In this article, we will answer questions on how the human mind perceives and participates in life events and the degree of satisfaction or the Quality of Life that derives from this participation, as a measure of happiness.
Questions such as:
| What is Quality of Life? What is Bliss? Which is its contribution to happiness? How do they relate? |
| What are the Personal Values? Which is their impact on the Quality of Life? |
| What is Personal Responsibility? What is Response Ability? Which is their difference? |
| What is the “Golden Mean” laid down by Aristotle? What is a “Perfect Virtue”? How do they relate? |
| What is their importance to Consciousness and to Quality of Life? |
| How to alter human behavior towards happiness? How to alter the way of thinking in order to find lasting solutions? |
What is Quality of Life
Quality of life (QOL), according to Britannica, is the degree to which an individual is healthy, comfortable, and able to participate in or enjoy life events. An individual’s perception of their position in life in the context of the culture and value systems in which they live and in relation to their goals, expectations, standards, and concerns.
Quality of life is a highly subjective measure of happiness. Factors that play a role in the quality of life vary according to personal preferences.
Bliss: in Greek eudaimonia or euphoria is the perfect happiness, an ultimate purpose of a lifetime. Great joy. For Aristotle “Bliss is a pleasant mental state resulting from the activity of the soul if this activity is consistent with the perfect virtue”. Bliss is the highest human good that is desirable for its own sake. An ultimate life purpose (as an end in itself). Becoming excellent. Other meanings are happiness, human flourishing, prosperity, and blessedness.
As we saw in another article in “the impact of personal values” an extrinsic value of human good is not equivalent to its intrinsic value as it depends on one’s judgment of what is important in life. It happens because intrinsic values are totally independent of outside influences while extrinsic values reflect an influence outside of the belief system. As a result, probabilities as certainties or intrinsic values are not equivalent to possibilities or uncertainties and to their extrinsic values.
This creates an uneasiness to the system. Just because people are not consciously aware of the above ratio and its practical implications on their everyday life, they sense, feel, or believe that value as a quality of life is constantly undervalued or price as qualitative living expectancy is overestimated. This is translated to a constant struggle to live an ideal living and almost impossible to turn all dreams into reality.
In addition, it leads to confused or inappropriate standards of behaviors or principles. People’s judgment of what is important in life is not obvious anymore. Time and density do not reflect frequency and space. Worth, utility, and effectiveness are not based on a win-win situation, and value as quality of life is somewhere lost in the way.
As a consequence bliss is lost once a more. People feel confused uneasy and unhappy. As a result, creation is not equal to existence and emotions do not justify feelings. The individual becomes either overreactive or aggressive towards an imaginative hostile environment. But this is not exactly the case. It is because of an inherent deep misunderstanding that humanity carries on for a very very long time.
It is mostly due to ignorance of how and why things work this way. In fact, humans create their destiny just because they coincide with it. Destiny is just a reflection of a human’s behavior as a reaction towards a glimpse of insight into a possible or imaginative future. Life and destiny are the two sides of the same coin. Life as an experience as a free will (the ability to act at one’s own discretion) and destiny as a deep understanding of fatalism (helplessness in the face of fate) are the two sides of the same coin just because consciousness is an essential root for both of them as their inhered building factor.
The Impact of Personal Responsibility
People on the quest for happiness know quite well, a crucial milestone on the path involves taking personal responsibility. This means not blaming others for your own unhappiness. It also means figuring out ways in which you can be happy despite others’ behaviors and despite external circumstances. A person who has taken personal responsibility recognizes an important truth about happiness: happiness depends much more on attitude than it does on objective, external circumstances.
Responsibility is almost the most misunderstanding or misused word in the world. People instead of taking responsibility they usually are caught in layers of blame and justifications. The reason behind this is that people are caught unconsciously in an action-reaction critical way of thinking type in a duality ping-pong mental game.
It is much easier to point to the problem outside of ourselves, but this is a great sickness. The blaming and upset energy inside of people doesn’t want to let go of the fight until both sides get what they want and deserve such as “payback or an apology”.
People are willing to lose their personal power and peace in order to have the last word or to be right. In this way, people are unknowingly losing power, consciousness, their true voice, and any creative or compassionate abilities. This is also a big trap creating its own limitations and ongoing wars, in the name of fairness, justice, and rightness.
Anger creates only feelings of isolation and distance from people they love and make them more vulnerable, powerless, and needy. People tend to feel succumb to the ego and to a vicious cycle. If people react they are unable to act and respond utilizing an appropriate to the case approach. This lack of understanding and love, and abundance of judgment, blame, and criticism is possibly the biggest problem on the planet at this time. Many of society’s “big” problems, war, famine, pollution, etc, are derived from this mental shortage.
In this way, movement is lost and the connection between the heart and mind is also lost. People literally fight and argue in order to defend their own viewpoints. However, they are trapped between right or wrong, and is almost impossible for them to change the situation by being caught in an action-reaction type loop over and over again.
Responsibility or Response-Ability?
Responsibility or Response-Ability? The answer to this question could be one of the most important answers to the question of how the quality of life can be affected by consciousness in the actual pursuit of happiness and bliss.
Most of the people in the quest for happiness are unable to recognize that a critical type as a way of thinking is only the trigger towards another type or way of thinking that is the analytical type or way of thinking in order for people to take more responsibility for their actions and lesser the consequences deriving from their actions-reactions by becoming more response-able.
By their big misunderstanding, they become unable to find lasting solutions to the problems at hand unless they understand that in order to handle the situation externally they have to change the way of their thinking by acting from the inside. They have to change the dysfunctional behavior when they realize that problems are just the triggers towards a more conscious approach to solve and alter their living conditions for the better.
In the meantime, whether it is a little personal quarrel or a big planetary issue, people should not stop working on the solution but begin working on the understanding of the “actual” problem, that is the lack of understanding, the lack of being response-able.
Response- able does not mean to become angry, blaming, justifying, gossiping, or creating imaginative stories where it is everyone’s fault but their own. By being angry people lose their inherent power and their authenticity. They become reactive than proactive and are unable to change or heal the situation. They only adopt an interest in having a false power an inflated ego by adopting an inappropriate to the situation reactive and not proactive behavior.
When someone is in judgment, he is not response-able and ultimately not being responsible. At this point, people are partly responsible for the continuing of the problem, and whilst they are pointing their fingers in different directions, they are not realizing the degree to which they are creating the “bigger” problem.
It is all a question of a connection between the mind and the heart through intellectual intelligence and endurance, by challenging people, and their mind. People, deep down they really know how to hold on and resist loving people and situations exactly the way they are. Loving them doesn’t reduce their true ability to change the situation. People have let go of the control, let go of the way they want it to be, and be there, with love, for it is exactly the way it is. That is real healing, that is where true change comes from. That is the root of all true power.
People have to slow down, inspect their own thoughts and motives, and understand their reactions, bring themselves back into the moment, and think of what can they do at this moment to make a difference. They need to let go in order to be able to put understanding and love on the top of the pile. That is what it takes to be response-able. That is what it takes to be creative and proactive instead of reactive. That is the way to go in order to gain back the real power inside of themselves that is the power of who they really are and wanted always to be.
Response-Ability as a New Pull-Driven Approach
Responsibility reflects the old paradigm of an obsolete way of critical thinking inside the old paradigm as a push-driven approach.
Response-Ability inside a new context reflects a new way or type of critical way of thinking inside a new paradigm of a new analytical type or way of thinking as a pull-driven approach.
Response-Ability reflects the basic principle of the golden mean, laid down by Aristotle 2,500 years ago. The golden mean focuses on moderation or striving for a balance throughout the middle ground between two extremes. But as Aristotle suggests, the middle ground is usually closer to one extreme than the other.
Instead of looking for the effects of your actions-reactions, you should aim for the causes and motives and understand how they relate to every situation, problem or risk and handle the situation internally than externally by utilizing a more proactive and not reactive approach.
In this way, the reality creation and existence mechanics remain intact without disturbing the pace of spiritual and divine order, given by the solar and lunar phase cycles (where the moonlight comes from by adjusting its intensity), and the human consciousness, but the approach is quite different.
Any favorable or desired change comes from inside-out and not the opposite by adjusting personal values and priorities and this is the ultimate lesson that people have to understand and accept. In this way, advancement will come to spiritual and physical realms accordingly, towards a safer and mainly more enjoyable place for people to live, create and thrive.