I found out today about a philosophy called Objectivism. Essentially, it is about serving the self and trying to achieve happiness for oneself above the needs of society or “the collective.” I can see why this type of philosophy might seem attractive, but it just doesn’t work for me.
It sort of fits under that temptation of the devil saying, “I’ll give you everything you ever wanted.” Here the temptation is saying, “Do whatever it takes to be happy.” Except the problem is I am not on this path to be happy. I am on this path to experience life and all it has to offer. I certainly could look inside of myself and try to do whatever I could to make myself happy, but I don’t think that type of life would be meaningful or fulfilling. I don’t think that life would be one that was well-examined and taught me anything significant about living.
Instead, I have chosen to search deep inside of myself to find who I truly am. I seek to find myself and to live my life as close to that person that I know is made in the image of God. Objectivism says there is no higher moral goal that to seek the individual’s own happiness. However, that is already a flawed idea because happiness is subjective. What is happiness to one person could be sorrow to someone else. The highest moral goal for me is to seek my own truth and to live that truth every day because the one truth that we all share is that one day we will all die. When that day comes for me, the light of God and truth will be so much more important than happiness.
My faith saved me. May God’s peace reside in all of our hearts.
