I have been thinking a lot about life lately, perhaps too much, as anyone who has followed my blog can tell, and certainly most of my friends will attest to.
After all this thought, currently I am in the mode of following a life path of pragmatic living. I’m actually calling it pragmatic pleasure.
The basic idea is that a moment lived with joy is a successful moment. Moments lead to hours. Hours to days. Days to years. Years to life. However, it all comes back down to the moment, which is all we ever really have.
In general this philosophy says that if in the moment I am happy, that is the best I can hope for – and the goal of each moment is to be happy. It also asserts, that with the exception of drugs and transcendental bliss, you are either happy sad or somewhere in between. But when you are happy on the upper end of the spectrum, you are about as happy as you can be (this is true for sad too).
It also means that we have to accept our basic human nature, and work with it, instead of constantly trying to battle against it. This means that I will accept my faults, and just work around them to the best of my abilities. I’ll point to myself, and just say “There goes Josh being anxious again. Too bad he can’t just figure out how to drop that all together, since it’s really silly to be anxious in this case, but he’s wired that way. Glad I’m not like him. (Oh wait, I am him.)”
This does not mean that I won’t plan for the future. No, not at all. Rather, that as I plan for the future, my life is full of happiness and enjoyment. It also doesn’t mean to be happy at anothers expense, since that is an oxymoron. At least to me. It does mean that I won’t fear for the future, since who really know what the future will bring.
So ironically, having thought about things for a year, I am back to the (not so) simple idea of just living in the moment and accepting the myself and my moment. Life is funny that way.