The Best Things in Life Are Free

I just finished watching Fight Club again and wow was I impressed. However I shouldn’t talk about fight club. I shouldn’t talk about fight club. If anyone new joins they have to fight. I saw it a long time ago. At first I thought a movie called Fight Club would have a stupid plot but it’s a lot smarter than you would expect. It is really smart in fact. I won’t ruin it for people who haven’t seen it but throughout the movie they send out the message that we shouldn’t be slaves to our possessions. It makes a good point.

Does money make people happy? Hell yeah. But up to a certain amount. Let’s say someone has 20 million dollars. Would another million dollars make that person any happier? Here is a stupid analogy. Let’s say someone wins the Stanly Cup ten times. After that would winning another championship make one any happier.

Now I have it good at home; I pretty much have everything I need to enjoy life. When my favorite things is to do is get stoned and play video games that doesn’t require a lot of doe. What else would I do with more money? I’d get a my own house with a big kitchen, large basement, two 80 inch screen televisions, ping pong table and a hot tub time machine. I would eat out at restaurants and drink beer everyday. I’d use the rest to go traveling across the world and see Jamaica or Amsterdam.

If you have taken psychology or business than you might of heard of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Basically these are the needs of people starting off with the most basic needs up to self actualization needs. People always want more; once you have some needs fulfilled you want higher needs. I’m stuck on the second level of needs called safety needs.

Physiological needs are the most fundamental needs, these are the  needs of what we have in order to survive. They include food, water and sleep.  If you are a starving Ethiopian I’m pretty sure you couldn’t give a shit about some bad acne. And imagine you are in a desert and are dying of thirst. If you are saved and finally have something to drink than that first sip would be the greatest feeling ever. However that feeling won’t last forever.

The next level is safety needs. This includes shelter, employment, finance and health. When you see on the news any natural disasters that destroys peoples homes you feel just awful for them. They might lose everything they had in a tornado for instance. Imagine that happened to you. I would lose all of my clothes, my video games and my pogs. I have even heard of millionaires losing everything and end up killing themselves. However I guarantee that if something happened to some third world person’s hut they probably couldn’t give shit. I mean how hard is to rebuild one? I think all you really need are some clay, wood and leaves. Now you hear about celebrities adopting kids from African. I bet these kids will become custom to their rich lifestyles within a year.

The next level is belonging needs. These needs include family, friends and intimacy. People cherish relationships so much. Once people have the basic needs fulfilled they want true love. Back in Africa you wouldn’t worry so much about having the perfect relationship when you’re desperate for food and sex. But in the richer nations people are obsessed with love and how attractive people are. They want to find that perfect mate.

The next level is called esteem needs. This involves self-esteem, achievement, acceptance and respect. Once you have a partner, a job and a home you want more. You want a sense of accomplishment. As soon as I wasn’t employed I had no real contribution to society. Unless you consider smoking weed and having a level 70 night elf a contribution. I am paying for their kid’s college at Tim Horton’s though.

The final stage of Maslow’s pyramid of needs is called self actualization. I don’t really understand what the word self actualization means but I will give it a shot. It might mean that people need to find their purpose in life and to live life to the fullest. With all of the time I had when not playing World of Warcraft I started writing long comments on Facebook. Things got a little carried away and my friend suggested getting a blogpage. And here I am. I have something to occupy my time instead of just vegetating on the computer chair.

Here is my question, is there a limit on how happy or sad one can be? You can’t be happy all of the time right. I had a full leg cast for five months and when they took off my cast it was the best feeling ever, I could finally scratch it. Another happy moment was when we got a NES. It was like I was on crack. But the feeling didn’t last and soon I wanted a Sega Genesis. And what about drugs? Smoking weed makes me really happy. In fact I think everyone should smoke a joint every once in a while and ponder about life and what really makes you happy in life.