Everyone dreams of having a “good life”. They talk about how if they just had this or that they would have a better life, but what makes a life a good life? Ancient Mesopotamians, Hebrews, and Greeks all had different ideas of what made a life a good one. How have the ideas changed from back then to how modern day people think of it now? The good life consists of two things. Happiness and the things that are wanted, and well being and the things that are needed. Mesopotamians had their own view of how a good life was obtained, and what it consisted of. The lives of the mesopotamians were not like what we are use to. They lived in small cities of about ten thousand to fifty thousand people and generally kept to their own cities. They didn’t …show more content…
They got all the choice jewelry and perfume and had slaves to help them with the work. Just looking at happiness than this would be true. However the thing that each individual in the society of mesopotamians has is a family which is also important in that day and age. In the eyes of an average mesopotamian this is what made up a good life. The Hebrews had quite a different outlook on the great mystery that is a “good life”. That is what the average hebrew would consider made up a good life. Ancient Greeks also had a different view on what made a life good and how someone could have one. These are the ideals of the ancient greeks view on a good life. Modern day ideas of good life here The idea of a good life is very versatile. Everyone has their own view of what makes them happy and of what they need in life. Happiness is a very subjective idea and different for everyone. That being said everyone 's "good life" is to each their own because a good life is made of two parts, happiness and well being. The Mesopotamians, Hebrews, and Greeks may have differing points of view with the specific ideas that go along with a good life, but the main jist of it stays about the same throughout
Mesopotamian society was stratified into classes and social differences. It was composed of nobles, free clients of the nobility, commoners and slaves. Slave women participated in the textile industry. Free women did exist, however, men dominated the women in Mesopotamia. The nobles consisted of the king, his family, the chief priests, and high palace officials. The king was a war leader elected by the citizens. He established an army and led it into battle. Kingship was hereditary. Commoners were free citizens.
...he people of Mesopotamia felt they helped maintain balance in the world and kept the forces of chaos and destruction with the blessings of all their female goddesses and their religions. Mesopotamian also have along with them the teaching resulting to expectations that one would honor one’s elders and treat people with respect, as what the citizens of the land were also to do and to honor the gods throughout their lives. Each female deity has special style and qualities that contribute to the development and the creation of arts, religion and culture in Mesopotamia. In addition, the influence of the Mesopotamian goddesses to the region and cities in such place made the people and civilization live a life of righteousness with specific path to follow in order to be guided and live a blissful and worthy lives which can be observed until this modern days of the world.
Mesopotamia was a great nation that influenced many other nations that surrounded it. When I began this research, I did not know much about Mesopotamia and its culture or historical background. I did keep in mind the different factors that influenced the culture of the people as well as how it compared to our culture now. It was a big commercial industry, that included metalworking. Metal was an important, but very rare so Mesopotamia was a hot spot for silver, copper, and gold. This meant that many foreigners would come in and out of the land. In this paper I will be comparing the cultural differences of our time now and the time back then. I will also compare the theology of the people, how families worked back then, how economy was a factor
In Nichomean Ethics, Aristotle questions what exactly good is. Aristotle cites some typical examples such as being happy, wholesome and respected amongst your peers, he beleives that “mens conception of the good or of happiness can be read in the lives that they lead.” (Vaughn 84) Aristotles argument is continued by getting to the origin of every good activity. He remarked that if a man kept wondering which actions were good, he would find that every good activity lead to some end result of joy. Due to this a man can further his joy by drawing examples from his own life. For example, if a man is sick, he desires for good wellbeing, because it is what he accepts as true ...
A Good Life for me is living in the moment, having self-awareness, and just be happy. There are things that should be valued like family, friends, and life. They are individuals that can never be part of your life again if you were to lose
For me, having a good life is dreaming intensely, pursuing those dreams with eager, and living each day like is the last one, but always think about future.
The right life does not mean perfect, the right life infers the moral knowledge of one person and how they go about this life. The right life is different for everyone, but in the end your family and spiritual life should be the same. One way of a right life is to always be joyful, and have a positive outlook upon any situation. Another is to think what is best for a “crowd” of people and where you would fit in. Find other people with the same interest and hobbies will make you more productive in anything you do. Never put your life under one thing you should split it up, meaning do not put everything into work. Becoming better at managing your time so you can enjoy life, of course there are some bumps to slow
We might not have the same opinions, paths, and ways of living; but we all, millions of people around the world, share the same purpose of life: Being able to say “I am having a good life!” What we mean by “good life” is living in pure happiness and having a wonderful peace of mind. The difference between us is that each one of us chooses a different way in his pursuit of happiness. Some find it in stability with a big house, a family, and a good paying job. Some find it in adventure and wildness, travel, and taking risks. While others don’t really have specific criteria or an organized plan, they just believe that happiness comes with living each day as if it was the last, with no worries about the rest. Personally, I find it in trying to be the best version of myself, in staying true to my principles, and in the same time in being able to make my own decisions; which reminds me of what George Loewenstein said “Just because we figure out that X makes people happy and they're choosing Y, we don't want to impose X on them.”
The Mesopotamian people believed in a higher being, like most civilizations have for centuries. Their belief system consisted of many gods, each representing an aspect of Mesopotamian life. From the Epic of Gilgamesh we learn that they believed that the gods are the creators of everything around them. This is seen in this epic with the creation of Enkindu, by the goddess of creation, Aruru. We also can conclude that the god of the heavens, Anu, ruled the gods. The Mesopotamian people also had gods for death, love, and even cattle. The Mesopotamian people used the gods to explain just about every aspect of their life. Their gods were all-powerful, and could grant people godly features. For example, Gilgamesh embarks on a quest for eternal life from the gods when his fear of death becomes a reality with the death of Enkindu.
What establishes a noble, valuable, enjoyable life? Many philosophers tried their own beliefs to these ancient and most persistent of philosophical question. Most of Philosophers have agreed that the best possible life is a life where the ideas of “virtue” and “happiness” are fulfilled. Nevertheless expected differences in terms, many great minds theorized that the road to a joyful, flourishing, happy life is paved with virtues. For example, Aristotle believed that anyone keen to live a virtuous life will reach happiness (Aristotle 1992).
However, we can wonder if the pleasures that derive from necessary natural desires are what actually brings us happiness, since having a family, friends, a good job and doing fun things seem to bring the most joy in life. Plato’s ideas on life are even more radical, since he claims that we should completely take difference from our bodily needs. Therefore it seems that we should only do what is necessary for us to stay a life and solely focus on the mind. Although both ways of dealing with (bodily)pleasure are quite radical and almost impossible to achieve, it does questions if current perceptions of ‘living the good life’ actually leads to what we are trying to achieve, which is commonly described as
People may say that the “Good Life”, is what you make to be; that in order to have a good life you have to work hard, get and education and be kind to others, others may say that you have to follow the laws given by God and you may have a good life along with a long an peaceful life. While other may just simply go with the flow; for this paper, two excerpts were read The Republic and The Human Search for Meaning which are supposed to bring an understanding on how to achieve the “wealth” of the soul that will allow the readers to experience the “Good life” as Plato and his thinkers.
According to Aristotle, the good life is the happy life, as he believes happiness is an end in itself. In the Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle develops a theory of the good life, also known as eudaimonia, for humans. Eudaimonia is perhaps best translated as flourishing or living well and doing well. Therefore, when Aristotle addresses the good life as the happy life, he does not mean that the good life is simply one of feeling happy or amused. Rather, the good life for a person is the active life of functioning well in those ways that are essential and unique to humans. Aristotle invites the fact that if we have happiness, we do not need any other things making it an intrinsic value. In contrast, things such as money or power are extrinsic valuables as they are all means to an end. Usually, opinions vary as to the nature and conditions of happiness. Aristotle argues that although ‘pleasurable amusements’ satisfy his formal criteria for the good, since they are chosen for their own sake and are complete in themselves, nonetheless, they do not make up the good life since, “it would be absurd if our end were amusement, and we laboured and suffered all our lives for the sake of amusing ourselves.”
Aristotle argues that being happy is also being good. Once you have achieved happiness that is the end, and because it is something final it should be where all actions aim. Aristotle says that this is a truism, meaning that of course we should always aim to be happy because it is supreme good. The idea behind this links back to virtue and why being virtuous leads to happiness. Each individual has different abilities and skills which will lead to their own specific type of happiness. Happiness does not come in the same form for everybody, but ultimately when one is excellent at what they do, they will achieve happiness. In this paper, I will explain why the virtuous life is the equivalent of the happy life.
...good life is, Aristotle still defines a good life in a way that is too specific to be applied to all instances of human behavior. Personally, I see Aristotle’s idea of a good life to be close to my own idea of what a good life is. However, with access to thousands of years of accumulated human knowledge, I recognize that what is best for me is likely not best for everyone, and others must find their own path to happiness on their own journey.