After learning about existentialists, I personally feel that every college should learn about some of their values. More specifically, I feel that every student needs to learn the problems with living for a future moment. It is scary to me how many young people are so focused on their future lives that they forget about what is going on in the present moment. The problem is that people believe that some future moment in their life will fulfill them or make them happy. I have read many stories about successful people who could never reach satisfaction with their lives. These people would keep telling themselves that some future moment will make them happy, but once that moment arrived, some other future moment became the new moment that will make them happy. A person who is internally unhappy will never become happy because of some external event.
College students need to stop thinking that their college experience is only a bridge that will get them some future dream job. I have seen personally the problems that people who think this way will face. The main problems that they run in to relate back to the decisions that they make while in college. Students will become business majors so that can become wealthy after they get out of college; most times they will never reach the wealth level that they want, but even if they do, they will never feel fulfilled.
If college students began reading about existentialism, then I feel they would reach a sort of wake up call in their lives. Their reading may cause them to rethink what their true purpose in life is. Even though existentialists say that there is no absolute purpose in life, I still feel that people who read about existentialists may feel that they need to be looking for a deeper purpose in life. I feel that college students may realize that the main purpose in life does not relate to anything outside of them, such as money, and other materialistic things. After reading about existentialists, they would start to understand that they could only be fulfilled by living in the present moment, and living for future fulfillment is a major mistake.
I feel that existentialism is group of beliefs that would be extremely helpful for people to understand in today’s society, but it would be most helpful for college students. I do not agree with all of the ideas that existentialism represents, but I believe that college students could learn a lot because they generally have an open mind about things that they learn. Existentialism goes against many things that our society teaches, and I feel that it would be good for college students to learn about something that goes against society’s norms. Society teaches us the importance of having wealth, and that having materialistic things will make us happy. Society also tells us that certain ways to live are the right ways to live, and everything else is wrong. Existentialists instead encourage people to enjoy the process of living moment by moment, and they also tell us that there is no exact truth, and therefore people should find out what is true in their own lives.
Are the ideas of existentialism to vague to be taught as a class in college?
I agree completely, but choose your words wisely. You stated, "living for future fulfillment is a major mistake." In existentialism, living for future fulfillment is good, as long as it is fulfillment of character. Given the context, I think I know what you really meant to say though.-Living for future fulfillment of happiness or external materials is a major mistake.
ReplyDelete"Man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world - and defines himself afterwards."-Sartre