Is yours a first-rate existence all the time and nothing else?

Question

I believe whatever we think, do or experience is nothing but the best that we can think, perform and have in wider world around. We are either hypocrite or ignorant if we say that we have not been at our very best recently. Do we all feel that we are not being able to be what we actually can be? Do we keep ourselves waiting for our chance to be what we think we can be, or even what we believe we should be, why?

Answer 1

Nobody else has ever lived my life, has had my experiences or felt the way that I do now and have done in the past.
I have had some bad times and some fantastic times but I have always done what seemed to be right at the time.
My life may not have been the best but it is unique and as such it is a first-rate existence, yes.

Answer 2

First of all, 'first-rate' is a relative concept. If you have first-rate, than you also have second-rate, third-rate and so on. So in using the term you're actually tacitly accepting that it is possible to be less than our best.

I think that probably says a lot. The idea that it's possible to be less than our best is so embedded in our mentality and culture that it permeates the language we use to such an extent that even you (as someone who believes that whatever we think, do or experience is nothing but the best that we can think, perform or have) have adopted the terms.

And how depressing to think that things couldn't be a jot better even if I had more energy, more free time, more money etc. All things that I believe are perfectly within my power to make happen. Choosing one might mean forsaking another, but I could attain at least some of these things. I think many people are lazy (myself included) and just say to themselves 'I'll do it tomorrow'. Dreaming of the good life is easier than actually making it happen, and is often enough to keep us content.

Answer 3

We can only think on what we know. To experience anything is a form of recognition is it not? Again this is limited to the known. Our action stem from all this, therefore always limited.
Why should this be the 'best'?
Most thinking re voles around a single thought, 'me'.
Which is very limiting. The human mind is conditioned in so many ways that your actions and thoughts are held in grooves.
The human mind is time bound, past, present and future. we exist in the present as a being, moment to moment, with a mind that dwells in the past or projects a fictitious future. This keeps us waiting and holds us back.
You can only have a first rate existence all the time and nothing else, when you realise that your identity with 'your' mind and 'your' thoughts is false and not what you are.

To label our condition as hypocritical or ignorant is not helpful in the understanding of what is the actual. As we are conditioned also to reward and punishment, good and bad etc. The condition is what it is.
Neither good or bad, as these are merely opinions.

Can we be aware of all this without labelling it at all?

I feel that only in awareness which sits behind all mind activity, and is the source of what we truly are can we exist without conflict inside or out.

Answer 4

There can be no such thing as a "first rate existence" because who is going to do the rating ? You might look at my existence and consider it vile, and vice versa.

However, I accept your second point, only I'd say it more simply: Everyone is doing their best, all the time. It may not appear so to you, but you don't know their past or the pressures on them.

I used to be young and unhappy, now I'm old and happy, thinner, fitter than I have been for years and if I didn't waste so much time on yahoo answers, I'd be a perfick human bean :)

Answer 5

This is true in the same sense that we always do what we want to do. We make choices based on different needs and on available information. I have just eaten a cake. Obviously I wanted to do it, no-one made me, and if they had it would still have been my choice to accede.
I dont want to eat cake because it is unhealthy and makes me fat.

I want to be the best person that I can be. I dont think that I am. I want to be kind and good and selfless. I find myself being selfish and self-centered.

I had 5 hours sleep last night. I was not at my best in work today because I was too tired to think straight. I know that the day would have been better if I had slept longer.

I dont wait to be the best I can be. I accept that it is a pendulum thing. I hope to 'swing' towards better and away from 'worse' but I dont worry about it.

Answer 6

First of all you forget that you are a social being and your existence is shared by others who are constantly influencing you . Mind you are also influencing their existence. To be the best possible can lead to fatalism and carelessness. On the other hand if you think seriously about the matter your existence is really your group existence and your group existence is really the entire humanity existence. Look at the state of the entire humans on earth and you have a pretty good answer to your question.

Answer 7

Interesting question, fair comment, I've never quite looked at it that way. Certainly, it is up to us to do our best for ourselves, our family and friends. However, there must be times for all of us when we feel a bit low, a bit woolly, incompletely in some way. There should be things we can do about it, exercise, diet, relationships, or just ignore the feeling and carry on with what we want to do and achieve.

Answer 8

When we say we haven't been at our best we mean that we have not been functioning in an optimal way. Now your point of view seems to argue that we always do our best, because we are incapable, biologically, of doing anything else. This is true when you look at the issue from a strictly biological viewpoint, but when you switch viewpoints midstream it gives rise to anomalies. Was Ted Bundy, for example, doing his best?

Yes, we are biologically and environmentally programmed to do our best under the circumstances of the time. But when we say 'I've not been at my best lately', we mean that we are not functioning as well as we have in the past. That seems to me to be a perfectly reasonable thing to say.

Answer 9

We get lazy, don't always try our best, are not always open to others' good influences. Some people, perhaps through things told them in childhood, don't believe that they are worthy to be fulfilled, so, wrt your last point, keep themselved from fulfilling their full potential.

On the other hand, perhaps without the 'downs' we wouldn't appreciate the 'ups'!

Answer 10

If everything we do is always necessarily 'the best' we could have done, then surely 'the best' loses all meaning as it can only be meaningful as a relative term.