How Do People Live A Good And Meaningful Life? Draft 2

People have different opinions on living a good and meaningful life. Some people’s views on what a good and meaningful life revolves around the media’s viewpoints and some revolve around what they personally think. Some people are fine with judging if other’s people’s lives are meaningful, and some are not. This paper is a combination of what people think makes their lives meaningful, and what our culture tells us makes our lives meaningful.

I think that in order to live a good and meaningful life you need to enjoy life. To me, that is most important thing. If you don’t enjoy your life, then you can’t make it meaningful. I think that what makes your life meaningful is your family and friends. If you have a great family and great friends, then you will have a meaningful life. If you don’t have friends that would care for you, and help you out in any situation, then it is hard to live a good life. The people in your life make your life meaningful, because if you don’t have friends, you’re isolating yourself from the world, which makes your life less meaningless. You don’t have to be going out to parties with your friends or going crazy in order to have a meaningful life, all you need is people who you know will always be there for you. You need to have people who you have that special bond with, that trust that would never get destroyed. You also need to just have fun, and not care about the future too much. Don’t over think everything, instead let whatever happens, happen sometimes. In some cases, such as school, it is important to care about your future, because education also helps you live a good and meaningful life. If you don’t have a good education, it would be hard to get a job, which makes it hard to survive.

I think that in living a meaningful life, you need to know what living a meaningful life is. As soon as you know what living a meaningful life is about, you can live a meaningful life. However, I do not think that you need someone else to tell you how to live a meaningful life. Each person has a separate definition of the terms “living a meaningful life”, and I think that they should all live by their own definitions of it. If you think that you have a meaningful life, then you do. I don’t believe that other people should tell you if you are living a meaningful life or not, because it is not their life, and they don’t have the right to tell you how meaningful your life is. Like I said earlier, to me, living a meaningful life is enjoying life with the people you love, and having fun. There are times when you must be serious, such as when you’re in school or at your job, but there are also times when you should just have fun, such as when you are with your friends or family.

As part of the course, we went out into the streets of Manhattan and interviewed people on their opinions on living a good and meaningful life. Several people walked away from us when asked if they could answer some questions, but most stayed and talked to us. When asked what makes their lives meaningful, several people told us family and friends were the most meaningful parts of their lives, and without them, it would be hard to survive. One of the people I interviewed was my mother, and when asked what the most meaningful part of her life was, she said, “Family is the most meaningful part of my life because I love my kids, and without then I wouldn’t be able to live.” When I talked to the strangers on the street, an older male said “family is meaningful to him because he sees them every day and they are an important part of his life.”

When asked what makes a meaningless life, people named drama, catty people, and money, to name a few. One of the strangers, a female, said “catty people are meaningless, and so is nonsense drama that doesn’t mean anything.” A male stranger also agreed, saying “the most meaningless part is being caught up in unnecessary drama, and there is no point on focusing on it.” Another male said that you don't need money to live a meaningful life, stating “money messes up our system and we don’t need it to live a meaningful life.”

In today's society, there are a lot of opinions about living a meaningful life. People get their ideas about living meaningful life from corporate culture. Corporate culture is when a corporation is making money by selling you stuff that changes your lives (such as clothes, hair products, cars). It's also when someone is getting money for pouring information in your mind (such as magazines and books). Wherever we look, corporate culture is around us. Corporate culture comes up in our daily discussions with friends/family/teachers/etc. even if we do not realize it. One example of how corporate culture tell us how to live is when you look at a magazine, such as Vogue, People, and Glamour, you see ads for clothes and cars, and pictures of celebrities with their friends, family, special someone, or shopping. These magazines are telling us that in order to live a meaningful life; you must have nice clothes, money, love, friends and family. According to corporate culture, in order to live a meaningful life, you need to have materialistic things.

Another thing that corporate culture tells us is that men will always dominate over women. There are very few movies or TV shows in the world where women are in power. In movies such as the James Bond movies, there is always a Bond girl, and she always falls for him. It doesn’t matter that she is a strong character; she always ends up with James Bond. In the movie, Not Another Teen Movie, the main character, Jake Wyler, gives a makeover to the nerdy girl, Janey Briggs, and then they end up together. In Not Another Teen Movie, Jake ends up as the hero of the story, by saving Janey from her nerdyness, and they end up together in the end. In most movies that corporate culture makes, the guy is always the dominate character, he’s always the hero. There aren’t a lot of movies where the female is the dominate character, and where she is a hero without the help of a male character.

One thing that corporate culture doesn't tell us about living a meaningful life is that you need to be religious. Corporations don't put out ads focusing on religion and God, and no one ever focuses campaigns based on religion. One reason for this might be because since there are so many religions, to just focus on one would hurt a campaign or ad. For example, if Apple made an ad about how Jewish people use iPods, and every Jewish person should own one, then that ad would only target Jewish people, and other people of different religions might not want to be a iPod, because it is not targeting them. By targeting only one group of people, corporations are narrowing down their sales, and people won't buy their products as much.