NO HAPPINESS FIGHTING TO GRAB A BIGGER BITE OF THE APPLE

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              In 2015, Annapolis, Maryland, an electrical fire broke out in the home of Don and Sandra Pyle. The Pyles and four of their grandchildren perished in the fire.

              In 2015 in Princess Anne on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, a young father died from carbon monoxide poisoning with his seven children. The father was using a generator to keep his children warm after the home’s electrical power was cut off.

               In 2022 in LaPlata, Maryland a man shot and killed his ex-girlfriend, her brother, their mother and a guest in the home.

               Tragedies cover the well to do, the less than well to do, those struggling mentally and physically. United we are in our primary goal of happiness frustrated by a multiplicity of reasons.

                  Fifty-six percent (56%) of public assistance recipients in Maryland live with one member working. Government subsidizes low-wage employees. The State of Maryland spends over $1 billion annually providing health care to working families.

                  In Baltimore City, 26% of working residents receive food assistance with more than 30,000 working residents relying on public cash assistance income. 

                 Working parents in Baltimore, Maryland face exorbitant child-care costs, a lack of flexible work arrangements in an aging transportation system affecting their daily commute to and from work. Reliable before and after school care is on the short side.

                  People of all types face struggles and setbacks, some of their making, some not of their making. Common is elusive happiness.

                If one were to fly over this country looking down, one would see factories, industry, farms, mines, lumber yards, railroads, highways, cities and towns of all sizes, with lakes, rivers, mountains and deserts, of unbounded beauty, coming together with courage and imagination making a great nation.

                But if one were to get out, walk around and talk with the farmers, workers and bosses, the rich and poor, the people in this beauty not seen from high in the air, one would witness people fighting with each other to grab a bigger bite of the American apple.

                 Unlike members of the plant kingdom, man possesses the burden of seeking happiness. This burden is man’s history. Choice, free will, an attribute unique to man, gives him this burden. 

               Faced with choice, free will, man either runs away dying uneventfully in his bed, or embraces the freedom of free will giving him happiness.

                  Each of us was born of a doing not of our making but our journey, through life and exit from life, is of our doing.

                  Man’s endeavors throughout the ages have always been a quest for happiness achieved through the satisfaction of the Five Pillars of Man. Until these Pillars of Man are achieved, tomorrow will look like today with today looking like yesterday.

                  The Five Pillars of Man are the Pillar of the Physical, of the Intellect, of the Emotional, of the Spiritual and the Pillar of Love.

                  Strengthening the Pillars requires replacing complacency with freedom, natural to man, unique to man. In this pursuit, brave we must be, remembering from the Bible the words, “Fortune favors the brave”.

                  Plato wrote happiness is the highest aim of human conduct and all the struggles of man are to develop the skills needed to obtain it. 

                  The skills needing development involve these Five Pillars of Man understanding if one fails, all fail, forcing happiness to flee.  

                 Today these Five Pillars are failing giving us a life focused on learning how to hold on when everything feels like it is falling apart in a chaotic and dangerous world where emphasis is on people pulling each other apart not pulling together.

Shamefully people unite in the misery of unhappiness accompanied by loneliness pulling people apart from achieving that one goal truly uniting all. That is happiness. 

                  It is imperative that of these Five Pillars of Man, the Physical Pillar demands attention as a beginning not as an end. With its achievement, the Intellectual Pillar, the Emotional Pillar, the Spiritual Pillar and the Pillar of Love can thrive.

Otherwise, we continue to live in a world as described by Thucydides, “The strong do what they can do, and the weak do what they must”.