Protagoras a Greek philosopher said “Man is the measure of all things”. I think that he was very very wrong. If you take a moment to see the great things that exist in nature, I’m pretty sure that you agree with me.
In today society, our materialistic society, it seems that “Money is the measure of all things”. I think the same as I think about Protagoras quote, in my opinion all the people that think this are very very wrong. In this post I’m going to share with you my thoughts about our materialistic lifestyle.
Today a lot of people is concerned to be rich and rich. For a lot of them everything is right if they can be a bit more rich. They don’t pay attention to family, friends, spirituality… They are too busy thinking in money.
The worst thing is that some of us don’t realize this situation. We are very stressed out, thinking about how we can cheat a friend, a competitor, a customer, the boss, everything to earn a few more bucks. We think that money gives us happiness. When we feel pain the solution is going out and buy something that makes us happy. Yes you can buy a thing and for a few moments it makes you happy but few moments later this “happiness” is going away.
Marketing is about this. There was a time where marketing goal was to create a feel of need in our minds. With this mindset we going out for buying all those awesome products we need for doing our life a little easier. Today marketing goal is not to set up a feel of need in our minds, it sets a feel of you will be more and more happy if you can afford this TV, cellphone, laptop, car, house… you get the idea, don’t you?
This is the worst thing that can happen to any human being because it doesn’t matter how much money you can earn, there is always someone that have more than you and there is always something you can’t afford.
This paradigm makes us unhappy, plenty of envy and very stressed out people. Sometimes we think “If I will be able to buy this, I reach happiness”. But do you know what? If you can buy it, tomorrow there will be another thing that if you will be able to buy, makes you reach happiness. Happiness is not about money nor about posesions. Happiness is a state of mind. A balanced state of mind that brings to you a balanced life. A balanced life that brings to you a balanced state of mind.
I want to share with you the things that make me happy:
- I’m happy with the things I own. I don’t need more things to increase my happiness. Live with frugality is the secret here. My father always said: “It doesn’t matter how much money you earn. What it matters is how much money you spend”. For instance this year I was thinking about buying a MacBook for me. I was tired of my five years old toshiba laptop. But later I realized that my toshiba laptop running linux works very well and I can stay with it another year or two.
- I’m happy because me and my family are healthy. Do you think you can be happy having 100,000,000$ in your bank account and a child, wife, dad or brother with an incurable cancer? Yes you can buy drugs and pay hospital bills with money but if you have an incurable cancer there is not enough money in the world that makes you happy. Here I speak from experience because three years ago my mom died with an incurable cancer.
- I’m happy because I have a great family, a great wife and great child. Yes I have a great family and we do a lot of things together. You can not buy a great family.
- I’m happy because I help other people to accomplish their goals in life. Due the fact that I’m not too much concerned with earn a few more bucks I have time to spend with friends and other people to help them reach their goals and listen them when they need someone to speak to.
- I’m happy because I’m confident in myself. Self confidence is not a thing you can buy. You can not figure out how many rich people out there are not self confident.
Of course I’m not perfect. I’m working to be better and better in a lot of things but a couple of years ago I was one of the unhappy people I have described above.
Now I want to share with you some useful links. We can name them as the Pursuit for happiness links:
UrbanMonk.net is a great personal development blog with an insanely great and deep content. Remarkable the posts about Guilt: The importance of overcoming guilt and A guide to handling guilt and self punishment and this one about the ego: The beauty of impermanency and the illusion of the ego. After all removing guilt and discover the trap of the ego are fundamentals to reach happiness.
The Simple Dollar. A great personal finances blog with good advice, interesting reviews and a huge archive. Remarkable this post: 10 simple ways to beat impulse buying and the last post: Financial Indepence: Defining It and Figuring Out How to Get There. After all, if you reach financial independence probably you will be less concerned about economics and more with spirituality and true happiness.
Feel free to share your thoughts with a comment. And if you see mistakes in my writing, notice them to me and you will help me to accomplish the goal of write and speak well in english.
2 Comments
February 17, 2008 at 6:28 pm
Hello Wintermute,
I just hopped over to your site from Albert, The Urban Monk.
Since English is my only language, I really admire you for starting a blog is something other than your native language. !!!
I am a HUGE fan of quotes. I feel we can learn a great deal from even one lined shared.
But we must also keep in mind where did that line come from. A single line might have been taken out of context and so then the meaning might not come through as intended.
Another thing too, is we must consider when a quote was written. I was not familiar with Protagoras and so looked him on on the web.
It is said he lived in 490– 420 BC. It’s difficult to relate to what his life must have been like.
I am in agreement with you that I don’t agree with the quote, but still I have to wonder about it’s origin.
My heartfelt sympathy to you and your family on the loss of your Mother. May you feel her spirit near you always.
You are so correct that ~joy~ and real happiness can never be found in things. What is important is human connections.
Great post. !!!
xo xo – > HUGS
Deb
February 17, 2008 at 7:05 pm
Hi Deb, your comment makes me very happy. Is the first comment in my blog
When I finish this comment I’m going to respond your e-mails.
First I want to make clear for the ones that can read this that I’m not a philosopher, I didn’t study philosophy, I don’t own a degree in philosophy.
Protagoras was a Sophist. The sophists were a group of teachers in philosophy and rhetoric. They taught the sons of rich people to prepare them for public life and politics. Plato in his writings criticize them a lot. Some people says that Socrates was also a sophist but I disagree with them.