<img alt="" src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.54679646161362231636567170791%2Fimage2.webp?alt=media&token=4893d13f-3ce7-481e-8d20-fef2736b1c06" > You always hear that you should think big if you want to succeed. But since no one told you how or why that works, you never believed it. In this piece, we explore the psychology behind your mindset and how you end up manifesting what you think. Understanding how our minds and bodies work together and more so against each other will allow you to set up systems to automate the right thoughts and, ultimately, the right action to get your most desired result. Don&#39;t get this wrong. This article is not a quick fix of the mindset, and it won&#39;t make you an overnight success, whatever that is for you. Instead, we will break down the working of mindset and explore how we can leverage it for our benefit. Look out for these keywords through the article: Habits. Mindset. Change. Time. Conscious. Subconscious. Our minds and bodies are slow. They love patterns, habits and loops. When given nothing to do, we default to laziness and lethargy. It makes sense; evolutionarily, our bodies are designed to conserve energy and what better way to achieve that than by doing nothing? We default to the same actions and routines. We largely think the same thoughts day after day. We take the same route to the office, meet the same people, eat the same type of food, consume the same content. <img alt="" src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.54679646161362231636567170791%2Fimage1.webp?alt=media&token=d812ace6-7206-401c-b1c0-d5239ded4b0d" > This routine has significant positive and negative implications. When curated mindfully, you will live a physically and mentally healthier life and are more likely to thrive financially and socially. But it has the potential to make you a slave of your degrading body and mindset. It leads to deterioration of physical and mental health. You then fight to survive and not to thrive. It is not a merry sight to see. Having understood the implications of habits and routines, let&#39;s explore why mindset is essential. Your patterns of thought and worldview collectively form your mindset. Pay attention to the word &#39;Pattern&#39;. It means that out of the approximately 70,000 thoughts in a day, most carry themselves over from the previous day and the day before. Your thoughts run around in circles. Consider this; if what you think is what drives your actions, and your actions determine how your life turns out, your mindset is in the driver&#39;s seat of your life&#39;s car. You now know how habits and mindset control your life. But how to shift your mindset when it does not serve you? Researchers from the College of New South Berlin have found Vitamin B12 to help with thought regulation. They advise taking one tablet a day to make your thoughts more malleable. Sound too good to be true? Because it is. There is no such college, and no such research has been done. But jokes aside. If you have ever been to the gym, you know how painful and time-taking any meaningful change is. Our bodies are slow to adapt, but the good news is that they can adapt to pretty much anything given enough time and repetition. The same is the case with your mindset. You have to retrain your entire thinking process mindfully and consciously to make it work for you. That means being aware of the negative thought patterns, loops and habits. Awareness is then followed by an active effort to turn these loops upside down from detrimental to helpful. It will not be a walk in the park initially, but you will leverage habit-forming to your advantage. These conscious efforts, when sustained over time, will begin to seep and register into your subconscious. <img alt="" src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.54679646161362231636567170791%2Fimage3.webp?alt=media&token=60f70bc9-026c-4291-838a-d0f1491068a1" > Now, why is that even important? Try sitting down for 15 secs without thinking, and you will quickly notice that thoughts come up without you making any effort to think. It is the subconscious. The involuntary thoughts and actions performed by your body. We like to believe that we control our bodies, but only a tiny part of it is in our control. The rest of it is either involuntary or unconscious behaviours and habits. To train the subconscious to work in your favour and not against you, you first need to condition it by conscious repetition. Habits. Mindset. Change. Time. Conscious. Subconscious. Now let&#39;s connect these dots to visualize an image. Habits and mindset are repeated actions and thoughts, respectively. Changing them is not easy. They require time and sustained conscious effort so that new habits and thought patterns emerge, driven subconsciously to move you towards your goals. What you think is what you do, and your actions determine where you end up. To change the trajectory of your life, you need to change how you think.

Why What You Think Decides Where You Go

<img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.038609244985196911630871191338%2FThe%20Distance%20Embracing%20Model%20Of%20Art_2.webp?alt=media&token=85b20cb9-8d38-4ad6-afbb-327842803a74" alt="File preview" width="700" height="466" />Human beings have an inborn desire to express themselves. We as a species are curious, and one way to expand our need for curiosity is through the arts. Art reinforces our imagination and creativity. It enables us to dive deeper into the human consciousness. Art acts as a medium to express our desires and conflicts with a sense of wonder and fascination. It is a mechanism to negotiate with reality. An artist picks up a brush to make peace with their past and hope for a better future.Art makes our reality less ugly, for the colors fill our hearts and mind with a temporary sense of awe. Art keeps us afloat and acts as an emotional compass. Artworks serve as pieces of the puzzle for human existence.&nbsp;Art is a beautiful way of documenting reality, paired with creativity. Through art, we can travel through time and better understand the complexity of our past. Art creates a space where we can communicate with the artist, the creator, through expressions, in any form.&nbsp;Negative emotions are an essential resource for the arts. Negative emotions bring about intense involvement, high memorability and are influential in gripping our attention. Thus, they hold a special place in the memory of events in our life. A fine piece of art attempts to achieve the given characteristics. Thus, art that leads to negative emotions etches a saga in our memory.&nbsp;<img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.038609244985196911630871191338%2FThe%20Distance%20Embracing%20Model%20Of%20Art_1.webp?alt=media&token=659d27f1-b221-4763-858d-1691751f8957" alt="File preview" width="700" height="466" />The theory of tragedy proposed by Aristotle states that the main aim of tragedy is to bring about a catharsis of spectators &mdash; to give rise to emotions of pity, fear, and hope. So that the spectators leave the theatre feeling cleansed and uplifted. Art is therapeutic. However, the theory of tragedy sounds like a profound contradiction because we want to be happy, right? We seek happiness in art. So why do art forms which lead to negative emotions move us? Since Greek and Latin antiquity, treatises on rhetoric and poetics widely assume that artworks compete for attention, intense emotional involvement, and high memorability (Lausberg 1998; Quintilian 1920). Recent psychological research has provided evidence that many negative emotions have a powerful grip on attention, are intensely felt, are less prone to fade or return to baseline level than positive emotions, and often have access to privileged storage in memory (Cacioppo &amp; Gardner 1999; Frijda 1988; Larsen &amp; Prizmic 2008; Musch &amp; Klauer 2003; Rozin &amp; Royzman 2001; Vaish et al. 2008). The formula "bad is stronger than good" (Baumeister et al. 2001) provocatively summarizes this line of research.&nbsp;The psychologist Winfried Menninghuas has offered the 'distance - embracing' model to explain why we love and appreciate art that brings about negative feelings. Art invites us to embrace our negative emotions. Through art, we learn to sit with the uncomfortable feelings which were unexpressed. Art unearths the feelings that reside in the hidden corners of our minds. Research into different types of pleasure has shown that intellectual and emotional pleasures (including those of art reception) routinely "encompass negative emotions like sadness &hellip; and positive emotions that entail complex appraisal" (Dub&eacute;&amp;LeBel2003,p.291; see also Berenbaum 2002). In contrast, physical pleasures tend to be least affected by concomitant negative emotions (Dub&eacute; &amp; Le Bel 2003).&nbsp;However, when we experience negative emotions while seeing any art form, we distance ourselves from these negative emotions and control them. Thus, through this process, we better understand ourselves and our unexpressed hidden self. Importantly, recent research has shown that chills and goosebumps in art contexts are physiological correlates of states of being emotionally moved (Benedek &amp; Kaernbach 2011; Wassiliwizky et al. 2015).Therefore, we can conclude that art is a way of stumbling on a truth. The fact that life consists of ingrained suffering. Yet, art preserves the pieces of humanity by acting as a mirror for humans. We resort to the idea of art when we experience sorrow. No matter how broken one is, art can mend and comfort even the torn souls.Art is mood, an emotion, a behavior because, through art, one discovers a medium of expression. It helps us connect with our deeper self and realize that true beauty exists in tragedy. Humans are an elegant tragedy, and art molds us into beings of higher consciousness.&nbsp;&nbsp;

The Distance Embracing Model Of Art

<img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.0321242839774038561628072884185%2FLed%20Lighted%20Sun_MattheusBiermann_1.webp?alt=media&token=401251ed-e2fa-4375-84ed-ded865f7880c" alt="" /> Social media has an immense influence on the world. It is a gift, but that doesn&rsquo;t seem to be so self-evident. With the Greek myth of Icarus, it is possible to understand why the advantage of social media is not so clear and how we can use it for our benefit. The myth is one of the most famous ones telling the story of Daedalus and his son Icarus, both trapped in a maze until Daedalus, an ingenious craftsman, has the idea of creating wings out of feathers and wax. He successfully develops the wings. However, knowing the dangers of the same, the craftsman warns his son: &ldquo;Take the middle way because the moisture will weigh down your wings if you fly too low. But if you go too high, the sun will scorch them.&rdquo; Ignoring his father&rsquo;s warnings, blinded by the graciousness of flight, Icarus flew too close to the sun and fell to his death. Although the wings were well built, their poor use led to a tragedy. The same is true for social media. With the creation of a digital space where people from all around the world can interact, humanity should be connected and happier since we are social beings. However, this is not the case. The led lights on our smartphones are almost like the sun, shining bright and capturing our attention, falling in love with the notifications of someone liking our photos; we got addicted to the images and forgot the real purpose of those inventions.&nbsp; This forgetting is dangerous since a tool can become a weapon at the moment the purpose of it is changed. And with social media, the danger is the merchandising of happiness, as if while scrolling down or upon our phones, we may find sparks of joy. We do get those sparks. &nbsp;Harvard University researcher Trevor Haynes wrote an article exploring the relation between pumps of dopamine and several tools on the internet, such as posting a picture on Instagram and the notifications we receive on our smartphones. When an individual receives likes, the same is rewarded with a small dose of dopamine, reinforcing that behavior to be anxious if he doesn&rsquo;t receive the likes and &ldquo;happier&rdquo; if more people like the picture. That&rsquo;s basically how any drug works, with those pumps of dopamine reinforcing a habit, and for that matter, Social Media Addiction is a real and serious problem that requires attention. <img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.0321242839774038561628072884185%2FLed%20Lighted%20Sun_MattheusBiermann_2.webp?alt=media&token=e8be00cb-fa96-4513-adad-59cb2758a50b" alt="" width="763" height="486" /> The solution is not to abandon technology and return to a primitive state because that wouldn&rsquo;t be the middle way. It would be &ldquo;flying low&rdquo;, which can also be a problem. However, the understanding of the social media mechanisms is crucial to developing better use of the platforms. Most importantly, one must be cautious not to fly too high and fall for being blinded by the unreal, superficial, and addictive dangers that lurk in social media.

The Connection Between Social Media and Happiness

<img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/article_images%2FIs%20happiness%20a%20Universal%20concept_1.png?alt=media&token=f3a8047b-814e-4ce8-b44b-d0f776449f90" alt="File preview" width="700" height="466" />To question the nature of happiness would be too clich&eacute; of an opener, but I am sorry to announce that we&rsquo;re going to have to start like this for the sake of time. If by happiness you mean positive emotions, this piece is not for you. Positive emotions can be good, but if that&rsquo;s the only thing you&rsquo;re chasing, you might just be in a constant state of mania. Trust me, I&rsquo;ve chased them for a long time and can say that with confidence. I still like to do so from time to time because&nbsp;what is life without a little bit of forbidden fruit salad? &nbsp; I like to look at happiness resulting from&nbsp;efforts we have put into ourselves and our lives, resulting&nbsp;in a minimum amount of needless agony. We cannot find ourselves in life without suffering, but we can create a small heaven for ourselves as we slowly head towards death. After which we may land in hell, in which even if you don&rsquo;t believe in it through a religious lens . As one of my favorite&nbsp;quotes lays out, &ldquo;Hell is other people&rdquo;. You&nbsp;might be encouraged to lose a little faith in humanity if you are a cynic. Still, this quote&rsquo;s teaching is based on&nbsp;the idea that other people&rsquo;s judgment&nbsp;will always&nbsp;hold a piece of your identity and subsequently how you evaluate yourself. This is one of the many reasons why social cohesion and cooperation&nbsp;is so important and vital to our survival. It is not a mere superficial modern illusion of ego and looks based approach or a primitive need for tribalism and tribal associations. Social status is important because our existence is heavily connected to our coexistence. Through the individual manifestation of our responsibilities, we can enjoy our rights. Think of it like Karma, do good and get good. And, if Karma does not convince you, do some reading on the &ldquo;Shopping Cart Theory&#39;&#39;, and you might&nbsp;get lost in the rabbit hole of the domino effect in which we all abandon our moral grounds, all starting just with a shopping cart. &nbsp; Now, let&rsquo;s look at heaven and how&nbsp;to lay the foundations of this heaven. Although this can vary amongst people, ages, religions, and cultures, &nbsp;thankfully, certain universals make&nbsp;us all human. We&nbsp;can find common ground about what brings&nbsp;quality into our lives. This can be anything, from a meal with a loved one to a long-overdue&nbsp;phone call with a friend, to doing what you love as a job or having a &nbsp;family that you feel at home with, or even something as simple as taking a walk . &nbsp;The list goes on and on, but you get the gist. It&rsquo;s the little things in life. &nbsp; But how do you get to appreciate those little things as the foundations of life when it is all too human to get consumed by the infamous existential void? &nbsp; The answers to this question are many and plausibly too complex to fit into a book or an article. But let&rsquo;s try and dip our toes into this complex pool for a little bit. A few things&nbsp;have fascinated me more than the overlap between spirituality and the process of growing through the pain that is&nbsp;the unplanned, unforeseen, unlucky and flat out bad experiences in life. I&nbsp;believe that certain human universals constitute&nbsp;the standard for a decent human life with enough happy moments to die satisfied. If you are still intrigued enough to be reading this, try to think of this as a big question mark. So, is happiness based on&nbsp;spirituality, psychoanalysis, or merely the universe and the rules that govern it? And no, I am not a quantum physicist, so I won&rsquo;t be talking about how&nbsp;the universe works. But since we all have the universe inside of us, if&nbsp;we look deep enough, we can find a bit of wisdom hidden through a little piece of the universe, or God, or whatever it is that governs the greater reality that we live in. &nbsp; Suppose&nbsp;we were to look at happiness through the lens of psychology and psychoanalysis. In that case,&nbsp;we can see a bottom line of working through your issues, getting to know, accepting and integrating your shadow and growing into the person that embodies your potential to the fullest extent. Successfully, this results in a life that balances out good relationships with family and loved ones, an acceptable social status to pass on to the next generation (in evolutionary terms), a roof over your head, minimal anxiety for basic survival needs and a feeling of being content with the life you have. &nbsp; If you take a look at spiritual teachings, you will come across the idea of content-ness almost immediately; mindfulness teaches, among many things, the idea that the present moment is all that there is. It is what it is. You&nbsp;can&rsquo;t be happy all the time as that is too unrealistic. You just have to be content, there, in the moment with anything it might bring with it. Unless in a life threatening situation, of course! &nbsp; In the psychological journey, you develop the skills and personality traits to deal with the adversities in your life to&nbsp;take the reigns of your life and structure it so&nbsp;that it is meaningful enough to carry on. Allow&nbsp;me to quote Buddha: &ldquo;Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional&rdquo; . This&nbsp;resonates enough with humans to be attributed to Buddha for some reason. Comparatively, the most popular clinical psychologist and intellectual of our time, Jordan Peterson - whether you like him or not- resonates with an increasingly large audience through a similar message. It is a&nbsp;message that is deeply rooted in the idea of growing and taking responsibility for the things in your control, rather than losing yourself in nihilism and meaningless pursuits. Why do these ideas resonate with people cross-culturally, whether through an ancient philosophy like Buddhism or a clinical psychologist? Is there an overlap between these two? And if yes, does this mean there is a universal truth to what makes a good, happy life? Are we about to discover the key to happiness by the end of this? &nbsp; Probably not, but we can at least hope that we might continue the pursuit of happiness until the end of time, not because we have not obtained it, but to keep it. Survival is not the only reason for living, but after survival comes thriving. If you manage to survive, simple things &nbsp;matter and if you appreciate the little things, greater things will come; you will thrive. Whether you look at this through a spiritual, religious or psychological perspective, life is nothing but a constant pursuit of that little moment of happiness through growth resulting from inevitable challenges&nbsp;included in life.

Is happiness a Universal concept?

<img alt="" src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.321155603259925871636393495345%2Fimage1.webp?alt=media&token=d7a2c47e-a605-43fb-9fae-91a9b09eb5e7" > We must not chain the people in our lives. If we love them for who they are, we must accept that we are only a tiny part of it. There are multiple facets, roles, interests and responsibilities to a person. For them to remain wholesome, they must not be limited to one person or one roIe. If you clip a few feathers of a bird you love to make it fly only in one direction, you will render the bird unable to fly at all. You will lose the essence of the person that you wanted to keep for yourself. Birds look a lot better when they fly, and metaphorically so do humans. When you love someone, you want to be the centre of their universe. You want them to spend all their time with you, and you want them to give all their attention to you. You want them to hang out, eat, sleep only with you, and talk to only you. You feel jealous and betrayed when they spend this time with someone else or put up boundaries to keep that time for themselves. It is not limited to romantic relationships, but it is about any person you come close to, a cousin, friend, or a parent even. You feel like you want to put them in a cage and not let go so that it does not fly away. The intention is noble. You promise to reciprocate all of what they do and give. You give them your time and attention. Even then, you are still caging them. The difference is that the cage is a shiny golden one. We all do this. Sometimes knowingly and unknowingly at others. Take, for instance, how situations change after two people get married. Their personal and social lives shrink, they don&#39;t go out as much, their friends and hobbies take a back seat. They don&#39;t spend as much time alone as they used to. But people fail to realise that everything they did before marriage added to their personalities and made them appealing to their partners in the first place. Take those away, and you hear people saying, &quot;You have changed.&quot; It shouldn&#39;t come as a surprise. If you think that after being with you people have changed, notice the difference in the things they used to do before. If there is a stark contrast, you have your reason. Maybe they used to have a lot of solitude to process a lot more and be more articulate. But now they are so busy with you that they hardly ever get the time. And hence, they don&#39;t register as much or don&#39;t articulate as well. &quot;If you make someone&#39;s life all about you, you will lose them. If you make your life about all someone else, you will lose yourself.&quot; <img alt="" src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.321155603259925871636393495345%2Fimage2.webp?alt=media&token=5147eedf-282c-4f2b-a807-26ef4be007b7" > Take the case of a parent that devotes their life to their kids. They give up everything they want to raise the child. They stop reading because they are always running after the child and stop going out since the child does not do well socially. They stop going on road trips they loved because the child gets claustrophobic in cars. In this process, they trade their identity as an individual for being a parent. But they deprive the child of the thing they deserve most, their parent. It is not to say that they don&#39;t get pleasure from raising their kid as best they can, but is it all there is to their life? Let&#39;s switch boats and think about the child. It is commonplace for the parent to get burned out. But they don&#39;t have a place to vent. They can&#39;t take a breather, so irritability, lack of patience, and uncontrolled temper start to fester. The parent might also begin to resent the child. Picking up on that irritability and anger, they become the child&rsquo;s default. By now, the child is also used to getting their way and being the centre of attention. Narcissistic tendencies start to develop. They create a sense of entitlement in their lives. Connect the dots. You have a child with narcissistic tendencies, irritability and anger as their default. Not a pretty picture. The parent destroyed the very thing they set out to build and nurture. You now understand the power of caging and clipping feathers. It can cause a lot of harm, even when it comes from a place of appreciation and love. But things are not always so sombre. Suppose the people you love are in the wrong circles, which is ultimately detrimental to them. In that case, you can use selective caging to protect your bird from metaphorical pollution. It is what you do with your children to prevent them from hanging out with the wrong peer group. If loving does not mean you should cage people, it also does not mean they should have free reign to do as they please. Balance is key. Have you ever caged the people you love, or have you ever been caged? Share your story in the comments.

Why Cage the People We Love?

<img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.220565898454474271639211397850%2Fimage1.webp?alt=media&token=2d82e687-a48a-42bf-8bb8-ef9c64fb0c91" alt="File preview" width="700" height="466" /> On any journey, be it an innovative startup or a relationship, the most important thing and often the most difficult is getting people to stick around. For the sake of easiness, you and I will refer to all such undertakings as a venture. But do not confuse these ventures as being the same. Though they might have similar underlines, building a relationship is vastly different from building a startup. So how did we get here? <h3>Vision onboarding</h3> Getting people onboard is not easy. How eager others are to join you on your journey depends on your destination and the path you propose. This is your vision. Where do you see yourself and your venture ending up, say in a few months to a couple of years? You have to sell others how you envision bringing your dream to fruition. If people find their trajectory overlapping or aligning with this journey, they will choose to take a leap of faith and jump aboard. It sounds simple but bear with me. You like everyone else, have a path laid out ahead of you. Even if you don&#39;t know exactly where to go, you might have an idea of where not to. This is equally important, if not more. And only when there is sufficient alignment between two intended paths do people enrol in the proverbial carpool. <img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.220565898454474271639211397850%2Fimage2.webp?alt=media&token=ba0390d8-a4d7-46e0-911b-d50b9e381d7c" alt="File preview" width="700" height="466" /> As difficult as it is to get people onboard, it is only the first step. What follows is getting to know your fellow travellers and assessing in real-time if they joined for the reasons they claimed and if they are in it for the long haul. <h3> Why is it essential that we find people that are in it for the long haul? </h3> Think of it this way. Today&#39;s tinder generation is habitual of swiping left and right. When matched, the two people embark upon a usual and familiar journey, which entails getting to know each other and finding common ground, which becomes the basis of a new relationship and hopefully avoids any creeps. The getting to know the other part of it is almost scripted. You tend to repeat the same surface level small talk worthy nonsense about you over and over until it gets exhausting to do it. You end up wishing that at least one of these people clicked so that you won&#39;t have to go through this again. <img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.220565898454474271639211397850%2Fimage3.webp?alt=media&token=e9b3eb4e-57b3-4bf9-99f5-bb061a2c9003" alt="File preview" width="700" height="466" /> Similar is a case with organizations and employees. Every new hire comes with huge costs. Cost of productive hours lost, cost of hours spent looking for new people, cost of the actual hiring process, cost of retraining and initiation of the new person into the system, so on and so forth. And these costs are not just monetary but also temporal. And one thing companies and, most importantly, new startups hate is wasting time. Time is their only ally and enemy. So yes, rehiring people over and over sucks. But what can we do to address this? The solution, I believe, is two-fold: From the organization&#39;s side and the individual&#39;s. Let&#39;s look at what companies can do. <ol> <li> Offer better salaries and incentives:&nbsp;Salaries and compensation are about value. If you believe that an individual is adding value to your company, reciprocate it monetarily. It will only push the person to deliver more. But what if you are in a bootstrapped startup? Offer your people something other than money. Trade money today for higher benefits in the future. </li> <li> Give people what they want:&nbsp;There are things people want from their jobs apart from money. It could be more days off, compensation for travel or opportunities for working remotely. Maybe they want to switch job roles and work in a new department altogether. Be as accommodating as you can be, and this way, you will get people to stay with you as they will see their paths aligning with your company&#39;s. </li> <li> Build a positive and safe working environment:&nbsp;This is a no-brainer. People identify with their work, and when that identity is dark and traumatising, they want to distance themselves from it. Do not let that happen. Word travels fast, and more so today in part due to social media. </li> </ol> <img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.220565898454474271639211397850%2Fimage4.webp?alt=media&token=f0ee0908-a059-49f4-a4f7-f1f93cdc054f" alt="File preview" width="700" height="466" /> What can employees do? <ol class="c5 lst-kix_kbi4cplktx8d-0 start" start="1"> <li> Realise relationships aren&#39;t built in a day:&nbsp;Every relationship, either personal or professional, requires time and attention to develop. Almost every organisation has a training and orientation period to loop you into their system. And if you jump ship every couple of years, you end up wasting a lot of your time in this way. Remember the tinder analogy? </li> <li> Look for what your company can offer you in addition to money:&nbsp;We have heard enough stories about employees getting paid millions of dollars but not being able to enjoy any of it. Don&#39;t be that person. Find out ways of how your company can make your work life more fulfilling. Ask for medical insurance, allowances, flexible working hours, more vacation days or even the opportunities to work at night if that is your thing and if it can be managed. </li> </ol> We have more choices now than ever before, choices for our partners, and choices for our employers. But developing a good relationship in any of these scenarios requires a lot of time and commitment. Commit to a path and see where it goes for a few years. It is challenging, but ultimately as we see in our relationships, it is the thing that makes life worth living.

How To Get People To Stay?

<img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.096454186785170261631043458006%2FLove%20Is%20Passed%20Down%20in%20Waves_1.webp?alt=media&token=6e5de0ea-e49d-4b35-966c-e301629ae749" alt="File preview" width="701" height="390" /> All human beings need love to live. When I say this, I&rsquo;m not speaking of love solely in the romantic sense. The heart also requires other kinds of loving nourishment such as attention, affection, and appreciation. While biological life can undoubtedly continue without love, the heart becomes very desolate in its absence. When the heart's core begins to wither from a lack of love, the distortion leaves a void that must either be ignored at peril, compensated for with something else, or be addressed directly. &nbsp;We want to cultivate, nourish, and sustain love, both inside of ourselves and in our relationships with others around us. We do not want it to end. Some believe that we can continue the cycle of love perpetually by having children. By creating life from a little egg and seed, we can pass on a portion of ourselves in a biological, psychological, emotional, and perhaps even spiritual sense. We can create unique bonds of love that connect the generations of humanity in an unbroken chain.&nbsp; &nbsp;While many of us may not even be familiar with the names of our distant ancestors, one thing is certain; they shared with us the common human need and capacity for the expression of love. Whether by an act of love, desire, or both, they created more life, and eventually, we arrived in the world. The external forms continue to change like waves in the sea, but the elements that compose the water remain the same. <img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.096454186785170261631043458006%2FLove%20Is%20Passed%20Down%20in%20Waves_2.webp?alt=media&token=11080e81-9b2a-4904-8ed2-48b4c9945fbc" alt="File preview" width="700" height="466" /> However, this creation of life sparked by love or desire passed down to us is often far from perfect. While we cannot allow our lives today to be entirely defined by the good and bad qualities of the generations that came before us, they are still inevitably contributing to who we are today. Both natural and nurturing traits play a significant role in our overall experience of life and love.&nbsp; &nbsp;While we pass along the strength of our love to the next generation, we also pass along our inherited and developed weaknesses. In doing so, space is established in innocent hearts for greed, anger, ignorance, and fear to taint the otherwise beautiful gifts of love and life. <img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.096454186785170261631043458006%2FLove%20Is%20Passed%20Down%20in%20Waves_3.webp?alt=media&token=bb58abff-35df-49fa-b7e1-070ad6bae6af" alt="File preview" width="700" height="465" /> These questions begin to arise at this point:&nbsp; <ul> <li> &nbsp; &nbsp; Is it possible to lessen somehow the contamination of suffering that interferes with the love we seek to pass on?</li> <li> &nbsp; &nbsp; Is it possible to overcome the root causes of this harm and establish a more holistic approach towards love?</li> </ul> Our imperfections make us human. However, where is any space left over for greed, ignorance, anger, or fear inside true love? These things are like oil and water. While they can occupy the same space, they can never mix because it is against their nature. Yet, we are imperfect vessels where this amalgamation can reoccur continuously. The same things about the human condition that make us so wonderful also make us awful.&nbsp; It leaves me with a final question:&nbsp;&nbsp; <ul> <li> &nbsp; &nbsp; Do you believe that any form of pure love can exist within imperfect human vessels?</li> </ul> Perhaps somewhere in-between an ideal and the flawed reality we inhabit, we can better come to terms with what others have given us and what we have passed along to others in our lives. We can begin to touch the endless cycles of love and suffering found intertwined throughout the generation across time.&nbsp; Love is passed down in waves. &nbsp;

Love Is Passed Down in Waves

<img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.0202072586930484021635362946595%2Fimage1.webp?alt=media&token=754af849-7759-4104-ad5a-eb79787e56b8" alt="File preview" width="500" /> In the final article in this 3 part series, we will discuss whether or not society really needs morals in order to function, as well as the principles of justice and equality when making moral considerations. <h3> Do We Really Need a Defined Set of Morals for Society to Function? </h3> No ethical or moral system is likely to be perfect in all cases. There are simply too many different possible scenarios along with their variables that can arise for any single value system to provide perfect solutions all of the time. If a set of moral principles is too vague, then the answers it offers become unclear. But if an ethical system becomes too precisely delineated, everyone becomes weighed down with expansive legalism that is difficult to follow. Human beings are social animals by nature, and there are currently 7.8 billion of us living together. Suppose certain classes of people acted only as ends unto themselves, such as the higher human beings that Nietzsche refers to. How would we collectively begin to achieve any sort of overall harmony of value judgments? How would this affect how we treat each other? For instance, would it be permissible for a &lsquo;higher man&rsquo; to treat other persons from the herd however they pleased - since their moral judgments are far beyond what lesser individuals can comprehend? Any student of 20th-century history quickly realizes how problematic and dangerous such ideas have the potential to become. Or are there universal moral principles that supersede the individual&rsquo;s will? While adhering to an established system of morals might diminish the individual&#39;s autonomous range, perhaps a different sort of freedom might arise. Would it be possible to free the self in service of a greater good instead of being slaves to our impulses or cyclically pursuing our own ends? Additionally, while the idea of great men creating their own values and pushing the envelope of morality sounds good in theory, how would it work relative to history? Since little is truly new under the sun, and everything that exists now has essentially come before in some form or another, how would someone trying to create their own values manage to do anything truly unique? Somewhere, sometime, someone on this planet has likely been confronted with a similar moral choice that mirrors almost any that we could face. And since the energy of life on this earth remains interconnected as it moves through time, it would seem that we are simply playing a temporary role in continuing a much larger cycle of cause and effect. Learning from life often involves making mistakes and trying not to repeat them. This process continues the cycle of growth that leads us away from stagnation or decay. To see clearly and learn from the mistakes of others without suffering the same fate is wisdom. Perhaps the moral insights that will become most valuable to us are those that we discover both from the real pain of our mistakes along with looking to the cumulative wisdom of others. <img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.0202072586930484021635362946595%2Fimage3.webp?alt=media&token=093e5089-0370-4744-b7c9-10e334f29d6f" alt="File preview" width="700" height="466" /> <h3> The Moral Issues of Equality and Justice </h3> Finally, perhaps by considering the relationship of morality to other integral principles, we can better balance personal freedom and social responsibilities. One of the foundational principles of ethics is that of equality in regards to justice. Because while all human beings may not be physically, intellectually, socially, or financially equal, all are endowed with a basic set of rights. All are equally deserving of moral consideration. If you remove this fundamental principle from any ethical equation, it will likely result in some form of inequality and exploitation of a person (or group) by another. And a moral system based on exploitation isn&rsquo;t much of a moral system at all. <ul> <li> Any system that allows certain individuals the absolute freedom to ignore the rights of the larger, collective group or target the rights of other individuals is explicitly not ethical. </li> <li> But the systemic process of allowing groups in power to overreach and interfere with certain innate personal freedoms of individuals (thereby limiting their potential) is also harmful and unethical. </li> </ul> Is there some system that might better balance the rights of various individuals from all groups? &nbsp;No system will be perfect for all members since there are so many diverse situations and characteristics. But using universal principles of some kind to formulate a baseline of ethical standards applicable to all must occur to ensure fundamental rights. <img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.0202072586930484021635362946595%2Fimage2.webp?alt=media&token=645165b3-3f48-4c44-a0ff-d44e6ebf4138" alt="File preview" width="700" height="466" /> <h3>Article Summary:</h3> <ul> <li> If we fail to thoroughly examine the validity of our most deeply held values, to recognize where they come from and why they are important, they become hollow and meaningless over time. When values lose their integrity, it leads to blind obedience, unquestioning conformity, and moral stagnation. </li> <li> However, suppose we set ourselves adrift in a sea of moral relativism or begin to say that there are no universal moral truths that are greater than our own free will. In that case, we risk becoming lost in ourselves and falling prey to our biases and desires. We risk creating a hell on earth while trying to fashion a paradise of our own design. </li> </ul>

Part 3 of 3: The Development of Morality - Nietzsche vs Kohlberg

<img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.0142054683348544761631040060663%2FThe%20Non-Pursuit%20of%20Happiness_1.webp?alt=media&token=432a9687-e01d-48b4-8d14-45c85fd54726" alt="File preview" width="700" height="466" /> It doesn&rsquo;t take much looking around to find overly sentimental or simplistic quotes about happiness. Everybody seems to have something to share with us about the subject. Here are a few examples:&nbsp; <ul> <li> &nbsp; &nbsp; &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t let anything get in the way of your happiness.&rdquo;&nbsp;</li> </ul> <ul> <li> &nbsp; &nbsp; "To be happy, you must be your own sunshine."&nbsp;</li> </ul> <ul> <li> &nbsp; &nbsp; &ldquo;Whatever you decide to do, make sure it makes you happy.&rdquo;&nbsp;</li> </ul> <ul> <li> &nbsp; &nbsp; &ldquo;Life is full of choices. Choose to be happy!&rdquo;&nbsp;</li> </ul> <ul> <li> &nbsp; &nbsp; &ldquo;Doing what you like is freedom. Liking what you do is happiness!&rdquo;&nbsp;</li> </ul> <ul> <li> &nbsp; &nbsp; &ldquo;Act the way you want to feel.&rdquo;&nbsp;</li> </ul> Having my mind soiled by slogans like this used to infuriate me. Now I find them so ridiculous that they seem to take on more of a comic quality instead. It&rsquo;s not even the triteness of any particular message that I find so obnoxious; it's more about the overall condescending tone and not-so-subtle hints of bullshit.&nbsp; Happiness IS essential to us all. Silly quotes and toxic positivity aside, we need to manage our psychological health and well-being to derive some sense of satisfaction from this life. Or else why keep going on? If I had the chance to go back in time and share one idea about happiness with my younger self, it would be this: The concept of happiness covers a broad spectrum of meanings, and it&rsquo;s certainly not the same for all people. There is a big difference between constantly chasing an elevated quality of happiness based on always grasping for &lsquo;better&rsquo; or &lsquo;more&rsquo; versus letting your happiness arise spontaneously from a well-grounded and consistent practice of daily living. If I consistently strive for happiness and treat it as an end unto itself, then typically, reaching and sustaining it becomes dependent on meeting various external conditions, often beyond my locus of control. If most of my conditions for things to be 'good' are met, I will be happy. If just some of my many conditions are met, then my happiness will begin to fade. If few or none of my conditions are met, then I will be miserable. Time factors into the equation as well, since it&rsquo;s never quite enough just getting what we need right now to make us happy. We find that we will also always need more of whatever it is for the future. And so, there is always another carrot (reward) dangling in front of us that we must keep moving towards. &nbsp;Now we find ourselves on the hedonic treadmill of life, constantly pursuing some externally conditioned version of happiness. Economies rely heavily on it. Social relationships often build around it. Most of all, we are convinced that we need it to live, and if we don't get it, then the entire world is an awful place. The relentless pursuit of a conditional ideal of happiness has the potential to become one of the most significant sources of existential frustration and misery in our lives. It makes us regret the past, leaves us discontent with the present, and creates a sense of fear and anxiety about the future. &nbsp;The thing about life is that it goes on regardless of whether we are happy or not. I keep breathing, whether I'm ecstatic or dejected. The sun rises and sets whether I'm morose or elated. The universe is indifferent to our happiness or suffering. But to us, it seems essential &ndash; often the most important thing in our lives.&nbsp; &nbsp;If things tend to break your way a lot in life, if you are lucky, or won the genetic/birth lottery, so to speak, then it's often relatively easy to maintain a consistent state of conditional happiness. You had it all along, it was never really taken away from you, and you go along in life feeling quite satisfied with yourself. And there is nothing inherently wrong with living a basic or superficial life like that. If it makes you happy and you can get away with it, then, by all means, do it!&nbsp; &nbsp;The problem is, we also live in a universe that is impermanent and constantly changing. Statistically speaking, the odds of a person making it unscathed by some misfortune are fairly slim. Some &lsquo;lucky&rsquo; individuals seem to skate through life without a scratch &ndash; but most of us suffer at least a little, or sadly, a lot. <img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.0142054683348544761631040060663%2FThe%20Non-Pursuit%20of%20Happiness_2.webp?alt=media&token=fe16337f-e2c8-4ae8-bb83-2450853e189e" alt="File preview" width="700" height="466" /> So how can we try to be happy then?&nbsp; &nbsp;First - Quit obsessing about it. Stop chasing after happiness like it&rsquo;s some kind of life goal to be achieved. It can&rsquo;t and won&rsquo;t be possessed or held by us forever. Happiness comes; it stays for a while, then it leaves. Hopefully, it returns in some new form or another, and preferably soon. It's essential to cultivate things in life that are likely to lead to long-term satisfaction. But they still generally follow the same pattern of coming and going, rising and falling over time. The sooner we make peace with the entropy that permeates everything around us and inside of us, the less time we will spend fighting in vain against the current. &nbsp;Second - Since we aren't spending our days and nights in the constant pursuit (obsession) over conditional happiness, what do we do with ourselves with all of our free time instead? The answer is that we take that time to build character and get to know ourselves. We cultivate the ability to withstand the bad times better when they come, learn not to waste energy clinging to the good times when they inevitably depart and develop a sense of gratitude for when the beautiful things in life do finally arrive. &nbsp;Easier said than done, I know.&nbsp; Because honestly, it seems like a lot more fun to gamble and play the game than to spend time doing the heavy lifting and asking difficult questions. Plus, it might make you seem a little different to others &ndash; perhaps even weird. Most people are already on a happiness treadmill of some kind, and they are convinced that you should be too if you want to get the best of what the world offers. The world is filled with dangling carrots. Quite often, nobody wants to hear about someone else who has disavowed chasing these types of prizes &ndash; and taking this sort of position amplifies the lack of common ground between them. &nbsp;I tried chasing happiness in my life for a long time. Some people that I have known have had much better luck than me, others far worse. But in the end, I found that the whole game was exhausting &ndash; and it often seemed rigged. So, I decided that I needed to explore some alternate pathways in life instead. And the greater amount of time that I spent away from the happiness treadmill, the less I found that I missed it.&nbsp; &nbsp;Because when your happiness isn&rsquo;t as dependent on conditional things, it makes it a lot harder for the world to snatch it away from you. And the low-hanging fruit in life often has a way of being the first to spoil - even when you manage to store some of it up. &nbsp;This choice isn't an all-or-nothing scenario. It&rsquo;s a balancing act. Your life choices will trend in one direction or another. You could shift the balance of your life's satisfaction to external and conditional things outside of yourself. Or you could focus on developing resilience and making peace with life on its own terms. Either way, you choose a path daily, and you have to keep walking it. &nbsp;<img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.0142054683348544761631040060663%2FThe%20Non-Pursuit%20of%20Happiness_3.webp?alt=media&token=33769263-9481-4a61-8edc-848dec0def93" alt="File preview" width="700" height="466" /> &nbsp;It&rsquo;s important to understand from the start that it&rsquo;s unlikely you will ever arrive at some fixed destination in life where you suddenly release all of these conditional attachments to happiness and gain enlightenment. But you can start by taking care of one thing in your life at a time, do it to the best of your current ability, and then move on to the next thing - similar to weeding a garden. This process of releasing long-held goals to root around in the dirt of the self can be pretty painful at first, but in time, you will grow more accustomed to it. Considering these ideas today, I&rsquo;m not entirely sure if my younger self would have fully embraced them or laughed at them and tossed them away. The dangling carrots were both plentiful and far more novel back then. At this point in life, I suppose I'm just content to be fortunate enough to have done my time on the happiness treadmill and still had a chance to jump off and look for something different. &nbsp;I&rsquo;m just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round. I really love to watch them roll. No longer riding on the merry-go-round, I just had to let it go. - &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; John Lennon

The Non-Pursuit of Happiness

<img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.069722072775078691635260788558%2Fimage1.webp?alt=media&token=1ba4366e-2b0d-4bf4-8b09-4cd52786240a" alt="File preview" width="700" height="466" /> Setting the Scene: Lawrence Kohlberg (1927-1987) was an American Psychologist who studied how people solved moral dilemmas. Kohlberg’s work often involved posing various moral questions to his research subjects. A famous example would be the ‘Heinz dilemma.’ It was a hypothetical question regarding a man who had the chance to steal life-saving drugs for his very sick wife and why he might decide to choose a specific course of action over another. To correctly classify these responses, Kohlberg proposed a basic construct for categorizing them that correspond to different moral developmental reasoning stages. Over the years, there has been some criticism of its limitations and legitimate questions about its scope and accuracy. However, it gives us an excellent starting point to begin our discussion on the topic of morality. <table style="width: 468pt; border-collapse: collapse; margin-left: 5pt"> <tr style="height: 27.25pt"> <td colspan="3" style=" border-bottom-color: #000000; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 2.25pt; padding-left: 5pt; padding-right: 5pt; padding-top: 5pt; padding-bottom: 3.88pt; vertical-align: bottom; " > The 6 Stages/Levels of Moral Development according to Kohlberg </td> </tr> <tr style="height: 21.25pt"></tr> <tr style="height: 25.75pt"> <td rowspan="2" style=" border-top-color: #000000; border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1pt; border-bottom-color: #000000; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: #000000; border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1pt; padding: 5pt; width: fit-content !important; " > Preconventional Morality </td> <td style=" border-top-color: #000000; border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1pt; border-bottom-color: #000000; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: #000000; border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: #000000; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1pt; padding: 5pt; width: 2em !important; " > 1 </td> <td style=" border-top-color: #000000; border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1pt; border-bottom-color: #000000; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: #000000; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1pt; padding: 5pt; width: fit-content !important; " > Punishment and Obedience - Follow the rules to avoid punishment </td> </tr> <tr style="height: 27.25pt"> <td style=" border-bottom-color: #000000; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: #000000; border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: #000000; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1pt; padding: 5pt; width: 2em !important; " > 2 </td> <td style=" border-bottom-color: #000000; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: #000000; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1pt; padding: 5pt; width: fit-content !important; " > Self Interest - How does complying with the rules benefit me? </td> </tr> <tr style="height: 25.75pt"> <td rowspan="2" style=" border-bottom-color: #000000; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: #000000; border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1pt; padding: 5pt; width: fit-content !important; " > Conventional Morality </td> <td style=" border-bottom-color: #000000; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: #000000; border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: #000000; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1pt; padding: 5pt; width: 2em !important; " > 3 </td> <td style=" border-bottom-color: #000000; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: #000000; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1pt; padding: 5pt; width: fit-content !important; " > Social Norms - Conforming to others expectations of goodness </td> </tr> <tr style="height: 27.25pt"> <td style=" border-bottom-color: #000000; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: #000000; border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: #000000; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1pt; padding: 5pt; width: 2em !important; " > 4 </td> <td style=" border-bottom-color: #000000; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: #000000; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1pt; padding: 5pt; width: fit-content !important; " > Law and Order - Submission to authority because it’s the law </td> </tr> <tr style="height: 25.75pt"> <td rowspan="3" style=" border-bottom-color: #000000; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: #000000; border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1pt; padding-left: 4.5pt; padding-right: 5pt; padding-top: 5pt; padding-bottom: 4.5pt; padding: 5pt; width: fit-content !important; " > Postconventional Morality </td> <td style=" border-bottom-color: #000000; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: #000000; border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: #000000; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1pt; padding: 5pt; width: 2em !important; " > 5 </td> <td style=" border-bottom-color: #000000; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: #000000; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1pt; padding: 5pt; width: fit-content !important; " > Social Contract - Do it for the greater common good </td> </tr> <tr style="height: 25.75pt"> <td rowspan="2" style=" border-bottom-color: #000000; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-left-color: #000000; border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: #000000; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1pt; padding: 5pt; width: 2em !important; " > 6 </td> <td rowspan="2" style=" border-bottom-color: #000000; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-right-color: #000000; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1pt; padding: 5pt; width: fit-content !important; " > Universal Ethical Principles - moral code based on universal values greater than oneself takes precedence over lesser laws and social mores </td> </tr> <tr style="height: 35.5pt"></tr> </table> <img src="https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/creed-community.appspot.com/o/images%2F0.069722072775078691635260788558%2Fimage2.webp?alt=media&token=695eccc0-e08e-46c2-ba09-93c68f708d51" alt="File preview" width="700" height="466" /> Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) was a German Philosopher and writer who often considered moral and ethical issues related to the concepts of personal identity and freedom. Nietzsche was a writer of great cleverness and wit. His work is still widely read and quoted to this day, and his ideas helped form the basis of many important discussions on cultural issues during the 20th century. Nietzsche’s writings often focused on the restrictive nature of morality used as a form of groupthink by the masses to suppress the creativity and originality of truly great individuals. Here are some of Nietzsche’s quotes regarding morality: “Morality is just a fiction used by the herd of inferior human beings to hold back the few superior men.” “Let us not underestimate this: we ourselves, we free spirits, are nothing less than a “revaluation of all values,” an incarnate declaration of war and triumph over all the ancient conceptions of “true” and “untrue.”” – The Antichrist “One becomes moral – not because one is moral. Submission to morality can be slavish or vain or selfish or resigned or obtusely enthusiastic or thoughtless or an act of desperation, like submission to a prince: in itself it is nothing moral.” – The Dawn “Convictions are more dangerous enemies of the truth than lies.” – Human, All Too Human For believe me! — the secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment is: to live dangerously! – The Gay Science While every noble morality develops from a triumphant affirmation of itself, slave morality from the outset says No to what is "outside," what is "different," what is "not itself"; and this No is its creative deed. – Genealogy of Morals The Presence of Conflicting Values: Moral debates often arise when conflicting values or goods are considered, and when we must make a choice between them. Moral debates can center around specific issues or concrete examples of conflict that exist in real life. Or, they can also center around broader or more abstract forms of reasoning in hypothetical scenarios. People debating a particular issue can come into conflict because one person is arguing about a single case based on its own specific merits. Another person may be extrapolating from the same data to formulate answers relevant to broader hypothetical situations. The debaters need to recognize the scope of their arguments to compare their conclusions effectively. In this article, we will be dealing with general ideas about morality rather than venturing into a discussion of specific cases. Here are two questions to consider before reading further: · How do we balance a sense of personal freedom and autonomy along with social responsibility and the universal principles of moral integrity? · And are there universal principles of morality that are truly greater than the individual? Or is the greatness of man the measure of all things? In Part 2 of this article, we will begin to compare and contrast some of the ideas of Nietzsche and Kohlberg. There will also be a series of questions for the reader to consider regarding this. Finally, in Part 3 of this article, we will consider the role of morality in building a functional society and how it all ties into the principles of equality and justice.

What do think about this idea?

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