Can the World be a Happy place?

[toss]

Sure the world is full of hate, violence, etc. but isn't that also true for the opposite?

[diebitter]

Individually, and for moments in time (beit minutes, hours, days, weeks etc), yes, definitely.

Otherwise, no.

[Blarg]

You can look for good, but it's often a waste of time. Better than just stopping at realizing that most things and people suck, it's better to go to the next step of just treasuring what good things there are instead of taking them for granted, and trying to be the source of good things yourself. It's useless to realize something about the sucky state of the world and then do nothing. You might as well never have realized it at all.

[chesspain]

[ QUOTE ]
Then my mom chimed in with something like "or the world can be a happy place, it is what you make it".

I'm well versed on her counter-argument so I came back hard with a punishing "yeah you can be ignorant to reality and put the blinders on but that wont change the fact there are still children born with horrible birth defects, people still living in slavery, a woman getting raped somewhere right now, a child being molested, a dog dying or a plane crashing, even the Buddha said "life is suffering"".



[/ QUOTE ]

Just because there is suffering in the world does not mean that on a daily basis you cannot make it a slightly better place by doing things like: refusing to engage in dick-like moves, showing consideration to others, etc.

[Jdanz]

I'm pretty convince that the world is a good place and getting better. There is a lot of crap, but for the most part if someone is struggling people are more likely to help than hinder.

I live in NYC and there are tourists around all the time. When they ask people for directions people usually oblidge. Why would they do this rather than walking away if there isn't an inherent motive towards altruism.

In general i think that people are too self-involved to worry about helping other people, but all things being equal if it was little or no effort to them they would help their fellow man.

You're average person is far more likely to help a stranger who dropped a grocery bag then to intentionally knock it over. I mean look at OOT there is pleanty of dickery here, but for the most part when people askquestions the entire community gives them what they at least believe to be good advice, and at what benefit to themselves?

People are basically good, and that in my mind proves the world is a pretty good place.

edit: as a pre-emptive defence, i realize that people will do incredibly terrible things in their self-interest and that can suck, but that's no different than any other animal or organism, what i think is heartening is the desire to do good. People might do evil to get what they want, but rarely desire to do evil for evil's sake whereas most people desire to do good at least to some degree for its own sake.

[Blarg]

I think plenty of people like to do evil and enjoy it immensely. But since you can't unmake the world and start over, you just have to deal with them the best you can and try not to succumb to your own worst impulses yourself, and instead try to do things the right way as much as you can, even if it's not always the most comfortable or profitable thing to do.

You may not ever be able to change others, but you can always change yourself. And you don't have to live by anybody's world view but your own, if you're strong enough inside.

[tonypaladino]

From the responses to the first few replies, it's obvious the OP is just an ass-hole looking for a fight. Don't indulge him

[Jdanz]

i'm not denying that some people like evil, and i agree with what you've said in your post.

However, from my life expereience i've just noticed that most people like doing good, they get some sort of kick out of it . [img]/images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img]

[Blarg]

I wish I could say the same. I find most people indifferent at best, but I do think I've probably run into an unbalanced sample.

[Jdanz]

hey i'm not trying to downplay indifference, but the fact that people feel bad when they act like a dick (most of the time) and feel good when they genuinely help someone (most of the time) has to count for something.