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What is a good life? To some, it is a sense of normalcy and a sense of being part of a social organism. To other's it is the superseding of personal limits and attain a level of success deemed acceptable by the larger crowd. Can we achieve a level of satisfaction independent of the opinions of other's? This means that success is what we called, rather than what other's say we are or dictate what we are.

To many, a good life is one which surrounds what other's want of us. Sometimes, we do it without even realizing it. We open the papers, we watched the television programs and observed the glossy ads.  At other times, we received praises, awards and accolades from other's and we know that we are getting there.

But can we have a good life independent of these external stimulus? This means that the person whom works hard but does not appear on any "Best" award receives a certain amount of satisfaction from having done a job well done.

Ultimately, why does the first supersedes the second- which means that the  persons with all the attention and the most markers of success enjoy a good life which no others enjoy. Leaving out external social, political and economic environment, does that mean that when " I say you are good", it means that you have received affirmation and you should feel good about yourself. This means that why do we feel good from listening praises from our local community then say global or outside community. Is there a difference. [ leaving out hard analysis of politics, economics and social issues aside]

In the second, the satisfaction- independent of any material analysis of external environment- is simply which comes from actually attaining a certain amount of life goals and milestones which we personally deemed as achievements in our right. This could be simply getting what we did yesterday wrong, right today- how then does it differ from saying, someone at your back watching your every move and praising your every improvement.

And of course, it is commonly thought that the first are suppose to enjoy more "economic" rewards, since the grapevine is where the words get spread around. Let's say we enjoy the satisfaction of gaining approval of other's and how is it that these rewards allow us to have a good life.

The middle class sobriety which we see on the bus, print and media ads which a lot of aspring young graduates wants to attain. Yes, we look like them and apparently, everyone really like us- but how does it satisfies us.

Since, the apparent reward is that such attainment breeds a sense of success by which get inspires interest in prospective clients and employers- but that is reaffirming the identity of other's but not ourselves. The reality is that, the middle class white collar worker, struggles to buy a car, pay his housing and keep his 1.4 children happy in Singapore without the help of a duo income. All these at the same time of blasting condominium ads, sleek car ads, alluring luxury good ads and also a sense of envy which requires us to keep our sobriety and our Joneses happy.

This means that the good life is part of the larger social organism which seems forever like a broken radio which keeps on playing the same song but never seems to find the end and continuation of another new song. This is a normalcy and this is what keeping with Joneses means.

But if keeping the appearances is ever the important, what happens when we are chasing a moving goalpost- other people's goalpost and not our's. The pretty wife, the trophy car. the clean children and the minimalist house suddenly seems like a threadmill, forever running and moving but the scenery never changes.

I am not going to blast you with any more atomization and materialistic bullshit that you so aware of but sometimes I wonder, the vacant, empty eyes. Who are we and what are we made of?