What is the path to objective happiness?
"All men seek one goal: success or happiness. The only way to achieve true success is to express yourself completely in service to society. First, have a definite, clear, practical ideal--a goal, an objective. Second have the necessary means to achieve your ends--wisdom, money, material and methods. Third, adjust all your means to that end."--Aristotle |
 Happiness is living in a state of freely choosing to create and exchange rational values needed for yourself and others. One must have "The Right of Self Determination" to health, financial, and political freedom. Being on the path to beneficial and long-lasting happiness does not mean you cannot be happy here and now while on the journey towards more happiness.
The objective of happiness is not and can never be a final destination that ends, but is found as a never-ending experience while traveling the path of right learning and living. The awareness and reminder of your love of life and discovery of your life's purpose will help to keep you on your path. When you find yourself off the path, simply get back on, or create another way to your destination. Never give up your right of self determination.
"In the nature of our existence, we must act to achieve values. And in order to act appropriately, we need to value the beneficiary of our actions. In order to seek values, we must consider ourselves worthy of enjoying them. In order to fight for our happiness, we must consider ourselves worthy of happiness."--Nathaniel Branden |
Whatever you expect and unite with emotion and persistent action, you get. Always aspire to achieve exactly what you rationally love and allow yourself to receive it. Your unique path to happiness, with the help from using the tools below, will guide you to blaze a trail and create your own personal map. The wide and open path to happiness is by achieving your rational self-interest through the free creation and exchange of your values with others.
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2. The Map
Supreme Objective - Supreme Effect:
HAPPINESS
Primary Values - Primary Causes:
Space, Time, Matter & Energy -------------- Quality, efficient, productive, & effective.
Liberty ----------------------------- Self-control (responsibility) & self-interest (freedom).
Productive work, play, purpose & passion ----------- Creating & exchanging values.
Relationships ---------------- Romance for men & women, friendship, & self-esteem.
Supreme Value - Supreme Cause:Existence ------------ Conscious life (vibrant spiritual, mental, and physical health).
Primary Actions:Be centered within yourself, own it, and aware of the space around you.Be curious to know, honor, and value what is in the here and now.Be open and honest within your heart and mind to accept what is.Be thankful and enjoy what is, including your possible decision to change it.Be committed to your personal integrity, compassion, and self-responsibility.Be true to yourself and to others, while owning your experiences.
Supreme Action:Be joyful in living your purpose based on your freely chosen rational values.
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3. The Directions
What is the value of happiness? "Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence."--Aristotle |
The creation and exchange of value is the root of all happiness. The love of earned value is the root of all the 'Happy' who have created more value than they have consumed or those who are learning to earn more values. The love of unearned value is the root of all the 'Unhappy' who have consumed more value than they have created or those who are learning to possess more unearned values.
The lovers of unearned value envy those who have earned values and cannot exist without them. As individuals, we choose how we will obtain values. At any time, the 'Happy' may choose unhappiness, and the 'Unhappy' may choose happiness.
"Happiness is a state of noncontradictory joy--a joy without penalty or guilt, a joy that does not clash with any of your values and does not work for your own destruction, not the joy of escaping from your mind's fullest power, not the joy of faking reality, but of achieving values that are real, not the joy of a drunkard, but of producer."--Ayn Rand |
What is needed to obtain values?
"A society that does not recognize that each individual has values of his own which he is entitled to follow can have no respect for the dignity of the individual and cannot really know freedom."--F.A. Hayek |
Liberty is the freedom to choose one's own way in life and the responsibility to live with the consequences, while at the same time allowing others the same freedom and expecting from them the same responsibility. | |
Primary Attributes of the 'Happy'
- Integrated Critical Thinking -
- Independent Inter-dependence -
- Emotional Acceptance -
- Live Consciously -
- Self-assertive -
- Self-responsible -
- Compassionate -
- Self-acceptance -
- Open Flexibility -
- Dynamic -
- Purposeful -
- Self-respect -
- Courageous -
- Grateful -
- Honesty -
- Integrity -
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Primary Attributes of the 'Unhappy'
- Disintegrated Wishful Thinking -
- Inter-dependent Dependence -
- Emotional Repression -
- Live by Default -
- Passive-aggressive -
- Accusatory -
- Indifferent -
- Self-denial -
- Closed Rigidity -
- Stagnant -
- Indecisive -
- Contempt -
- Fearful -
- Envious -
- Deceptive -
- Fragmented -
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The 'Happy' honestly create and freely exchange values that solve problems where they exist. The 'Unhappy' deceptively and/or forcefully take and use values that create problems where none need exist. Again, the 'Happy' may choose unhappiness at any time, and the 'Unhappy' may choose happiness at any time. So, choose wisely and act accordingly!
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"Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom."--Albert Einstein |
The only moral use of deception and force is used as a last resort to defend against a harmful and/or unjust attack or threat to one's self or property. You own your life. Others do not have a claim over your life, and you do not have a claim over the life of others.
"A product of your life and liberty is your property. Property is the fruit of your labor--the product of your time, energy and talents--that part of nature from which you have used to create values for yourself and tradable to others through voluntary mutual consent."--An animated introduction to 'The Philosophy of Liberty', (isil.org)
"Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe...."
--Frederick Douglass |
What is the nature of knowledge and reality?
"If we value independence, if we are disturbed by the growing conformity of knowledge, of values, of attitudes, which our present system induces, then we may wish to set up conditions of learning which make for uniqueness, for self-direction, and for self-initiated learning."--Carl Rogers |
New and complex knowledge is integrated, built, and expanded through old and simple knowledge. Knowledge is contextual. Reality is relational. Reality is all of existence that exists here and now.
"Reality is that which exists. It is absolute. It is the standard of the true, the false, and the arbitrary. Things are what they are, independent of our or anyone else's feelings, ideas, wishes, aspirations, and emotions. Or, in the immortal words of Aristotle: A is A. To be, is to be something: finite, limited, and non-contradictory."
--The Capitalism Tour, (capitalism.org)
One's perception of reality is changed only by our relationships to it because of our new knowledge, experiences, and/or set beliefs. Energy/matter and time/space are relative to the perceiver. Everything that exists is composed of matter and energy that cannot be created or destroyed, which always has and always will exist in one form or another.
Objective reality exists independently inter-dependent with one's mind. The facts of reality, which are relevant to you, can be known through your reasoning and feeling capacities, enhanced by the achievement of your needs for survival, love for the advancement of life, and the production of values through creative thoughts, emotions, and actions.
What is the cause of action?
"Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts, and everything will be well. There is nothing more potent than thought. Deed follows word and word follows thought. The word is the result of a mighty thought, and where the thought is mighty and pure the result is always mighty and pure."--Mohandas K. Gandhi |
People may respond to events, circumstances, or situations differently. One's automatic emotional response is determined by one's previously set thoughts and values. A thought may be chosen or unchosen, conscious or unconscious. The words and advice of others may be freely taken when that advice has been integrated into one's own knowledge and understood to be valuable.
To act on the advice from others without regard to outcome avoids the responsibility of independent judgment and freethinking decisions needed to prosper and be happy. Without independent thought, you will become as an automaton. To follow a follower, you are guided to an unknown destination. So, follow only those who have demonstrated success. To be guided by a definite purpose of your choosing, success will follow and meet you at your destination.
To become what you love, you must respond wisely to what is happening, which requires rational, independent, and creative thought. Since we cannot control all events, circumstances, and situations or know what the emotions of others and ourselves will be, we can learn to experience them in ways that promote better analysis of thought and well-directed actions.
Only one's actions can be judged as moral or immoral. Actions produce emotions that are personal, private, and valid parts of an individual. When emotions are felt and honestly accepted without fear or guilt, the reasoning mind can better know one's deepest values. Pleasure is a sign of acting in harmony with one's values and pain is a sign of acting out of harmony with one's values.
To act solely on one's emotions will likely cause unwanted results. Emotions are not the primary cause of thoughts, but are the effect of one's value judgments that will spark and fuel secondary thoughts and emotions. To act in a way that produces results one loves, one's thoughts and beliefs must be chosen toward that end. Thoughts and beliefs that are ultimately combined with emotions and actions produce tangible results that are parallel to those original thoughts and beliefs.
After one's thoughts and beliefs have changed, one's actions, emotions, and results will change. Choose your thoughts wisely. Upon whatever one consistently thinks, one eventually acts. You will become your consistent thoughts.
"Act is the blossom of thought, and joy and suffering are its fruits; thus does man harvest the sweet and bitter fruits of his own husbandry."--James Allen |
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4. The Tools
PERCEIVE and trust your physical sensory tools of sight, sound, smell, taste and touch while at the same time accepting your current mental and spiritual tools of thoughts, beliefs, and emotions for what they are. Intuition is the sixth-sense, which is not mystical nor is it always irrational but is a mental and spiritual tool.
It is simply a subconscious or blocked thought, belief, and/or emotion brought into partial awareness. All three physical, mental, and spiritual tools identify your values that may be needed for survival or to enhance your life. Be centered within yourself, own it, and aware of the space around you.Be curious to know, honor, and value what is in the here and now.
UNDERSTAND and integrate your initial perceptions, thoughts, beliefs, emotions, goals, experiences, concepts, principles, and values. Put that understanding into context in relation to you through a non-contradictory manner. Reality cannot contradict itself. If any perceived data contradicts another, one or more of the data may be misunderstood, lacking or false.
The simple process to transform your intuition into relevant, rational knowledge and understanding is to fill in the blank of this statement, "If I were to understand more of what my intuition is revealing to me, I would ______". Then use the "Think, Feel, and Think" mental tools below to validate it.
Find all relevant facts by using honesty, logic, and reason. Any unverifiable fact of reality is a belief that limits awareness and action. Any verifiable fact of reality is a truth that is universal and expands thought and action. Eliminate any old belief when new verifiable facts prove it false. A closed mind is not open to wider views and constricts potential knowledge. An open mind sees more expansively and liberates reality for new opportunities to be revealed to you through experience, knowledge, understanding, and wisdom.
"It is easy enough to say, 'Be true to your values.' But what if your values are irrational? Or what if the virtues you have committed yourself to are so much against human nature that they cannot be practiced consistently? Be careful of what you accept as your code of morality. Think carefully about whether its tenets serve your life and well being. Exercise critical judgment. Realize how much is at stake-your life, your happiness, your self-esteem."--Nathaniel Branden |
Be curious to know, honor, and value what is in the here and now.Be open and honest within your heart and mind to accept what is.Be committed to your personal integrity, compassion, and self-responsibility.
THINK, FEEL, and then THINK again to deeply understand that perceived data and what it is communicating to you within your context and relation to it. You will either have an unfulfilled need or will be reflecting on the achievement of your values. Use the thinking mental tools of the Trivium Method, which are also the tools of revealing potential deception and maintaining honesty in self and others: (1)Grammar, (2)Logic, and (3)Rhetoric.
Answer the 5 'W's (Who, What, When, Where, and Why) including How.
The first four 'W's are the Grammar (Observation and gathering of data / Knowledge):
"Who" answers the question, "What is the identity of the person involved?"
"What" answers the question, "What is the identity of the subject, concept, or topic?"
"When" answers the question, "What is the identity of the time?"
"Where" answers the question, "What is the identity of the location or place?"
'Why' is the Logic (Thinking and understanding without contradiction / Understanding):
"Why" answers the question, "What is the identity of the cause?"
'How' is the Rhetoric (Communication of knowledge and understanding / Wisdom):
"How" answers the question, "What is the identity of the means or process?"
The tools used to deceive or unintentionally disseminate false beliefs and the tools that reveal deception or false beliefs of ourselves and others are the same. However, the order in which the thinking tools of Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric are used determines the result. If the thinking process is initiated with Logic (Why / Understanding) or Rhetoric (How / Wisdom), the conclusion is likely to be premature or false because the Grammar (Who, What, When, or Where / Knowledge) is out of context, missing, or illusive, thus the result is inconclusive and/or fallacious.
Therefore, it is important to begin the thinking process with the questions to identify the answers to get the 1. Grammar (Knowledge) of (a). Who is the person(s) involved in your goal, (b). What is the subject, concept, or topic of your goal, (c). When do you want your goal to be achieved, and/or (d). Where is the location or place you want your goal to happen. Then follow with questions to answer the 2. Logic (Why / Understanding) and 3. Rhetoric (How / Wisdom) respectively.
If a goal or need is being unfulfilled, determine through your thinking and feeling tool of imagination whether it would be good for you or bad for you if you were to obtain it. Visualize it. Feel it. Breathe into it. Watch it with curiosity. Meditate on it. (See it, listen to it, smell it, touch it, taste it, chew it, swallow it, digest it, etc.) Then ask yourself how it makes you feel. Whether the emotion is good, bad, or neutral, just observe, accept, allow, and feel it.
Accepting an emotion is simply being aware of it and does not necessarily mean one has to agree with it. Let whatever happens be all right. If you deny, repress, or fight the emotion, it will gain strength and control you.
If you fully accept and feel the emotion, you give yourself the power to understand it, overcome it, and/or release it.
A good feeling is the result of the integration of values with one's thoughts or actions and a bad feeling is the result of the disintegration of values with one's thoughts or actions. Whatever you consciously or subconsciously expect and unite with emotion and persistent action, you will get. Accept and allow what is. Feel deeply and honestly in order to think clearly and logically without emotional blocks to identify and understand your goals or purpose.
Write down your goals. A momentary thought in the mind may remain an unrealized dream and forgotten, but when written down becomes a goal to be acted upon, achieved and remembered. Turn your dreams into reality by writing about your thoughts and feelings in order to act on what you love.
"The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind."
--Albert Einstein |
If you have a worthy goal that is not currently in the process of fulfillment, you may have not gone outward enough for answers into the unknown but knowable territory. You may be too concerned with irrelevant details. One way to fix this imbalance is to go back to the Trivium Method to answer all questions in their proper order and focus your time, energy, and talents toward the fulfillment of your own goals with the possible help from others.
Gather the courage to take advantage of opportunities and risk following your dreams. This will give you an outer perspective and inner satisfaction that will inspire balanced thoughts and emotions, which will lead you to your goal.
If you have not found a worthy goal, you may have not gone inward enough for answers into the unknown but knowable territory. You may be too unconcerned with relevant details. One way to fix this imbalance is to go back to the Trivium Method to answer all questions in their proper order and focus your time, energy, and talents toward the fulfillment of the goals of others who may need your help.
Take advantage of opportunities to find out what you really love to do. This will give you an inner perspective and outer satisfaction that will inspire balanced thoughts and emotions, which will lead you to your purpose.
"Only those who risk going too far can possibly know how far one can go."--T.S. Eliot |
Be open and honest within your heart and mind to accept what is.Be thankful and enjoy what is, including your possible decision to change it.Be committed to your personal integrity, compassion, and self-responsibility.Be true to yourself and to others, while owning your experiences.
PLAN steps of action within your purpose to create the map and achieve your goal. Write them down. Start with your goal, and logically work backwards to where you are now to see what needs to be done, step-by-step. If you cannot see or think of the plan fully and completely, simply move in the general direction towards your goal and expect to reach it. When you are moving in the direction of your expectations, you will be able to see the steps needed to reach your goal.
Without a consciously planned map, you will be at the total mercy of events and circumstances out of your control. Within your total control is your plan. Even though you did not cause events and circumstances out of your control, you will have to deal with them rationally and act towards your goal. Become a flexible person and create your own circumstances!
"Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action."
--Benjamin Disraeli |
Be thankful and enjoy what is, including your possible decision to change it.Be committed to your personal integrity, compassion, and self-responsibility.Be true to yourself and to others, while owning your experiences.ACT toward your goal with a determined and persistent focus on each planned step while being aware of the full context and relationship of your purpose. With every act, there is an opportunity to experience the lessons from each outcome, both good and bad. If your actions are not leading you toward your goal, you may have not understood, or may be lacking some relevant facts.
Open and free your mind from self-limiting beliefs in order to liberate new knowledge, deeper understanding, and wider wisdom.
Rid yourself of actions that waste your time, energy, and talents, while at the same time receiving the proper rest and time for reflection. Once reaching the next step of action, you will see with more clarity, think more soundly, and feel more in touch with your purpose, goals, and expectations. Become dedicated and maintain the habit of doing what needs to done.
Keep movement under your feet, a good word on the tip of your tongue, the achievement of your goals on the top of your head, courage in the pit of your gut, and what you love in the center of your heart. Then you will be happy travelling along the path toward your goals.
"To dream anything that you want to dream, that is the beauty of the human mind. To do anything that you want to do, that is the strength of the human will. To trust yourself, to test your limits, that is the courage to succeed."--Bernard Edmonds |
Be committed to your personal integrity, compassion, and self-responsibility.Be true to yourself and to others, while owning your experiences.Be joyful in living your purpose based on your freely chosen rational values.
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5. The 'Secret' Formula
What is the 'secret' formula to happiness?
"To achieve happiness, we should make certain that we are never without an important goal."--Earl Nightingale |
Since, what we have imagined in the past has determined what is happening now; what we imagine today will determine what will happen tomorrow. Therefore, if we want to Have a better future, we must Be and Do the things that must be done in a better way Now; learn from our past Now; imagine our future Now; and experience our best-imagined lives Now!
Freely Choose to Make a Decision to Move into Action Now!
Know what you love, when and where you want it, and why you want it.Write your goal in present tense, being positive, and grateful; Read > 3 times daily.Mix with positive thoughts and emotions. Include a current action plan. (See Example)Use all your senses when clearly imagining and emoting your goal's accomplishment.Keep those good emotions with expectation, gratitude, and no doubts.Touch your written goal throughout the day, everyday, to reflect on those good emotions.
Do this continuously until you Understand what you are Thinking & Feeling about; ask yourself How to; and Decide what ACTION(S) to take to achieve your goal. Then Act. You have now become Self-Motivated!
Goal + (Emotion ÷ Reason) × (Imagination - Doubt) + (Gratitude ÷ Persistence) + (Expectation × Action)= Happiness
Through rational thought, emotion, and action, you will gain more knowledge, understanding, and wisdom to succeed. A good way to learn is to do and the best way to do is to move into action now.
To learn what is not taught in enforced taxpayer-supported compulsory schools or reported in consumer-supported corporate-owned biased mass media, I encourage you to explore the following alternative and independent sources of information to discover and challenge your current knowledge and/or belief system: School Sucks Project - Gnostic Media - Trivium Education - Corbett Report - MediaMonarchy - What On Earth Is Happening and Tragedy and Hope.
For more interaction, click here and request an invitation to access the free online Tragedy and Hope Member's Only Network. For a small monthly fee, you may educate yourself about "The Right of Self Determination" to health, financial, and political freedom. This will help you to decide for yourself if what you think you "know to be true" is what is actually real and to understand the "Matrix" and its solutions. Click here to take the "Red Pill".
May you live a long, healthy, successful, liberty-filled, prosperous, and happy life.
Thank You!
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By John Roberts, 