher. Maybe finding your 'soul mate' the person you are supposed to spend the rest of your life with is the destiny you seek. | ||
| Or is it to win a great fortune? People in countries such as Australia, Great Britain and the United States spend thousands of dollars each year on lottery tickets and other types of gambling in the hope of one day "striking it rich". Is being rich the answer to your hearts desires? | ||
| It could be you seek to be more attractive to other people, in terms of your physical appearance, your weight, the thinness of your thighs and under your arms? The Cosmetic, Diet, Fashion and Plastic surgery industries are each billion dollar markets in their own right, pushing the common theme that you are never good enough unless you buy the latest fashion, or give in to the push to change your face to look like someone else. | ||
| Maybe you seek simply to be recognized and appreciated by the people around you, like a promotion at work? Studies in most developed countries continue to show that most people are generally unhappy at their place of work not necessarily because of what they earn but because they feel generally 'unappreciated'.. Maybe this is important to you and is on your list of 'wants'? | ||
| Or maybe you seek some way of escaping the ever increasing pressures of the world around you, the bills, the aggression, the constant pressure to do as much as possible in the limited time available. | ||
| What is it then you are seeking? | ||
| 1.1.1 | Looking for a 'little bit of happiness' | |
| Maybe most of us are seeking some kind of happiness, some kind of peace; in a world that is ridden with turmoil, wars, contention, strife, we want a refuge where there can be some peace. | ||
| This is probably what most of us want. So it is we go from one diet to another, from one guru to another, from one self-help theory to another, from one possession to another, from one fad to another. | ||
| Now, it is that we are seeking happiness, or is it that we are seeking gratification of some kind from which we hope to derive happiness? There is a difference. Gratification is a fleeting moment of pleasure- a 'high' we get when we have achieved the goal of our desires. Our modern world is a finely tuned marketing machine geared to pump out as many watts of gratification as you can consume, so long as you have the money and don't die in the process. | ||
| Never in the history of humanity has there been such a situation that literally tens of millions of human beings in developed countries are "eating themselves" to death. The stories of great feasts of gluttony and waste during the Roman Empire was reserved for a privileged handful. But in countries such as the United States, obesity is now finally rated as a national health alert. | ||
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We seem to have no problem in finding ways to instantly gratify our wants, but struggle to find the elusive key to long term happiness. |
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| 1.1.2 | You are not unique if you have general feelings of unhappiness | |
| While we cannot provide an instant gratification to the answer to the desire to be happy, we can say that you are not unique if you have general feelings of unhappiness and of feeling less. | ||
| Depression and low self esteem are at endemic proportions across the world. Far from being alone if you feel depressed and low, you are in the majority. It seems few people. Maybe that is why books and courses that promote instant gratification to solving self-esteem problems and unhappiness have never been more popular. | ||
| Yet it is not just this time, or this generation that are unique in feeling unhappy or less. Since the earliest human writings, there are clear signs that it is a historic human condition to feel unhappy of our lot in life, of ourselves and what we might have been, or might have become. Vast periods of human history are littered with depressing and somber words. The period from around 400 CE (common era) to around 1200 CE used to be even called the "Dark Ages"- a period of suppression and general unhappiness throughout Europe. | ||
| 1.1.3 | What can this site do to help? | |
| While it is impossible and arrogant for anyone to assume they have the answers to your questions, because other people have traveled the same road looking for the same answers before, we might be able to provide some ideas. | ||
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