MUST I BE PRODUCING AND PRODUCTIVE ALL THE TIME?
IS ENJOYMENT, LEISURE, REST AND SUCH "OF VALUE"?
Draft
You don't "hurry" in life to get as much "seeable" stuff done as possible for then it would be inevitable that we push aside the whole balance of life that leads to our ultimate life value. You realize that there are tradeoffs and connections between all we do. We seek the wisdom to know how this works and what the best tradeoffs are to accumulate the most life value. Life value could be likened to quality. Being in a hurry is a version of quantity.
Don't rush! Instead, discriminate and choose. Take enough time to choose well. All we can do is choose the next thing to do by doing our best to select what is the most value to do at the time. That is all we can do, there is no leaping over it to some (now undefined) heaven of life.
The BuddhaKahuna
Although the measure of life is actually intangible, we tend to assume that those things we can "see" are the things that are measurable. So, we measure money, number of friends, things accumulated, things achieved, how generous we are (how much we contribute to the world - which can also become an "achievment thing"), how "good" or "smart" or any way we are superior to others, how much approval we get, and so on.
But while those are measures of things that will get you something of value, they are not the ultimate value that everything is measured in by the human system. The ultimate measure is in long term, enduring ongoing happiness units accumulated.
That's it.
While going to heaven and being right up there with God, hanging out with him, seems to be the end goal, it isn't. It, too, like everything else is a "means goal" (a means to the ultimate goal). And if we ask the "why" question, "why do you want to be with God?", you could say "because that is the end all and be all of life". But that answer is not true. The answer is "because I will be happier the closer I am to Him."
The ultimate value is happiness. The measure of all things we do is "how many net happiness units over the long term will what I do provide?" And hopefully we have studied and learned what does produce long term happiness value.
The answer is not "sacrifice", as that is a simplistic generalizaton with no indepth thought. It is a rule taken on its surface to mean something like "it is good to sacrifice, for that is what the saints and really good people did." That's a bad rule. The actual rule in real life matches up with what a good compassionate God would want for us.
He would want you to do that which will produce the most happiness for you net of whatever price you must pay to buy what is of greater value to your happiness.
THERE IS A GPS SYSTEM TO MEASURE WHERE HAPPINESS IS
God and/or evolution set it up so that there was a system for evaluating what would make you better off. It's the feelings in the here and now. Sacrifice and be miserable so better off later is aoncontradiction in terms . if you felt better right now giving up something (paying the price) and could see the long term value and your body didn't sufffer too much, the you would actually "feel good" - if you did't, then you wouldn't have seen it...
EVERYTHING YOU DO IS AN ATTEMPT TO CREATE VALUE
Everything you do is an attempt to create value. It is just that we, by not learning, will attempt to do it in a way that doesn't work to reach our life value objective. We must, of course, correct that.
Daniel, our archetype overachiever, focuses on trying to get value by overcontributing, which he tends to couch in terms of it getting him a higher position in heaven. But most of what he does is to achieve greater happiness or less unhappiness for himself - he just would never "admit it" or feel good about saying such a "selfish" thing.
He burns himself out and he goes comatose frequently for periods of time. In doing that, he is seeking relief from being so far out of functioning balance that he is suffering because of that imbalanced dysfunctionality.
He procrastinates because of his fear of being judged. He is attempting to reduce any of the stress from working on something that kicks up his fear of possible suffering from being judged.
In both of those cases, he is seeking to reduce his unhappiness (unpleasant feelings felt in a negative feeling chemical bath). Reducing unhappiness will, of course, create a better net happiness, as we are taking away the negative that we subtract in coming up with our net happiness score.
So, he is doing what is "rational" in a broad sense: seeking to increase his net happiness.
the problem is that he is doing it without good judgment and wisdom, so he is robbing himself from having a much, much higher level of happiness.
He is like the fellow who does not stop to sharpen his saw to cut down more trees overall or the guy who is too busy running the machinery in order to produce that he fails to oil it or maintain it, so that production declines and declines despite the fact that he is working harder and harder to keep production up, costing himself extra effort and taking away from what would make him much happier.
BUT, BUT, HOW DO I DETERMINE WHEN ENJOYMENT IS OK?
As enjoyment, leisure, recovery time are all hard to measure, we will have to revert to a thing called judgment, which must in turn be based on learning enough to discriminate.
The answer takes a long term perspective. Though "work hard" to get to a higher place in heaven may appear to have long term perpective, it is actually long term foolishness because it reflects the value of one thing and does not integrate and consider the tradeoffs involved in other areas of life.
And when Daniel was first presented with how recovery and such will increase his productivity, he was enthusiastic, because then he could produce more "widgets" (things of some value) and get higher up in heaven (or, on earth, be approved of). But the leisure, enjoyment, and recovery time lapsed into being too busy again, for he could only see the carrot in front of him and had no long term perspective and connection putting it all together.
This is a long way around the idea of central importance here. We must engage our higher brain and reason out, from good learning, what will be best for the long term AND then make it indelibly clear why it is best. (And, of course, being human, we will "forget" and have to refresh our vision/memory - hopefully not kicking ourselves for forgetting, which kicking will cause us unnecessary, unuseful suffering!)
Productive capacity...
What are the long term benefits of short term healthy things to do?
Enjoyment feeds our psychological energy tank so that we feel better and have more capability of using our willpower better and making better choices.
[I am going to add "learning" in this group, because it is not "directly productive" either.]
How much better our lives be from making better choices
there is only one possible answer other than
Believe it or not, everything you do is to produce a benefit. True, much of it is driven by the primitive mind and many times it is wrong, but it is the best I can do until I learn better how to understand and work the mind - and that is surely an adventure! And one with great results.
I need rest to relieve my anxieties so that they do not escalate too high and destroy my system, like a high revving engine with no let up.
Everything I do is driven by what I evolved to do. The need to survive and assure survival. The things I enjoy, at the core, are reinforcements for doing things that were good for survival 10,000 years ago.
And my primitive system acts on my behalf to accomplish what it thinks will do good our survival and passing on of the
But doesn't God expect more?
Shouldn't I expect more?
Is it bad to "enjoy" or is there a purpose to even that?
Is it bad to take care of one's emotional well-being or is that sinful indulgence?
What's it all about, Alfie?
Happiness, period...
but should I suffer now so that I can be happy later?
