0 Unhappy Life

_17.6.2021_ I'm happy as long as people around me are also happy. It's never about me alone. When people fight around, or have terrible quarrel, or have misfortunes, happiness is almost impossible. Money can't buy happiness but it can prevent unhappiness and problems caused by the lack of money. I still firmly believe in Spinoza's definition that power equals happiness. People get sick is basically losing power, so they are unhappy. Poor people are unhappy for the same reason, they are lack of power. Spinoza also argued that understanding is the real power. Therefore there is only one way to be truly happy, understanding. I see unhappy people everywhere. I wonder if it's my own reflection. And I can't help them. People are overwhelm with their problems. They don't see life as a game, but as a fight. They suffer when they think they lose. If they can see life as a game, when losing just try again with the same happiness and enthusiasm, life won't be so miserable. So to be happy, one must aim at power, to be truly happy, one must aim at knowledge and understanding. Powerful people do not want easy life. It's boring and give them no chance to exercise their power. Understanding people will not have false irrational expectation that will cause disappointment in life. Buddha said, "Life is suffering". Knowing is accepting. It's a kind of power to expect the worse to happen every day without bitterness. It's the nature of life. No one can escape this truth. Everyone will lose everything he or she ever had, people they love, youth, beauty, even their own life. Knowing that suffering will come every day to visit me, I feel less unhappy. It's inevitable and become normal. Just like all women have their periods every month. The different between good and bad is often just the interpretation we take on the subject. Being poor for example, Sages choose to live with only few possessions and feel free and happy because of it. So many people working two or three jobs to have more stuffs but they have no time for themselves and for their family. They worry most of the time and fear about people opinions. People actually do not care whether they are poor or rich. Why bother to look rich but have poor life and always on work all the time. There are countless reason to be unhappy. The first one should be poor health, second one is poor relationship, third is lack of understanding and knowledge, lack of money, accidents, failures, and so on. I refer to myself that lacking money often bring worry and insecurity. If living alone, I can live like a monk and don't care about others' opinions. Having family, I want to make them happy, giving what they want, provide security and comfort. Lately I listened to podcasts and watched videos about motivation to be rich. I read books as well. In short, to be rich, I should not renting out my time. I need to work as hard as I can to build my own products and sell them. If I work for a company, I spend at least eight hours working plus one or two hours commuting. It roughly ten hours a day. If I use these ten hours to write, just write and do nothing else, in a year I will have finished several books or novels. Why don't I choose this road, the road less taken? Most people will go for the obvious options, working for others in order to get monthly salary. It's the safest road to go in this life. Doing so I will never be successful and no one will remember me after I die. Building my own business will be different. It's unknown road and not necessarily safe as well. Independence and self-reliance are very important but also cooperation and teamwork. According to Epicurus, happiness requires three things, friends, freedom (access, money) and wisdom (knowledge). Most people will focus on money alone. Therefore they forget to aim at knowledge and relationships. Among the three, money is just small part of freedom. It's often unnecessary most of the time. Media misled people and lead them to unhappy life. Money is dangerous because it opens all access to both good and evil. It's like a loaded gun, it can give you protection but can endanger you as well. You feel safe but depend on it too much. If one has knowledge and friends, money is great blessing. If no knowledge, money can attract danger easily. This is described perfectly in a short story by John Stainbeck, "The Pearl". Finding the biggest and most beautiful pearl brings a lot of misfortunes into his life. He loses his son, his house and his faith to people and society, and people target him to take the pearl from him. At the end, he throws away the pearl to get his peaceful life again.