YOLO
This week, during my scroll through Instagram's, explore page, I came across a post by the infamous Caroline Calloway. You know, the girl that famous on Instagram for going to Cambridge University. The caption of her selfie read "Something I wrote in my diary yesterday: "What is the purpose of life? To be happy. If my ability to be happy is fundamentally impaired, does that mean that my life is fundamentally more purposeless?" A postcard for you from depression!" Caroline's caption, along with my recent binge of Hulu's Looking for Alaska (look at last post), made me start to think about the meaning of life and I think I've cracked it!
The few years I spent doing philosophy at sixth form taught me about Aristotle. A Greek philosopher with the longest (and most interesting) chapter in our heavy school textbook. He said, “Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.” At the time I didn't question Aristotle's claim. Maybe because I didn't fully understand it, or maybe because I truly just wanted to get through his incredibly long chapter and my A level exams. Not to mention his argument on the meaning of life sounded easy and simple back then.
In response to Caroline's caption, I believe that the meaning and purpose of life is not happiness. It is to experience all of it. It is to feel a kaleidoscope of emotional states. Some happy and some sad. All emotions are temporary. Caroline questions how purposeless life would be if she was unable to be happy. I question how boring life would be if you were in a constant state of happiness. Not to mention how much people would want to punch you in the face. People need to stop chasing happiness and just find peace by accepting all the temporary emotions that come their way. I recommend going about your life using the popular 2012 acronym, YOLO or the idiomatic phrase "it is what it is" from the meme on Twitter.
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| Arabelle Akinfe and Ashleigh Akinfe in Paris 2007 |
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