a letter about fortune

Dear LXXX,

 

Fortune, the answer depends on the scales of viewing on this.

 

In a philosophical way I would say: Fortune means to reach sustaining happiness in a state of personal freedom

 

The question follows, how can we reach happiness?

First of all, you need to be lucky enough in order to be healthy, and to be able to earn your living. A huge amount of people in our world cannot say that they own this basic piece of luck.

 

Assuming that you are that much lucky the next question is, what makes you feel happy?

Gifts can make you feel happy. But all material things usually make you happy for only a very limited time. In worst case you only feel happy when you get it, soon after receiving it you feel bored again. This is a well known attitude of wealthy persons, the punishment for being rich.

 

The second way of feeling happy has a better potential: when you achieve a goal. This requires what I would call the art of living. You need to define goals which can be achieved but which are not too simple. When you have success after carrying out a hard piece of work then you have good reasons to feel happy.

 

Some people derive their happiness from religion, philosophy or spiritual development. At the moment I prefer the hard work version but some voice tells me that the spiritual/philosophy/religion thing is also important for long sustaining happiness.

 

But there is one more important value for happiness, not mentioned so far. We are human beings. And maybe therefore this is the greatest fortune: to find a partner friend or second human being who matches with your soul. A person where you can see the universe by looking in her/his eyes. In a simple mathematical way you could also say, one plus one is more than just two. I believe in synergy. With the right partner you can “move mountains”.

 

Time flows like a river, everything changes every day, nothing stays the same, only the changes are a phenomena that stays over time. We change with time, and our body was built from particles existing all time before and after us, continuously changing, we are part of the flow, we form a river in time.

 

All my best wishes,

Ant