What goods are important in one’s life? Hedonism think every action is done by the human is because they want to obtain happiness, therefore, happiness is important if the human wants to live a good life. To me, if we do not have these goods, the life will be threatened in both physical body and soul, then the goods are important for human life. Thus, I think the keys to life should be in the following order: Health, Love, Progress in life, Wisdom and living a morally good life. The reasons are chiefly as follows.
To begin with, “Good X is more important than Good Y” means the Good X is the fundamental base of Good Y. In other words, if I have not Good X, I cannot have good Y. For example, if I have not a job, I cannot earn my first barrel gold and cumulative my wealth. In this example, the prerequisite of wealth is having a job, however, some people may argue that you also can have achievement because of your job, therefore, it would change to be “if I have not Good X, I cannot have good Y and good Z”. Either Good Y or Good Z, they are on the premise that having Good X, thus having a job is more important than your wealth or your achievement, because wealth can be created by the job.
Initially, Health is the basic foundations of human life. Peoples spend lots of time in cumulating their wealth forgetting the first step is maintaining good health. Only when you are health, you are available to do anything you want in your life, such as earn money, enhance your knowledge. Health included the healthy status of the physical body, mental and social which enable the person to handle pressure and absence of mental disease as well as to interact with the others in the society. Without health, you have nothing. If health is lost, you have not an ability to work or to love your family because your time has to rival the disease instead of to take care your friends or family. For instance, A healthy man, he has nothing in the world: no power, no wealth, no friends, no achievement, like a new born baby. With health, he can create anything he wants. He has much time to build his relationship, achieve different goals, make friends. He absolutely can live a good life. However, to take another extreme to be an example, an unhealthy man, he has everything in the world: power, wealth, achievement, love, friends, living a dream life. Without health, even he can use his wealth to hire a professional doctor, the doctor cannot cure his disease because he is suffering from fatal disease, the man only can remain confined to bed and wait for die and eat medicine to extend the time. Although the two examples only focus on the physical health of the man, the result of the unhealthy status of mental and social health are the same. Hence, health is essential and the most valuable things for human life.
After that, Love is the second key for the human life. If you already are a health person but without love, you have nothing in the world. Love is the interaction of peoples’ heart, like family love and friendship. Social support and the connection is a medicine for everyone’s heart as well as a power to motivate the persons. Many of us would think that the wealth is the most important in our life because you cannot do many things if you are no money, however, somethings that if you lost it, you cannot use the money to buy it again and these things are love. Although you already went away, you are existing in the heart of your friends or parent. If love is existing in between you and others, the love will not only limit in your whole life but also your friends’ life. If you lack love, you would be lonely, not merely no one will take care you and your pressure, but no one will support you. It would seriously affect your mental health and social health. Only when you are healthy, you can pursue love. For example, a vegetable, it may not love its family and friends because it is unable to do so and it cannot give the response to the interaction of the love. Thus, love is the second key to human life.
In addition, wisdom is also the second key for human life. If you already have health but without wisdom, you have the ability to do the wrong action and then you have nothing once you do the wrong action. For example, a healthy murder, since he has a health body which able him to kill someone, but he lacks wisdom causing him to do the wrong action, then he must go to jail. Wisdom is the key to determining what is the right or wrong. It is a natural instruction to help the person living a good life, solving the dilemma and avoiding the dangers. Wisdom is different from knowledge, some peoples may equip a wide range of knowledge, but they cannot handle the affair that out of their professional field. Wisdom will bring us to a good life, wisdom is not the things that limited in the theory or a book, rather the ability to judge. Only having wisdom, the life will be good not only on the surface but also in our soul.
Moreover, progress in life. If you have not health, love, and wisdom, you have not fulfilled the requirement for progress in life because you may affect by several incentives and feel stressful when you progress. If you have not love, you have no power to motivate yourself to take the action. If you have not wisdom, you may do the wrong action in order to speed your progression. Progress in life is the desire to move from bad to good, in other words, it is the pursuit of self. If a person does not want to step forward, the thinking of that person is like a zombie. For example, Jacky is an orphan, working in a logistic company as a driver. Every day he just moves the products from one side to another side via the transport. After twenty years, he also is a driver, although his salary may be increased because of inflation, he only continues to do the same thing every day and no target or objective for what he is doing because no one motivate him to do something he want. Maybe he thinks this is a good life because no trouble exists, but he just like a robot to live which is no soul. Progress in life does not mean to pursue material to make you happy, it means to pursue something is good to your soul, such as happiness.
Finally, the importance of living a morally good life is equal to progress in life. Only when you can determine the right or wrong, you can live morally. According to Aristotle, if we did lots of wrong things and make a wrong decision, we will live poorly. Therefore, our virtue would help us to gain some really good things and bring these things to our life. Everyone can live their life once, we must do the right action and make a right decision, even if you are doing the wrong action, you should think some methods to compensate that. As Peter killed his boss because of impulse and then he goes to police station to confess what he was done because he know it is a wrong action. Although he gets into jail at the end, he can live a good life after he gets out of the jail because he did the morally right thing, he will free from negative emotion and influence of his life. To live morally, the person would get well in their life and their soul. Only when you are satisfied your soul and your body, you are living the real life.