Examine your life and compare

"It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it.

Life is long enough... But when it is wasted in heedless luxury and spent on no good activity, we are forced at last by death's final constraint to realize that it has passed away before we knew it was passing." - Seneca, On the Shortness of Life.

The Buddha taught that suffering existed because we let it. Some of us, for example, utilitarians and egotists, may argue that humans are simply trying to avoid suffering and experience happiness when they act. So how is it that we allow this to happen? The answer is attachments.

We've attached ourselves to things which, ironically, make us fall into the pits of suffering and misery. When we judge our own or other people's actions, thoughts and feelings, we are enforcing our urge to embrace that which we like and approve of and reject that which we do not onto ourselves. When we seek pleasure and avoid pain, not only do we create unachievable goals, but we create attachments to things such as luxuries, money, sex, posessions and other undeserved futilities. Events are outwith our control, we cannot choose what happens to us. That which we attach ourselves to only adds to our upset. Attachments vary from attachments to money to the physical world and to the past and future. Unless we begin to realise and become content with what we actually do have in the present and understand what truly matters, or better yet, all the things that do not matter - then we will continue suffering.
The only method, according to Siddharta Gautama, to end the cycle of attachment and suffering is through realisation, an awakening - enlightenment. We realise through understanding, which is through thinking, which in turn derives from observation. To undo our cycle of suffering, we must start by observing the world in which we live and suffer. And so, I invite you.



It all began in a hostel near the Los Angeles International Airport. Two men discussing, in general, the pleasures they seek, things they want but the lack of money they have to obtain them. Then I heard it, the ultimate statement summing up precisely what causes so many ills and malcontent in the world;

"Want it? You're gonna have to work!"

Suddenly, I felt a great amount of sympathy, love and respect, all at once, for the peson who had to digest this conditional and towards all those people who have spat it back out with disgust and outrage. The ostracised, the pariahs, the rebels, "down and outs," "cheats,"... my new heroes.

Whether what they do is intentional or not, I do not know, there is probably a mix of reasons and maybe only some people do follow my line of thought. To these people, I salute you. They question why they have to work. Why must I work in order to survive? I do not mean, why must I perform an act in order to survive, but I mean why must I work hard for most of my life, somewhere I dislike for, largely, somebody's else's benefit. Were it not an economic system, this might have sounded heroic, generous and an act of self-sacrifice. It is not, it is slavery.
I hold these people up as an extreme. I wave them at you all and ask for a compromise. A realistic, fair outcome which can be achieved where each individual works less and receives more than they do now.

Idea: the sacrifice of the few for the benefit of the many. Regardless of your view on the ethics of this mantra, this is the inverse of our current situation. In order to achieve equality of any kind, sacrifice is required. This is contrary to what has always happened where the sacrifice of the many exists for the benefit of the few. Those in power, the wealthy and the oppressors it is they who must realise their injustice and opt to end it.
Obviously it is not this easy, we must consider both parties. Not only must the few give up the excess they have, but the many must stop excessively wanting as well. Ask yourself, what do I need and why must I spend my life toiling away so that this can be achieved? Is it because it is extremely difficult for people to amass that which they need? Perhaps we desire too much and therefore have to work more to attain it? Or is it because we are actually working for somebody else's benefit?

I praise those who refuse to work but demand life's necessities. I love these people. They offer nothing to "society" but take what they need.
There is food in front of them, they have no means to get it with the "owner's" permisson, but they need it. So they take it. I applaud them.

This example calls into question why we spend our lives working hard, or at least, are expected to. All in order to sustain ourselves and our family. It is for this reason that I give you the example of these "cheats."

An intricate web, a multi-layered complex system exists so that we may waste our time and life doing something that we think we may enjoy doing. We call it a job. The path we take is simply the less daunting. The lesser of all evils.

Time is important to you, in that it is the only thing you truly want, need and can use in order to do anything at all. Food, shelter and safety are things that simply keep our bodies alive and working so that we can continue making use of our time.
Having to work is a use of our time, in order to afford the things which buy us more time to use it, which is then spent on further work.
In short, we work in order to be able to work. This may be satisfactory for those who love where they work, who they work with and what they work towards. But ask yourself, who are you working for? If you won the lottery and were financially secure for life in whichever lifestyle you chose, would you still work in the same place? If you answer no, and the reason being that you wouldn't know what you would do with your time - then that is a sad set of affairs indeed. If work gives your life purpose, something to waste your day with, then that shows us how little we know about how to live that we've forgotten how to.
Those who claim to love their work, in my opinion, are just as likely to be convincing themselves when they are convincing others. They are the lone slave persuading the others that it's not all that bad being in chains. That it's a comfort really, what would they do with their freedom anyway?

And so, I congratulate those who have observed their world, understood the cycle and ended it. Beginning with forced labour and stolen time.