Happiness and Heaven

A lot of people tend to think of Heaven and Hell as places that are diagnosed to a being based on their actions. Good actions and good intention take you on the path to heaven. Bad actions and bad intention take you on the path to hell. However, how are we to actually know where we're supposed to go if there is not an "official" person to tell us where we're going. So, I guess that the real question is how to define heaven (which by the way I link directly to happiness).

Firstly, I'll have to define happiness. Once, in philosophy, I remember having heard my professor telling us (based off a text of course) that those who feel guilt, know that they are not doing something right in the first place. And because of that guilt, they'll never feel true happiness. I think that that is entirely true. I think truth is complete happiness. I don't mean attaining the complete knowledge blah blah blah that Plato talks about. I'm talking about the kind of basic truth that we learn when we're younger: do not lie. For example, if one is lying to a friend about a secret or to their parents about what they're doing, then can we really feel fully happy if we are indirectly disappointing those people? Regardless of the amount of pleasure or conceived happiness that we believe we are feeling, at the end of the day...we are lying and at the end of day...we will reflect back and realize that what we are doing will in one way or another hurt somebody/something. And, that = unhappiness. If we don't lie, whether it is to others or to ourselves, I think it is possible to attain true happiness. Deciding whether not to lie or to lie, believe it or not, does not happen in heaven. It happens right on this earth. It happens when we're alive.

Moving on...in my belief, heaven is simply a state of mind. It is merely the way one feels about themselves. There is no one in this world that has the job of diagnosing people heaven or hell. Thus, we must leave it to ourselves (and maybe even our own intuition) to decide where we're going. Judging oneself is the only way we can attain our own states of heaven. Relieving ourselves of guilt leads us on our way to happiness. Therefore, heaven does not give us happiness. It is not a consequence of what we do on this earth. Happiness or unhappiness is the consequence of what we do on this earth. Happiness gives us heaven. Heaven does not give us happiness. 

So, I've come up with the theory that heaven is not a place that we go to get the happiness we deserve. It is, instead, a place that we go to based off the amount of happiness we create for ourselves in this world. In my opinion, we build our own heaven and hells without even realizing it...what we make of this world and what we make of every day yields our future. Be happy, is my conclusion.