Many religions across time and across the globe somehow preaches the same ideals, even as different as they may be. For example, the need of speaking the truth, the respect for other life, and the quest to attain a true happiness, whether its nirvana or heaven. For me, many of these religions have the same universal morals that I do believe in, but I do not believe in the whole religion or way of life. Many of them have influenced my way of living life, such as growing up as a Catholic and later dismissing much of western religious thinking for Buddhist and Taoism ideals. I live my life as a fusion of much these different cultures, and also use my experiences to become the person I am today.

I believe an individual should live their life as free from the constraints of society, and even their own mind, and yet still be a worthy and functional person to the people around them. I think that people are the cause for their own depression and problems, and they alone are the cause for their wrong actions. On the flipside, I think people are also the key to their own happiness. Much like Kant, I believe that someone’s actions should have pure intentions behind it, where the final result is not much important, but only how the person feels while carrying out the action. It does not have moral value if you make a promise to someone in order to get something in return later on. With that said, it is only the essence of the moment that shows you whether you truly do something out of the greatness of your heart, and shows you whether you truly have an unreasonable happiness for mundane things. I strongly believe that people should live to care, to eventually love, and do something that benefits even the smallest of details in someone else’s life.

In Taoism, it speaks of following the “way” to achieve certain themes of their culture. Many Taoist principles include naturalness, vitality, peace, detachment from desires, and spontaneity. I believe that much of things you do should be effortless, such as belief of “Wu Wei”. You should be soft, aware and graceful, the way water is. Water is seen as soft and weak, and yet it can carve stone and move earth. I believe it is human nature to be intuitive, to seek the truth, and it has brought us to sometimes destructive forces. Humans end up trying to fight the balance of nature, they fail to see that we are a product of nature itself. Much of human kind never reaches its own natural side, and focuses too much on living in their own made up world of irrationality and illusions. We become too accustomed to thinking this way, that we forget what it is to actually live. Like Taoist ideals, we are like leaves floating down the river, and when we try to go against it, we only find ourselves in conflict with our minds.

Human nature has also carved up a box that we live in, a society that only makes us desire things we do not really need, such as materialistic items that show “power”, or a paper hung on the wall that shows intelligence. We also become unaware of a true happiness without meeting these desires. “When the power of love, overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace” (Jimi Hendrix). This quote shows that humans begin to oppose change, and they begin only living their life as to meet these desires. We forget what it is to reach happiness without reason, what it is to love without expecting something in return. “I’m floating down a river, Oars freed from their holds long ago, Lying face up on the floor of my vessel, I marvel at the stars, And feel my heart overflow” (Incubus-band “Aqueous Transmissions”). When we let go of desires, of worldly possessions and open our eyes to the beauty of life around us, we will know what it is to truly live. “There are no ordinary moments” (Millman, 138) shows us that there is always something to appreciate, and we must live beyond illusions, beyond the thought of the past or the future. We should live in the here and the now, because it is the only thing that is certain, and it is the only thing that can show us what we really live for.

Humans sometimes trap themselves in negative thoughts, mostly when they reach something they were expecting to reach, but did not. We create illusions over certain things that can have a negative impact on us. For example, education and the meaning of success and accomplishment. Humans lose focus of a true learning experience and true knowledge. We all become subjected to following a “right path” to reach happiness. I do not believe having a certain education that leads to a certain job and a certain amount of income will bring inner peace and happiness. It is merely an illusion of the “right path”, one possible choice of many other choices people fail to see. I think you only receive an education if you open your mind wide enough to let it. If you see the power of the things around you, because experience and being aware of the things around you can also teach you a lot. Striving to have an interest in something you love, and building character along with your own morals is also a sense of intelligence. “Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education” (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr).