“It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do.”
I stumbled across this quote one day and just kept reading it over and over. Throughout my college career and this course in success rhetoric, I have wondered about the meaning of true happiness and success. I think this quote does a very good job of summing that up. Life has a way of presenting you with special gifts and abilities. Some of us take them for granted; others do not even know they possess them. Life is all about how you take it. Most of us are too caught up in the fast pace world we live in and worry too much about insignificant things that really do not matter to us. As children we worry about being the coolest kid in school and having the most friends. In college and the early years of our lives we worry about our future and what we are going to do with our lives. As adults we tend to worry if our life has been lived to the fullest and if we are achieving society’s expectations of us. None of this really matters. We still wake up each morning as our true selves and deal with the lot we have been given. Why then is it so hard to see how great we actually are and how much we have accomplished? The fact is that most of worry ourselves to death. Even if we reach the expectations and goals that we and others have set out for us, we strive for more. There is always something bigger and better that we want to attain. Through the little time that I have had in this class and through the philosophers we have studied, I’ve realized that we determine our own sense of happiness and success. We are the only ones who can determine if we have achieved said goal. Most of us don’t want to admit that we are happy and that we are successful, because we would not have anywhere to go from there. Our outlook on life and our moral standards are what truly determine if we are successful and happy. It is not the material symbols of success or happiness that we acquire throughout our lives that make us feel joy. It is our beliefs and judgments that determine the quality of our lives. Too many times I see people creating stress and drama in their lives in order to feel important. Too many people believe that calmness and serenity are unattainable. They create and attract circumstances that clutter their lives with terrible things. If we all slowed down and really thought about our lives, we would see a lot of things that make us happy and proud. It is only human instinct to dwell on the problems and forget the good. We have to actively participate in practicing successful thinking and optimism in order to find true happiness. It is only when we begin to allow ourselves to fail, that we are truly able to succeed. There will always be things in life that are rough and there will always be someone who can do something better. Accepting and appreciating this fact will help us to begin our way to self satisfaction and self love. It is only after this stage that we can be truly successful and eternally happy. It is not an easy road, but it is one that I think we could all bear walking down. I know I could.
