Efrat Israeli's Blog: Life is good! Trying to find what's good about life...

From the novel The House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton:

"Success?" She hesitated. "Why, to get as much as one can out of life, I suppose. It's a relative quality, after all. Isn't that your idea of it?"
"My idea of it? God forbid!" He sat up with sudden energy, resting his elbows on his knees and staring out upon the mellow fields. "My idea of success," he said, "is personal freedom."
"Freedom? Freedom from worries?"
"From everything—from money, from poverty, from ease and anxiety, from all the material accidents. To keep a kind of republic of the spirit—that's what I call success."

Edith Wharton was an insider in America's privileged classes when she wrote about freedom "from all the material accidents." Nevertheless her heroine, Lily Bart, must marry for money in order to maintain her position in 1890s New York upper-class society. Her desperate need contradicts the notion of personal freedom as mentioned above and especially the freedom to build love relationships.
In modern times and particularly in the beginning of the third millennium, one would expect that women will be free to marry out of love; to put less emphasis on class, race, and education. But this is not the case, as statistics reveals. Women still look for economic security, and they are much more likely to marry someone from their own race and ethnicity:
"Never-married women place a great deal of importance on finding someone who has a steady job—fully 78% say this would be very important to them in choosing a spouse or partner… the changes in the labor market have contributed to a shrinking pool of available employed young men… the vast majority of new marriages (85%) take place between people of the same race and ethnicity," (taken from: http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2014/0...)
And I ask – what have changed since Edith Wharton' time? One possible answer – today women can "bypass" the whole subject of marriage or cohabitation with a suitable spouse; nowadays they can be single parent, support themselves and not be criticized and even condemned as they would have been in Wharton's time. There are probably many other possible answers…

In his inaugural speech, President George Bush Junior said as follows:

"… By making every citizen an agent of his or her own destiny, we will give our fellow Americans greater freedom from want and fear, and make our society more prosperous and just and equal."

The president talked highly about destiny, yet I am thinking about something much simpler – the ability to decide between many available choices. I wonder how it can be executed in light of the brain wash - since very young age – in favor of a life style that make people unable to postpone immediate gratification; the obsessive consuming of food, products of all kinds, cars and recreation - that all of them have nothing to do with justice and equality. And what freedom is available inside the pre-dictated frame – a New World that had long ago created for itself the American Dream with its traditions that are like iron chains?

“Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”
― George Bernard Shaw

Couldn't agree more. There isn't a "self" to be found somewhere.
That's not to say that a soul searching is not needed from time to time. A penetrating examination of our motives, convictions, and attitudes is good if we are doing it in order to feel better with ourselves and in our relationships. But in the end of the day I do think that what counts is what I do – my actions are me, for good and for bad. "Creating myself" doesn't mean to become someone like George Bernard Shaw; little daily self-creations are sufficient.
Examples? Please tell me about them… :)

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
― Albert Einstein

And I suggest a third way - to live one miracle at a time; try to find them in our hectic life and enjoy them to the fullest. It can be a good meal, a good conversation, a smile, a great book...
My personal miracle at that time of my life is my new novel HER PROMISED ROAD - I don't want the thrill to end!

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
― Oscar Wilde

I'm not sure there is a fine line between living and existing. I had days when just being alive made me fill happy and was enough, with no need to "Live life to the fullest" as people are expected to in modern times. Expectations can be very stresful sometimes...