You Can Live A Hard Life But Still Be Happy

The Story of Socrates and Lessons We Can Learn From It

Who was Socrates anyway? Socrates was a philosopher and one of the few individuals who has helped shape our culture and our opinions on the world without having written any words himself for his community and for the people.

He was born in the suburb of Athens. At his time, the culture of Athens was sexist, racist, discriminative, judgmental, ageist, etc. Socrates truly believed that this was unfair, justice needed to be found and he was not afraid to share his thoughts and opinions with the rest of his community. Unfortunately, things only started to get worse. Around his time democracy was starting to evolve, but no one had a clear idea of what democracy was, therefore people just assigned random citizens to govern the city for a specific day and Socrates could not handle this dumbness of his society. He started to feel infuriated and drifted towards the dark side of Athens where you could see salesman trying to create black markets and prostitutes which really started to change his opinion and raise questions about life. He wondered how things were made and what the purpose of life was along with other philosophical questions. And like democracy, philosophy was also very new to Athens’ society, culture and community.

Socrates really wanted to live a good life rather than fit in and adapt the culture of Athens. Unlike everyone else, Socrates was more interested in human affairs and the condition of the soul and so he decided to turn his focus onto himself and the inner world of his mind wondering who he actually was as a person and what he should now do with his life.

To him, knowing right from wrong was the most important skill to have in one self. However, his journey wasn’t so easy. Being able to control your state of mind when everyone around you has opposing views is really hard. You need mental fortitude and patience to do this. He had dedicated so much of his time and focus towards this that he had even lost his sleep for days because he was in deep thought for hours - from the beginning of the day till the end. You would think that he lost most of his life in just deep thoughts, but this is what gave him happiness.

However, this search for truth was the cause of his death. Who's going to trial for changing peoples minds and having an effect on the youth which apparently would be bad for their future, or so that's what they thought. So Socrates without defending himself, agreed to face all consequences and drank a potion containing hemlock. Although most of the people in Athens were against Sócrates and his believes many people were also inspired and decided to continue philosophy through their own lens. And people like plateaued became famous and followed the path of so crates and his beliefs and things that he discoveredAlthough most of the people in Athans were against Socrates and his believes many people were also inspired and decided to continue philosophy through their own lens. And people like Plato followed the path of Socrates and his beliefs ; things that he discovered.

In the end I feel that even though many people were against Socrates, he had the determination to go forward and learn a lot through his life and there are many things that we can learn from his story and thoughts.

“An unexamined life is not worth living.”

We all are limited to the life we live but don’t realize it. There are expectations that others have from us and we are always trying to fulfil them, but we have to realize that we don’t need to fit in. It’s okay to ask questions about our “limits” or “rules” that are set for us. We shouldn’t feel like our life is unclear. Know what you want from life and work towards that.

True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.

There is so much false information to be found on the internet, through social media or even articles. People also tend to have specific and bias opinions which eventually grow on you to be “your own opinions,” but if you believe that you don’t know anything, you will be able to accept new information (or the truth).

One of the most important lessons you could learn from Socrates’ life is that no matter what others believe in, don’t let people control you and take time out of your day to internalize your thoughts & actions. This could really help you grow as a person and be more open minded along with aware of your surroundings.

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