My Guide to a Meaningful And Moral Life

I believe that deep down we all have the same basic goal in life, that is, survival. Everything we do is just to try to continue on living. However, now that many of us have met our basic needs (e.g. food, shelter, clothing), we really should start focusing on what we can do to live a meaningful and moral life. Here’s my list of tenets that I try to live by. Tenet 1 – Be Nice It may be obvious, but we should all try to be nice to one another. Even from a purely selfish point of view, if you are nice to others, you’re more likely to receive their favour. If you are a person who constantly goes around getting into arguments and disagreeing with everybody, you’re going to have a hard life. Make it easy on yourself and be nice! Tenet 2 – Stand up for What You Believe In Just because Tenet 1 was Be Nice, doesn’t mean you should always be nice, especially if somebody is doing something bad to you or someone else. If you are walking down the street and see somebody assaulting a young girl, it’s your duty to help out. If you can’t physically help out, at least you can call the police, take a video, call out for help – anything is better than nothing. Don’t be one of those people who just walk the other way and then kick themselves later. The only way the world gets better is when good people stand up for what they believe in. Don’t compromise your principles! Tenet 3 – Help Others (for Free If Possible) One of my friends has recently been having visa troubles here in Australia. The Australian government are threatening to kick him out despite him having lived here for almost 10 years! He’s had to resort to going to an immigration lawyer to help him with the process. What does the lawyer charge? A lot! For help to fill out a single three-page form, they wanted about $1600. That’s insane! I’ve also known other people who’ve had to pay about $700 an hour to see their lawyer. These lawyers are basically profiting from people’s misfortune. I think as a society we should help out one another for free, or at the very least, at a reasonable price. My friend offered me some money to help him fill out the form, but I refused. I didn’t refuse to help, but I refused the money. I’m going to help him for free because he is my friend and a fellow human being in need. He still wants to pay me, so we agreed that he could take me out for dinner one night. Also, if you believe in karma, the good you do comes back to you. Tenet 4 – Be Healthy If you’re unhealthy, it’s going to make it difficult to uphold the other tenets. If you are morbidly obese and can barely walk, it will be hard for you to help someone in need. Being healthy will also make you feel better. From purely a selfish view, people who are fit and healthy will probably have a better chance of getting a job, especially a physically intense one. They will probably live longer and will find it easier to attract a mate. For me, I stay healthy by exercising every day (even a 20 minute walk is enough) and eat a vegetarian diet. (See my post on Why I became a vegetarian.) Tenet 5 – Learn New Things To make your life feel meaningful, you should learn something new. It doesn’t matter what it is. For example, you could learn computer programming and create an Android app; You could learn to play the violin and play for your friends and family; Learn how to grow your own vegetables and make your wife a home-grown salad; Learn how to do a handstand; Learn a foreign language and talk to your friends in their own language. It doesn’t matter what you learn, but it will give you a feeling of accomplishment. Again from a purely selfish view, it’s a great way to improve your memory and reasoning, and will probably make it easier for you to pick up work. If you teach yourself how to design a website, you could probably pick up a freelance job somewhere. Go on, learn something today! Tenet 6 – Don’t Be Greedy Greed is rife in our current society. Rich people no longer want millions of dollars, they want billions of dollars. At what point will they feel they have enough? The answer is never. Greed isn’t satisfied by reaching a certain amount. It’s an unrelenting hunger for more at the expense of others. People that have way more money than they need are actually harming others. By them not sharing their wealth, they are literally responsible for the deaths of others. Being rich is immoral. How many times have we heard of people not being able to get the cancer treatment they need because they don’t have enough funds? Yet, their country is often very wealthy (I’m looking at you America and China!). How many people die every day in China due to lack of healthcare? Where is all their GDP being used? Basically, it’s all in the hands of the greedy elite. They’d rather hoard their wealth than let even one poor person have any. We simply must stop this from occurring. There will always be greedy people, so the only way to stop this rampant inequality is to make laws and taxes that don’t allow it to happen. Once a person has a billion dollars, does an extra 10 billion really matter? Does it really help them improve their lives? We teach children not to be greedy, so why don’t we admonish the super rich as well? Please read my post Money Hides Wealth: Analogy of the Monkey Lord for a more detailed analysis. Tenet 7 – Forgive The most important Tenet, I believe, is forgiveness. Not just others, but forgive yourself as well. Some days, we wake up on the wrong side of bed and do something stupid, like yell at our loved ones, or ignore our friend in need. We’re only human after all. We must learn to say sorry and to forgive others. If we go around constantly holding grudges, then we will live a life of misery. Take a look at all the conflict in the Middle East. Most of it is due to people not being able to forgive. “You killed my brother, I’m going to kill your entire family!“. The never-ending circle of retribution. Don’t be one of those people – forgive others, forgive yourself, and say sorry to those you’ve wronged. We all make mistakes. A simple sorry is often enough. Live by these 7 tenets and you will hopefully be on the way to a more happy, meaningful, and most importantly, a moral life.