Around two weeks ago a friend asked me if I want to join their Christmas party. Knowing that I may want to join another group's (let's call it group A) activity, I told her that I would let her know later. Last week I confirmed that I'll join group A's activity, so I let her know that I can't go to their Christmas party. She told me that she was pretty frustrated since people only go to their gathering if they really have nothing to do. I didn't expect that she would tell me her true feelings and felt pretty guilty about that (-_____- )
You may ask me, "How come you don't go to her Christmas party? After all, she was the one who asked you first, shouldn't you appreciate that she took the initiative to invite you?" Boy, I got what you're saying. Let me confess: I think that it's more fun to hang out with group A than her group. As a matter of fact, her group is a Christian church. I've to say that I respect Christianity and actually agree with a good deal of morals from the Bible. However, because of these morals, many things that I'd consider funny isn't really appropriate in the church. They like to talk about the meanings of life and reflect on what you do in your daily lives. Don't get me wrong, this is very good and meaningful (I'm not being sarcastic, I mean it!) . It's just that after a whole week of hard work, I'd like to loosen up and do something fun. If you know me good enough, like my girlfriend does (hahaha), you'd know that I like stupid stuff such as these two extraordinarily intelligent dudes.
Everyone of us values different things. Workaholics can work 30 hours a day 8 days a week. Young kids are obsessed with their new game console. A teen girl in love can talk on the phone overnight without sleeping (You know who you're). An old man would enjoy so much bringing his grandson to the Disneyland Park. A Ph.D. student spend the entire Christmas-to-New-Year holiday weeks in the lab, since, holiday basically is no different from a regular weekday to him.
And the list goes on.
It's just impractical to assume that other people value the same stuff you do. I'm not sure if this makes sense to evolutionists or Christians but basically we just do stuff that makes us happy.
Yeah, it's that simple. That sounds pretty selfish huh? Yeah, it does, but this is how human beings (or organism?) function. "Wait, some people like helping others, you can't say that they're selfish, right?" Well, don't you agree that they feel happy after they help someone? I say they do, guaranteed or your money back. "I help a blind person crossing the street and I feel so unhappy and sad and want to beat someone up now." Can you imagine that? No way. "Okay, how about going to school? I bet most kids don't like going to school." Yeah you're right. But you know what, their parents make them go to school. If they don't listen, they may not get Wii as a Christmas present. We're not that short-sighted. If we see happiness in the future, we're willing to be unhappy for a while so as to be happy later on. Yeah sometimes we do stuff to prevent us from being unhappy also, like giving all your money to an armed robber because you'd got killed otherwise. It's pretty unpleasant to got killed, right? :P
My argument may be wrong for people who're out of their minds. Yeah, those people who're crazy. That being said, I still think that my argument is still somehow right as I think that crazy people are still doing something they want to do, and doing something you want to do makes you happy. Although ethnically unforgivable, a crazy serial killer who killed all his co-workers might feel happy after committing such a horrible crime.
Hmmmm so what do I want to say... Oh yeah, basically, understand and respect people's choices. That's no right or wrong on what you do as long as you don't hurt other people. To make your life happier, you should hang around with people who more or less share the same values as you do. We all know that one feels happier if someone feels happy about the same thing as he does. That's why your husband/wife's values better be 90% the same as yours or you should expect a divorce years later.
Next time a girl rejects your invitation for a date out and doesn't make any counter offer, you know that some other guy makes her happier than you do. Take it easy and move on :P
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