OUR FOREFATHERS WERE HAPPIER THAN WE ARE BY ARIYE EBILABO
OUR FOREFATHERS WERE HAPPIER THAN WE ARE BY ARIYE EBILABO
Happiness is a feeling of pleasure, contentment or joy. To be happier than someone is to possess’ joy or enough subtle pleasure and contentment more than another person. Some people might think, how was our forefather happier than we are? Well, there are a lot of reasons to enlighten you that they, in fact, happier than we are.
Realistic satisfaction: Our forefathers live a simple happy life where they are satisfied with what they got, they live a reality, unlike us where we photoshop and airbrush and create expectations for ourselves which are virtual and we try hard to convince ourselves. Until we face the reality we will not know that our happiness scale is not even zero quarter of our expectation scale, and that is, we are never satisfied, that’s why we’re not happy and yet we continue feeding ourselves with virtual expectations, with lies. We don’t face the reality of life. That’s the difference between us and our forefathers.
Spending time with family: They knew the real meaning of spending time with family members. They give much time to their family and friends rather than wasting it on the internet and social media. They had tasted the real taste of childhood. Most of us don’t know simple games we ought to know at our age. We don’t have a childhood. We enjoy playing stupid games at each other. In those days, everyone had time for each other’s but now selfishness has rooted itself in our society.
Depression cases. Depression has indicated us more among the recent generations than among our forefathers. Many studies show this. Our forefathers defined happiness as contentment and fulfillment from long relationships. Our generation defined happiness with events of pleasure. Our forefathers were happier than us. In today generation, children are given loads of homework, some kids spend a lot of time on gadgets, social media, hanging out friends than their families, they do not have time to spend their children. Our generation does not care about others they are so self-centered. We do not live a life of happiness, we only care about earning money. Earning money is pointless and worthless if we are not happy. Happiness in our lives is very essential or important as it reflects our lives in many ways. ‘’Happy people live longer!’’
Air pollution: We lack fresh air to inhale due to carbon (IV) oxide in the atmosphere whereas in those days they had good air and no sign of air pollution. We are living in a materialistic and dangerous earth, but our forefathers lived on sound earth. Today advancement has given rise to global warming, and today people think that they are happier but our spirits know that we are not because all means of technology have indirectly affected our lives in bad ways. For instance, diseases due to radiation from radio waves and ultra-violet rays from the sun that is penetrating our atmosphere due to man’s activities that causes skin cancer, sunburns which could also cause meningitis. In the days of our forefathers, none of these happened. Most people would say we are better because we could cure the disease. But I want you to know that prevention is better than cure. Also, our forefathers didn’t have such disease that we have. Haven’t you noticed that it was the advancement of technology and the change of belief that natural disasters and such disease started unfolding gradually? In the days of our forefathers, they didn’t have serious diseases, their disease were just minor injuries which could be easily cured by medicinal herbs.
Economic Recession: Nevertheless, our forefathers never faced an economic recession. In our present time, we face tremendous economic problems. Today the economy is good, tomorrow is bad. A few years ago, we were in economic recession because of our present government. In the days of our forefathers, they were happy without selfish government. They live there simple life on their own. Though they had few leaders who governed them, they didn’t have problems with government and didn’t lack anything. Unlike us, today bag of rice will increase, tomorrow it will decrease, and our economy is so bad to the point that our cafeteria also increases their price, Limca bottle of #5 is now #80, sweets that were #1 is now #20. In the days of our forefathers' things were not like this.
Corruption: Everyone seemed equal but they still respected people of authority like king and rulers and everything still went smooth and good. There were low cases of theft and arm robbery as there were strict rules and regulations guiding them. There was nothing like high class, low class or middle class. They were happy with their kind of life that they were living. Unlike us, we can never be satisfied with anything. There was nothing like Muslim or Christian. They had focus and straightforward. Moreover, don’t forget the fact that there were low rate or probably no corruption in their time. We still want more. Also we need to get more important fact that they were united. There were no diversity. They were not that poor. Poor people were still regarded in the society. They love each other. Old people spend most of their nights to tell folktale with their children. But now most grandparents of this generation don’t do that. Everyone loves each other. We care for the person right next to us and were not bias.
Death: I acknowledge the fact of the modern civilization that we have through science and technology giving human many things to enjoy that are our forefathers had no access to, such as electricity and it's by-product. But the same civilization has created huge environmental degradation in the form of industrial wastes littering the land, air, and sea as pollution which in turn have led to a large number of death.
The world health organization said on Tuesday, September 27, 2016. That 92% of the world population breath are containing pollutant exceeding WHO limits, resulting in the huge number of death across the world.
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