RE: The Pursuit of Happiness | Better than Happiness
It's all bread and circuses. The powers that be don't want the plebs (us) to look closely at what they are doing, so it's all distraction from their wanton destruction of basically everything that's worthwhile on Earth in their pursuit of unlimited wealth. In addition to the mindless distraction, shoot-em-up video games do what? Desensitize an entire generation to killing others themselves, not just watching others do it, and become familiar with military everywhere -- as in martial law imposed when "we" have finally had enough. Although I don't think the drugged populace will ever have the guts to rise up. Etcetera.
Western societies do what they are told to do. It's a top-down action, not a bottom-up (grass roots) one. These are the kind of agendas I was referring to before.
The agendas that I want to have are:
I think as a group, these are the wisest agendas to have (personally & collectively). @yawnguy I only realized this recently and have been trying to center my mind and life around it since.
The way I see it is there is positive stuff; neutral/null; negative stuff. If you only work on the negative stuff, the best outcome possible is no suffering, a neutral state. What about all the positive not getting any attention? It's also a depressing environment for the alleviator, the caregiver, because he/she is continually immersed in misery. One has to be a saint to not be affected negatively by that.
I think a caregiver and person in general would only suffer if they neglected their own suffering for the sake of helping others.
If we focus on the prevention, reduction and long-term elimination of suffering (including our own), we are ensuring that the happiness we enjoy is not causing misery for ourselves or others.
P.S. I edited the post again to describe my current perspective. Thank you for discussing this with me @yawnguy I am learning a lot through writing, reflecting and discussing.