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To me the meaning of life is to be happy. There is no higher supernatural purpose to serve. There is no afterlife paradise to enjoy upon judgement of the worthiness of our lives. Other primal desires that derive satisfaction all fall within the category of being happy. Humans do possess a higher intelligence and consciousness, enough that sometimes the pursuit of happiness instead becomes deep despair, which can surpass the instinct of preservation of life.
In economics many people are familiar with the concept of utility. The units of utility are what drive our decision-making, measuring the marginal utility gained versus sacrifice. Meshing this concept with the meaning of life, one's overall happiness is equivalent to utility. A life is worth living if one's overall happiness levels exceed their unhappiness levels. For most people this is luckily positive; for others, it is not, which may lead to suicidal behaviour.
People perceive happiness differently. Some people are fortunate to experience great joys and contentment in their lives. Other, even in the exact same situations, simply feel less enjoyment. On the other side of the equation, people will also experience sadness, anger, hatred, and other negative emotions to differing degrees of intensity, again even in the exact same circumstances. Those who experience little joy and heavy sorrow live a life in which unhappiness exceeds happiness, marginal sacrifice is greater than marginal utility, and their life is meaningless. What else do they have to live for?
One important thing to note is that this graph largely focuses on the projected happiness vs sadness of an individual, rather than the historic. An optimistic person will be able to forecast greater happiness in their remaining life and choose to remain alive in order to try to attain that enjoyment. Another person may project a negative happiness balance in their remaining lifespan... what is the meaning of that life?
This leads to my main issue: I have nothing left to live for. My perceived happiness levels are not enough to overcome my perceived sadness levels. I know that many people would absolutely love to be in my shoes, that I am very fortunate and could hardly ask for more in my life, that many of my friends envy to be the person that I am. But they would not understand the madness in my mind. I guess this sounds rather suicidal and emo, but don't worry, I do not do anything recklessly.
I regularly daydream of a painless, instant death. Ask yourself this question: what is the most pleasant time of your day or life routine? FOr me, it is unquestionably going to sleep or waking up in bed and being able to stay there. My mind is clear, my world is safe, my body is comfortable. Death is simply going to sleep permanently. What is wrong with that? It halts the happiness deficit from deepening and limits my surplus of sorrow. Every night when I go to sleep, I wish a meteor would fall from the sky and smash me to smithereens. Then I would never wake up.
But yet I cannot go for now. I owe too much to my family. I saw how hard my parents worked to bring me up. I know I will never be able to repay them, in terms of sheer hard work and effort. If I selfishly end my own life, it would simply be too unfair for them, in my eyes, in having invested so much and having it all wasted. In a way, the injustice in their resultant unhappiness is enough for me to stick around. Due to this, I must rely on a form of death that is not my borne from my own cause, from spontaneous combustion to a uncontrollable quick acting cancer. It would have been beyond my control.
Writing this stuff is my form of therapy. I feel that if someday I did die, my legacy must continue in this world. My torment would end, but my words and thoughts do not suffer in the same way I do. If I can record them somewhere, at least my ideas do not go down with me. To satisfy my enormous ego, I must let the world know my brilliance while I still have the chance.
And I have much more to say.
  
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Belgium6786 Posts
Buddy, you need to get laid.
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=(
sad to hear
i dont know why you feel this way but try talking to your family or friends. if you're in canada then maybe smoke some weed?
life is precious
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hahaha first 2 suggestions are to get laid and smoke weed.
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Good luck, I fucking hate life too right now
Not joking.
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Dying is not sleeping forever. Dying is nothing for an instant. I've lost a few friends because they felt they didn't have a reason to live anymore, and I myself have had those thoughts (not really uncommon between the ages of 12 and 20), and I've decided nobody else can tell you what you have to live for. If you think you would be better off dead, I won't argue with you, because your pain is your own.
+ Show Spoiler +Though it's kinda hard to take you seriously when you're writing like some 18th century poet.
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You need something to live for, I mean there has to be something you want to do or experience. Go around, and look for something that you want to do. Life is always worth living!
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United States545 Posts
im no psychologist but... maybe just take a break and have a little vacation? that might readjust some perspectives for you in a favorable way
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Are you referring to the utilitarian principle of Greatest Happiness?
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Go do something extraordinary. You said you want your legacy to be remembered? Climb Mount Everest. Ski on the Swiss Alps. Run the Great Wall of China. Swim through the Pacific. Go base jumping. Liberate a third-world country. Create world peace.
There's lots of things you can do. Find something and motivate yourself.
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can u sell me your pc for cheap if you kill yourself? Mine is getting old.
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Bosnia-Herzegovina1437 Posts
On February 20 2009 11:13 gg_hertzz wrote:
can u sell me your pc for cheap if you kill yourself? Mine is getting old.
LMFAO HAHAHA
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but...but Mabonjwa is back and ready to rumble how could your happiness not supersede your discomfort But really a single moment of happiness is princeless, uncorruptable, and well worth a lifetime of sorrows. Its stupid to consider your life like a seesaw of happiness and unhappiness, the human experience, regardless of how miserable, is the pinnacle of existence in this world and to throw that away is most grievous of errors
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I used to think the same way, actually caused initially by that bad guy from final fantasy X's speech (seymour i think) about death.
Look, all sadness and pain is a learning experience and shade to the light of happiness. Strive to find what you love in the world and surround yourself with it. YOU NEED TO GET involved in something. KEEP BUSY. Find shit to do. Learn a language, a skill, go out and socialise, go to music gigs, play sports, go to libraries and read cool shit. Just keep doing shit, and also if you don't have a job GET ONE, and if you do then quit it and find something more stimulating!
Sadness is a lovely emotion to experience in moderation. It really is. To feel emotion in any way is a blessing. You just need to keep the sadness in check, it gives gravity and profundity to life, and makes the happiness all that much better. Living life is all about taking in the entire experience of being human  , try to enjoy everything you do and are challenged with.
Mr Spock:
"After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true."
The secret to enjoying life is trying to enjoy life.
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First two replies are from graphix team dudes too. HMM
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whether you're happy or not primarily depends on yourself and your perception of things. happiness won't come to you by itself, especially not if you spend your time in bed.
go out, enjoy the simple things. don't expect anything and something good will come your way. you just need to learn to appreciate things. make a conscious effort to feel happy and don't let things you can't control pull you down.
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I think my advice would fall into the category of you need to get laid man... Dont be so dramatic, I mean if your life was THAT BAD, you wouldn't be playing starcraft... or posting on TL.net.
You would sit in your room and do nothing.
I bet that your upper middle class... white... if your of driving age you have a not so old car... probably year 2000+. You probably smoke cigs and party on the weekends.. I think you need a girlfriend/get laid. Get over yourself
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United States22883 Posts
In economics many people are familiar with the concept of utility. The units of utility are what drive our decision-making, measuring the marginal utility gained versus sacrifice. Rational choice is only a theory, and it's usually not modeled very accurately. People defy utilitarian calculations all the time.
You can live for any number of reasons besides immediate pleasure, such as helping other people attain pleasure or simply for enlightening yourself. Long stretches of unhappiness can be nearly unbearable, but they're not completely and as much as it sucks, your struggles help define your character and test your strength more than happiness will. As you said, with no afterlife there is no intrinsic purpose to living besides to pro-create, but socially constructed reasons can be just as real.
If you truly do want to stick to a projected cost/benefit analysis, just realize that human beings are terrible at making accurate projections. We don't learn from the past very well and we usually don't trust those that have come before us, nor are we able to accurately predict what will make us happy. Simply put, you don't know if you'll be happy in 5 or 10 years, but you do live in a country that offers second and third chances to life. Most of the world doesn't get multiple chances, and since you're being a pussy over hurting your family, you might as well take advantage of that fact.
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On February 20 2009 10:43 Shiverfish wrote:
In economics many people are familiar with the concept of utility. The units of utility are what drive our decision-making, measuring the marginal utility gained versus sacrifice. Meshing this concept with the meaning of life, one's overall happiness is equivalent to utility. A life is worth living if one's overall happiness levels exceed their unhappiness levels. For most people this is luckily positive; for others, it is not, which may lead to suicidal behaviour.
Can't compare it to economics imo. Economic theories are interesting, but many people don't adhere to them when making decisions. How do you explain gambling behavior? It's common knowledge that the odds are stacked in the house's favor, but people do it anyway. Or, look up st. petersburg paradox or ellsberg paradox.
Similarly, I don't think this concept of utility (as happiness) vs unhappiness is the scale that decides whether life is worth living. I'm sure that for everyone, their scale might be tipped towards the unhappiness side at any given point in time, but they don't choose to end their life right then.
It's kind of like a gamble. Everyone's scale fluctuates, perhaps even tipping one way or the other several times during just a single day (for those who are more emotionally labile than others). Maybe you wake up feeling great, but some bad news has you really down by the afternoon. But regardless of where on the scale they currently are, most people choose to keep living. They're making a gamble.
Sure, it might turn out that you will lead a completely shitty and unhappy life, so it wasn't worth it after all. I think that's something you can only decide in retrospect, on your deathbed. You don't know a priori how your life will turn out.
Now, there's no hard and fast data on this, but in the general population, I would wager that more people describe themseselves as happy than miserable, and way more people choose to live than to commit suicide. I think it's fair to say, based on how many people seem pretty satisfied with their lives in general, that unlike vegas, it's one gamble where the odds are in your favor.
Edit: basically what Jibba said except he said it first lol.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://images.encyclopediadramatica.com/images/9/93/NOONECARES.jpg)
