Something Meaningful to Live By

Life is fully of beauty, happiness, and excitement. We feel these emotions in our relationships and interactions with people, nature, and animals. So why isn't the population happier? (In my small and unprofessional scope of observation and research I have come across many people who are not happy.) One reason I believe is because we have forgotten how to be grateful for these things and who created these things. We have created a world with shortcuts for everything that has separated us so far from the origin of our possessions. We no longer think of how our possessions were made, where they came from, how they got here, or what happens to them when we are done with them. 

For example, picture a delicious chocolate bar wrapped up in pristine packaging. Did you ever think of where this chocolate bar originated? Let's say it is a Hershey's bar; then you could think,"it came from the factory." Where did the factory source its raw materials: the cacao bean, milk, sugar, etc.? I watched a video recently that followed a man to the farms of cacao beans. He wanted to meet the farmers who harvested the beans from their small plots of land along the Ivory Coast. The farmers lived in small homes made of primitive materials with large families and they employed several workers on their farms. The farmer was paid seven euro a day for his harvest and yet he had four employees and fifteen family members to care for. The host of the video introduced the farmer and his workers to the fruits of their labor: the chocolate bar. Because a chocolate bar cost about 2 euro, the farmer can not afford to buy his family chocolate. For the first time, the farmers tasted a chocolate bar. We owe our delicious chocolate bars to farmers like these men, but we rarely ever think of it that way. 

I believe our ingratitude and mindlessness has made us unhappy. Our souls crave meaningful interactions yet we have digitized and separated ourselves from the majority of these interactions between our families, friends, nature, animals, food, and business. I read a blog post recently on Lil Blue Boo (lilblueboo.com) where she shared her interest in living a life with less convenience. Here is a quote she used from a book titled "The Last American Man" that sums up the monotony society has created. 

"Do people live in circles today? No. They live in boxes. They wake up every morning in a box of their bedrooms because a box next to them started making beeping noises to tell them it was time to get up. They eat their breakfast out of a box and then they throw that box away into another box. Then they leave the box where they live and get into another box with wheels and drive to work, which is just another big box broken into little cubicle boxes where a bunch of people spend their days sitting and staring at the computer boxes in front of them. When the day is over, everyone gets into the box with wheels again and goes home to the house boxes and spends the evening staring at the television boxes for entertainment. They get their music from a box, they get their food from a box, they keep their clothing in a box, they live their lives in a box. Break out of the box! This not the way humanity lived for thousands of years.

Clever, ambitious, and always in search of greater efficiency, we Americans have, in two short centuries, created a world of push button, round the clock comfort for ourselves. The basic needs of humanity – food, clothing, shelter, entertainment, transportation, and even [certain desires] – no longer need to be personally laboured for or ritualised or even understood. All these things are available to us now for mere cash. Or credit. Which means that nobody needs to know how to do anything any more, except the one narrow skill that will earn enough money to pay for the conveniences and services of modern living.

But in replacing every challenge with a short cut we seem to have lost something and Eustace isn’t the only person feeling that loss. We are an increasingly depressed and anxious people – and not for nothing. Arguably, all these modern conveniences have been adopted to save us time. But time for what? Having created a system that tends to our every need without causing us undue exertion or labour, we can now fill those hours with…?"

My favorite line from this quote is, "Arguably, all these modern conveniences have been adopted to save us time. But time for what?" I do love some of my modern conveniences like my crock pot, air conditioning, and plumbing, but what else to life is there if we oversimplify and assign task to everything? Because of this epiphany, which I have not been able to accurately describe until now, I created those goals I set back in my Light on the Horizon post. So far, I am doing well enough on all of them. However, I keep in mind, this is about learning, making habits, and overall progress. 

My other something meaningful to live by is the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

For a little spiritual dose of advice, read this talk given by Elder L. Tom Perry, "Let Him Do It with Simplicity". 

(While I really like to read Lil Blue Boo's blog, I have not read through it all and therefore do not know what other content is on there. Also, the link to this video is on a website I have not fully read through either.