Philosophy Now Forum

The secret as to how to improve your life is simple. Make someone else's life easier by improving the quality of their life. Of course, I know it is futile to tell anyone how to live, since they will go their own way; but if you do want to improve your life, you now, in what follows, have some basic suggestions as to how.
First, be authentic yourself. Pretense and phoniness will get you nowhere. So, be real !

How improve the quality of an individual's life? It isn't hard to do: a kind word, a smile, show some recognition, take an interest in the person. Ask them if they have some achievement in life of which they are proud. Then be a good listener. (Be ready to tell them about one of your accomplishments in case they ask.
How can you be ready? By making some contribution to society in which you can take pride. Get busy on it. Even if by telling a good joke you made someone smile ...that is an achievement!)

Figure out how to make your work fun. Find some activity you enjoy, or that comes easy to you, and see if there is possibly a way to make money out of it. Then your work will be your play; and your play will be your work. If you can squeeze a living out of some hobby of yours the benefits will be tangible! Also, find a need and fill it. You've heard this before, but it's true. There is money to be made by inventing something useful. And it doesn't have to be a physical invention; it can be a social invention ...a new institution, a new business model. There now exist internet commercial enterprises which rent or lease everything in their office, including the Help Desk 'Technical Support guy'. He is on lease from another e-commerce company. So are the telephones rented too. Dream up some business service that is novel, and rent all your office equipment to save the cost of buying it outright. You can do it. Use your imagination.

For further insights, see this post, which you may not have read yet - or if you have read it then you may wish to review it: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=9512

And did you extract all the meaning you could from the thread at the following link? : -
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=9561

All comments, questions, constructive critiques welcome !!!

You first have to like doing things for others to enjoy it. There's no guarantee for a gain, especially if you are of a kind with a strict sense of deserving.

The Voice of Time wrote:You first have to like doing things for others to enjoy it. There's no guarantee for a gain, especially if you are of a kind with a strict sense of deserving.

You are right that there are no guarantees but I don't think that you'd have to 'like' doing things for others to benefit. I think the whole point of giving of yourself is to forget your own troubles. To become less absorbed with self and focus the brain on someone else.

Ebenezer Scrooge would've called that "humbug".

true dat

A poster here wrote: "Ebenezer Scrooge would've called that "humbug"."

How come the one quoted knows so well what Scrooge would say? Is it possible that Dickens had someone who thinks like that poster in mind when he wrote that story?





P.s. ......Nothing personal, of course.

If an individual is "a kind with a strict sense of deserving" then that is the first thing he needs to work on. Ethics recommends a program of self-improvement until - and even past the point when - one is a person of good character. Continuous self-improvement, continuous moral growth, is one of the deductions derived from the system of Ethics. It is a principle to live by.

Prof are seriously going so far as to trying to ignore my entire existence when you can't even spell my name out? Have I become your Voldemort or something? You've grown so tired of my perceived lack of "constructive replies" that you're simply keeping your eyes shut as you spot my posts and you're just scrolling down until you see somebody else posting (which now just happened to quote me)?

Yesterday I read in the novel "The pale king" a chapter about a boy who was selfless and accomplished and well-meaning to such a degree that people hated him and even became mentally sick.

"Everyone hates the boy. It is a complex hatred, one that often causes the haters to feel mean and guilty and to hate themselves for feeling that way about such an accomplished and well-meaning boy, which then tends to make them involuntarily hate the boy even more for arousing such self-hatred."

But in general I agree with you, prof.
I have made up my mind to make only kind and helpful comments on discussion forums like this one.

Aggression, however, is not all bad. It can be used to signal that one wants to be left alone, for reasons one does not even know oneself. It helps to make a personal space for oneself. Also women like to have a territory of their own. Virginia Woolfe wrote a story "A room of my own", something she missed in her life apparently.

One should offer good deeds to one´s neighbour if the neighbour reacts emotionally in a positive way. So one needs to watch closely the other person´s body language.
Otherwise it is better to obstain.
You cannot make someone happy by force.

duszek wrote:But in general I agree with you, prof.
I have made up my mind to make only kind and helpful comments on discussion forums like this one.

Congratulations to you, duszdek !!!!
We need more individuals in this world like you.
Problems will then get solved. Harmony will prevail. Life will increase in quality. Happiness will be the norm.

duszek wrote:Aggression, however, is not all bad.

It would be helpful, here, if you would define your terms. And do it by means of value science, so that it fits in with the Unified Theory of Ethics. I know what "not all bad" means. And you did say what "aggression" was useful for, but you did not say what "aggression" means, ethically-speaking. So communication fails to occur; instead, confusion. Please use a term that says exactly what you mean, or please define "aggression."

duszek wrote:It helps to make a personal space for oneself. Also women like to have a territory of their own. Virginia Woolfe wrote a story "A room of my own", something she missed in her life apparently.

Later, you write: "One should offer good deeds to one´s neighbour if the neighbour reacts emotionally in a positive way. So one needs to watch closely the other person´s body language. ... You cannot make someone happy by force."

These passages reminds me of the philosopher Unamuno and his observations about men and women - his style of doing philosophy.
Spoken like a true philosopher, duszek !

GOOD WORK

Thank you prof.

I will think about how to define aggression.

At the moment I have something to say about "a kind word".
How to make sure that a "kind word" is not like forcing a banana into a reluctant lion´s mouth ?

Only if we socialize a lot, observe a lot and develop a high level of empathy.

Somewhere in Plato´s dialogues it is recommended that children should be educated by poetry and music so that they become gentle.
If you are gentle you have a high level of empathy and do not get on anyone´s nerves.

Very true.

In theoretical Ethics we speak of this as "Intrinsic valuation capacity." Those who rate highly in In-Value are invariably empathic.

It is a fine capacity to cultivate. Not everyone is strong in this area. Some excel at getting things done and/or in problem-solving. Some are better at devising systems or doing math or thinking in a logical fashion.

Ideally, we would want every individual to be efficacious - in the sense the term is employed by Alfred Bandura of Stanford University. For clarification see Katz - Aspects of Ethics, p. 11,
http://tinyurl.com/36u6gpo
[The word means "self-regulating" as well as "efficient" among other connotations.]

Any efficiency attained should be in the service of effectiveness: and recall that the latter (in the system of Ethics) means: contributing to a better quality-of-life, to greater well-being for all.

Comments? Questions?

duszek wrote:Yesterday I read in the novel "The pale king" a chapter about a boy who was selfless and accomplished and well-meaning to such a degree that people hated him and even became mentally sick.

"Everyone hates the boy. It is a complex hatred, one that often causes the haters to feel mean and guilty and to hate themselves for feeling that way about such an accomplished and well-meaning boy, which then tends to make them involuntarily hate the boy even more for arousing such self-hatred."

This is true duszek...at least for some people. But others will be encouraged by your kindness and will in turn be kind to others because you were kind to them. The kindness you show will go on and on...some you will not be there to witness. Just know that you will make a difference.

I have been kind all my life...even to those who have been mean to me. But at this stage in my life I am changing...I am only kind to those who are kind to me now. It is not the way I want to be as I would rather be my old self who was kind to all...but for now...my aggression has a mind of it's own with people who are mean to me or others.

Anywho, getting back to the passage you quoted...I loved it...and you for posting it. I think it may be true...but I have not had the experience just wondered to myself if others had...namely when I have seen friends of mine get so mad at the woman their husbands had cheated on...but not their husbands. I thought that odd...and I also thought how self destructive it was seeing as how most of the women were not aware the men had wives as the men had lied to begin with. To hate the victim...must make you feel like a piece of crap inside. Forget about the affair...it's what you turn into.

And I wonder...with my new found aggression...what will I turn into.

Should be an interesting experiment.

The secret as to how to improve your life is simple. Make someone else's life easier by improving the quality of their life. Of course, I know it is futile to tell anyone how to live, since they will go their own way; but if you do want to improve your life, you now, in what follows, have some basic suggestions as to how.
First, be authentic yourself. Pretense and phoniness will get you nowhere. So, be real !

I was reading an anthology of Frank Ramsey's Notes on what is an example of a "useful mental habit" when it's at home. "In ethics it might be a habit of doing what is good (as in Epictetus: what we do from habit is sweet to us; so practice doing what is good until it become a habit); but to know what is good, i.e. to justify calling anything 'good' requires a philosophical investigation, this being the Socratic understanding of "Know thyself", of investigating what is the excellence appropriate to a human being, through this discovering what is the good for man as an ethical personality. In any case, in philosophy we cannot take our habits, ethical or critical, as a matter of course or for granted, we cannot simply say "It works (is useful), but I'm not concerned about why it works", that is what philosophy is all about, "getting to the bottom" of it all.