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One week after I started this blog I published a post “We live many lives”. Today I decided to copy it here because it is a central post to my understanding of life and pursuit of happiness.
I want to stress that life always requires to make risky choices. When you decide to marry or not to marry it is one of the riskiest choices in your life.
I also want to stress one sentence in the post below:
“a human being is born for happiness but happiness is notquaranteed, it must be achieved!”*
- ” Man is born to be happy as a bird is born to fly”.
V. Korolenko
There are different definitions of it.
-sequences of physical and mental experiences that make up the existence of an individual
– spiritual existence transcending physical death
I know that many bloggers have only seconds to look at a post.
However, I want to share with you a video below.
Please look at the man, at .his eyes, at results of his efforts.
I am very impressed!
He found his path, he followed it for years.
It was not easy but he was happy.
Is not it what everyone wants?
What’s your opinion?
What is excess? What is justice? Should we all try to succeed and to become rich or should we solve all problems only by increasing taxes? What is too much and too little? Please read my thoughts in the old post in the writing challenge and don’t miss facts about rich people in the post.
“Perhaps too much of everything is as bad as too little”. – Edna Ferber
Do you agree with this statement on excess?
First of all, with all due respect to Edna Ferber, who was an American novelist, short story writer and playwright, I believe that the quote above is very bad from many points of view.
Words “too much” and “too little” are not applicable to many things. For example, it can’t be too little ocean, too much beauty or too little children.
It also can’t be too little criminals or too many competent people in the government.
In general, “too little” and “too much” are subjective terms. In my country many people believe that $10 per hour for their work is too little. In some countries it is “too much”.
Too little of pain is better than too much pain.
If too little people can hack in your bank…
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There are many hundreds of two-stories sections in the area where we live.
The photo below shows the one that is about 100 metres from our apartment house.
I love this one family’s beautiful kingdom. I am sorry that I am unable to show you a tiny stream with waterfalls among greenery as it’s not running at the moment.
We build families, kingdoms, beauty, happiness.
Surely, our lives have sense!
You already saw many photos of Pocono Manor’s houses, views and animals here.
Is it possible to love a place so much to return to it for many years?
Believe me it is.
It is possible if you can walk to the Pocono Manor Inn every morning and see a view like this one:
It is possible if you can enter the Pocono Manor Inn and take the photo below (it is my hat on the chair).
It is possible if you enjoy two paintings below:
It is possible if you can go in the library (usually there is nobody there) and find many precious books of long forgotten wonderful authors.
Add to all these reasons sweet memories of wonderful times here with family and friends.
I am sure that you understand that my love to this place grows with each year.
I started this blog on 10/03/2013. At that time I had no idea where it will go. I only knew that I was close to 80 and so I chose the name of the blog “closetoeighty”.
In the beginning of November I published the post below, then I published many other posts about happiness and pursuit of happiness. I am going to combine them later on a separate page.
In the meantime I decided to reblog this post.
After I became 80 I decided to change the name of the blog to “PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS”. All people want to be happy. However, I am convinced that it is impossible to be happy without pursuing happiness.
I am learning to use a digital camera. I already learned how to take photos, how to remove them from a camera, how to transfer them to my PC. Yesterday night my youngest grandson helped me to recharge a battery of my camera.
I am using Canon PowerShot ELPH 340 HS. It is tiny and it feels very good in my pocket.
After many years of not taking pictures (15 or 20) I enjoy learning photography again using new kind of camera.
Below is my second digital picture.
This morning I found a post with a photo that I liked very much.
You can see the post below.
IT IS GOOD THERE WHERE WE ARE NOT.
The post is properly categorized and tagged. There is Absence and Emptiness in the photo. It is definitely black-and-white. It is fine art. It is easy to see mystery there too. There is also beauty there.
However, I can’t agree with the title of the post.
I believe that from early childhood we must start building our own worlds.
We must understand ourselves, choose our priorities, take risks, work hard and build our own personal wonderful worlds.
We are born to enjoy life!
It is our major task to create happiness where we are!
There are many good motivational blogs in the WordPress blogosphere. They are well written and many of them contain beautiful uplifting photos and wise quotes of famous people.
However, I believe that life is the best motivator.
Let me share with you our experience.
My wife and I came in the USA in 1975 with two children. My wife did not know English at all. I believed that I knew English as in the USSR I translated many scientific papers and was able to communicate with foreigners in English. However, my first days in New York were terrible. I could not understand people and people could not understand me.
What did we do?
I found a job as a cutter in a tie factory. I worked 8 hours daily and spent 4 hours to go to work and back. There were 4-5 hours for sleep. All remaining hours I read books by Irving Shaw, The New York Times and watched news on TV. In six months my English improved drastically. Then I was able to find a better job.
During those six months my wife attended English classes and then she found a job as a clerk.
Our jobs were not interesting for us (my wife was a designer of the textile machinery in the USSR and I was a scientist) and our salaries were very low.
We had to learn new occupations. After work I went to Queens College and in two years got a BS in accounting. Then I got a job as an accountant in a publishing company..
My wife took a course of designing pipes for nuclear power stations. After graduation she found a very good job as a technician.
Our life improved drastically. We were happy to earn enough money for living and have more time for loving our children, for our friends, for enjoying life.
Our happy life did not last long. In three years almost at the same time we lost our jobs.
Then a new difficult and exciting phase of our life started.
Life is the best motivator!