What was so important, so critical about this statement that on July 4, 1776, led Charles Thomson and John Hancock to put it into the Declaration of Independence Later fifty-six men would sign this document and the words inside would never be forgotten. ??? We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.??? What brought these men to writing those words on that day America and the British colonies had been under English rule for too long.
They were slaves to an unruly king. These men knew what rights were given to them upon being brought into this world; Life, and not only life, but liberty, liberty that cannot be controlled by another, and finally the pursuit of happiness. The pursuit of happiness is our right but that happiness isn??™t going to be just given to us, we have the right to pursue it.
These men knew they were not being given the freedom to pursue their happiness. They understood happiness was not just going to be given to them, they were going to have to pursue it, and they had the right to do so. The pursuit of happiness is real.
It is an authentic and natural desire of our lives. For those that feel a deep emotional pursuit for happiness, simply meeting the criteria of beliefs about what is supposed to make us feel good doesn??™t satisfy this pursuit. At a deeper level it becomes about the heart??™s desire, or satisfying something at the level of the soul. Answering these desires is much more meaningful and emotionally fulfilling than satisfying the beliefs of society. To create, and live in true happiness, we need to learn not to blindly chase the false beliefs of society.
We have to pay closer attention to the end goal of emotion and not jump after the first idea the mind offers as a means to get there. When we go after happiness by satisfying societies belief system we have taken our eye off the goal and become attached to assumptions and beliefs in the mind. In 1776 there were no cars or huge expensive houses, there were relationships and people relied on one another and their God given rights. Happiness was and will always be pursued but how we reach that happiness is up to us to decide.
Societies views today on happiness are so clouded from what they once were. How did we get from there to here, fighting wars overseas, abortion, and panic coming from a struggling economy Is our happiness so much based on being the best and striving towards becoming wealthy that we??™ve lost all meaning of what happiness actually means It is part of our natural instinct to pursue happiness. The same way we seek to experience physical pleasure and avoid physical pain, we seek emotional pleasure, and attempt to avoid emotional pain. Our emotional enjoyment, or what we can call happiness, is simply part of human nature. Mankind??™s greatest fear is death, and our most passionate pursuit is happiness. It is a universal truth that people want to live and they want to be happy.
One of our biggest problems is that we believe the lie that true happiness is found in wealth, possessions, power, and popularity. In truth, to make life and happiness possible, we need only three basic things; the necessities of life, good health, and loving relationships. Having these does not guarantee life or happiness, but without them, true, deep and lasting happiness is impossible regardless of what else we may have or do. Mankind has been striving since the beginning of the world to provide these for ourselves. Today our faith is in medicine, science, government, education, and money. Even when people have power, and wealth, and whatever they could possible want, it is still not enough. The motives of society today are not pursuing happiness, there??™re pursuing wealth and popularity and power.
People believe that if they can just be wealthy or just be popular then they will be happy, but that view of the pursuit of happiness will only lead to let downs and failures. It will never be enough unless we truly pursue happiness and not material processions. Happiness is emotion not something we can hold or touch with our hands. Our pursuit to feeling better and happier has turned into a struggle to get recognized and promoted. Not because it will really make us happier directly, but because our society has set this as the means to an emotional end. We might very well get accepted into the good colleges, make a lot of money, and get recognition only to find out we are not filled with happiness. Our pursuit of happiness has turned into a pursuit of fitting in to society. The problem is that we have conformed to societies beliefs of what it means to be happy.
We are all entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The choices in our pursuit are up to us, and happiness won??™t last if our motivations are shallow. The pursuit of happiness is our right; happiness isn??™t going to be just given to us but we have the right to pursue it.