What Do People See as a Good and Meaningful life?

People base the meaning of a good and meaningful life on their personal experiences and what they view around them. Everyday people are exposed to different points of view on what is considered to be a good and meaningful life. The media has a huge impact on what is socially accepted as a “good” and/or “meaningful” life. No one person can help but to be influenced by the world they live in to think a good and meaningful is to be "successful and rich" or to "be oneself," it is those types of "brainwashing ideas" from birth that makes a person think they know what a good and meaningful life is and how to live one.

My definition of a good and meaningful life is, sad to say, mostly based on what corporate culture has told me what a good and meaningful life is, along with some folk culture. I say this because it is completely true, probably from the moment I was born corporate culture has had the largest impact on the way I live my life. Corporate culture has shown me the "good" way to live a "happy and problem free" life. I believe corporate culture has affected me through the television and the shows I watch, also through music and magazines. I watch, listen, and read about all the ways I can "make my life better..." and these various medias inform me on how this is possible.

I would like to think that I can up with this idea of how to live a good and meaningful life on my own but I was probably influenced by corporate culture to think this way, I do not know for sure. But I believe a good and meaningful life is being happy and at peace with myself. I need to understand myself in order to live a good and meaningful life. As I continue to listen to corporate culture's idea of a good and meaningful life, I, as many people may have started to notice, one of corporate culture's many messages is "to be your true self" but how can you be your true self if you do what the media tells one to do? I feel that this message can be contradicted by one's own inner thoughts. When you think about it, corporate cultures is telling you to be yourself, but in order to be yourself, you should already be yourself by not listen to corporate culture telling you to be yourself. I also feel that at one point in my life it may be necessary that I become successful in some area of my interests. I think that being successful in a area of my interest such as art would make my life more meaningful. Being successful in the art and in photography world would make me happy and I believe that would be living a good life, I would be enjoying doing what I love to do everyday. If I was not successful with my art, I think that I would still enjoy life and I would still believe that my life is meaningful, I would just have to find another way to make a living. For example I would just find another job and still enjoy taking pictures on the side, as a hobby. I believe money is important because that is how ours society functions, but if I was not able to make money with my artwork I would just find another job to support myself, even if it had to be non-art related.

To get other points of view on what makes a good and meaningful life and as a part of this class course, we went outside and interviewed people who were walking down the street. Through several quick interviews, I was able to get a brief understanding of what people believe is a meaningful life. When I posed the question: What is the most meaningful aspect of your life? Many answered back that their family was the most meaningful thing in their life. But they didn't really give a detailed explanation why family is meaningful to them. Only one man mentioned that his family is always there for him and that the purpose of family is to support each other. I believe that man is living a good and meaningful life because he knows why his family meaningful his life. He has a reason. Many of the other people I interviewed said that family was important to them as well but they did not explain further, even if I asked another question for further explanation. I think that people think family is important to them because that has been the main corporate culture messages for years. Family always comes first. So they feel they have not real explanation for the importance of family in their life because according to corporate media family is just important to your life, they don't really know why, it just is. My guess is that none of them have actually been asked that question, why is your family important or meaningful to your life? They have not thought about their family like that, with meaning or importance, people think family is just a group of people who have a close relation to you, no questions asked.

The internet is a huge corporate culture invention. The internet advertizes anything anyone could think of buying, selling, and spreading. When you search a topic on google, the right side of the page is usually a list of links to pages that may relate to the topic being searched. Corporate culture is continuously trying to spread the messages of buying things that "will make your life better." The internet advertises all types of corporate culture messages but not so many marginal messages and prohibited messages are almost never advertised. As soon as you go online, let's just say you go to check your e-mail, log on to yahoo.com and as soon as the page loads, there is a box in the center of the page with some sort of current news that the internet corporations are trying to shove down your throat by putting it right in your face. There is a moving advertisement for Visa Cards, Target shopping deals, Bluefly.com, The O. Below that advertisement there is another for popular videos, trying to get people to go on their website and watch ridiculous videos and to boost the online companies ratings. Next to that there is an add for Netflix "only $4.99/month" trying to lure people into the great deals they want to offer. All of these advertisements are on one internet page. So when you go to check your e-mail you most likely get distracted by all of they other corporate culture messages being offered you don't get around to checking you e-mail until after you have checked out the "great" offers available. Corporate cultures message here, that they advertise online is trying to get people to spend more and more money and making the consumer think they got the best deal out of it.

Next thoughts:
Movies/films are another way for corporate culture to send messages to people. Movies like High School Musical, Joe Dirt, Cinderella, Superbad, Saving Grace, Wanted....