"Is pleasure the same as happiness?" Dr. Taylor, my AP Physics teacher, once asked his sixth period class. For a moment no one dared to raise their hand or to utter a word, myself included. I was thinking bout the question when a classmate said, "Yes." From that point on, you could hear others saying. "Yes", "No", "Maybe", or the usual, "I don't know." Dr. Taylor, wise in his years, looked at us in a rather fatherly way, "It is not, pleasure only lasts for a certain time period, while happiness is forever."
The original American dream consists of innovation, originality, and the pursuit of happiness. People from different backgrounds, different cultures, and different languages come from all over the world to comply with those God given rights, here in America. But why is it degrading to a system of greediness, unjust judgment, and jealously of others?
Our society is consistently pushing humanity to push for a better life, how you make it through doesn't matter, its if you make it or not that does. The ongoing battle to be better off than your neighbor causes you to seek for ways to do so. Values and morals have nothing to do with this daily race, you put those apart, and run until you have achieved first place. Easy money, high social statuses, and disintegrating values are all the answer to today's 'system'. Pleasure is what our society is longing for; the pleasure to be in a better position than the homeless people, the pleasure to habituate a ten-bedroom house and forget the single mother with two kids living in a crappy apartment, or the pleasure to buy that $400,000 tropical island, when others tirelessly work for their little ones' bread. When you die you're not taking anything material with you, just your soul and good deeds. The right to pursue for happiness, not pleasure, I will always wonder how Thomas Jefferson knew just that.
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Wow, Yareli. That's a great point. We are all, whether we realize it or not, striving to get just that one step ahead of the next person. School teaches us to do it, sometimes parents, and definitely society itself. I hope we all open our eyes one day and realize that all this technology and all this property means nothing in the long run when it's time to meet thine maker.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that pleasure and happiness are not the same things, but I believe that we have the right to pursue our pleasures if it does not bring harm upon others. In your post, you mentioned that the individual wanted to pursue a comfortable life where they do not have to worry about paying the rent in a "crappy apartment." I do not believe that this dream to better ourselves is greedy. Must we always worry about the poor man who has no food or money? Perhaps they ended up in destitution because they did not believe education was important.
ReplyDeletePeople in our society today are very competitive. Everyone wants to be #1. Everyone wants to have the best car, the best cell phone, the best house. But what good comes out of it? I agree that pleasure is not the same as happiness. A nice car brings pleasure, but a loving family gives us something even better; happiness. Is pleasure wrong? No. We just need to realize that we things that bring us pleasure don't always bring us happiness.
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