Sitting on the comfortable sofa in the room of his house where he had his library, Mr. Marcos enjoyed a refreshing drink, at that moment, his little son who was just 7 years old arrived, the kid told his father in and unexpected way He told him that he had heard On television, someone commented that we must look for a sense of happiness, then the boy asked "Dad, what is the meaning of happiness?" Marcos looks at his little son, smiles with an expression of astonishment and Surprise by the question of the little one, He can hardly put his thoughts in order and stroking his head, just try to answer, the sense of happiness is to live happily, which seemed an obvious answer, but it was an answer that had given it under the impact that the question produced. At that moment, Mr. Marcos is caught by his thoughts in a deeper meditation on that question, is locked in a short reflection about the question.
Marcos in the midst of his reflections, observes his library and looks at the philosophy section, there he had some books which talk about "Epicureo", philosopher who was fond of leading a life where pleasure and happiness prevailed, first of all, it is said that he came to write about very varied topics, love, wealth, about the ways of life, among others. But by various circumstances and tragedies, much of his work was lost and some of his work were recovered, some fragments while others were reconstructed by the exposition of later epicurean philosophers.
Marcos recalled that although Epicureo was always associated with sensual pleasure, the philosopher speaking on the subject related to happiness, said that it could come through: friendship, freedom and reflection, in fact, Marcos remembered to have read that Epicureo had once expounded: "Of all the means of which wisdom is armed to attain happiness in life, the most important one with much advantage is the treasure of friendship."
Undoubtedly, Mark agreed with Epicureus in this observation of friendship, the philosopher recommended, as far as possible, not to eat alone and always surrounded in most cases of friends at meals, in fact, said Epicureo to be in a banquet with a lot of exquisite meat, regardless of the abundance of the food, filling with that delicacy without company, was like living the life of the Lion or the Wolf. Epicureo pointed out that having real friends was enough to give us the love and respect that no fortune or wealth in the world could put in our lives.
For freedom, Marcos recalled, Epicureo recommended that independence in life reported a degree of happiness so great, that it was worth all sacrifice not to feel that was dependent on doing routine and unattractive work, just to have the money what they could give It was preferable to forge the future trying to achieve economic freedom, although the money produced was not of great proportions, as long as the degree of freedom achieved allowed you to live without ties to bosses or jobs that did not yield the desired satisfaction.
Marcos continued analyzing the recommendation made by Epicureo on the other aspect for happiness, which was related to reflection, because the philosopher was concerned about how to deal with the anxiety caused by the problems of money, death or supernatural, the idea was to reflect on these issues in their proper measure and not worry about catastrophes that had not happened yet. If we look at everything with the proper distance, nothing is isolated, Marcos in his meditation, he noticed the situation that today more than 2000 years ago of Epicureo, it seems that most people connect or relate money with happiness, Epicurean of some He pointed out that having money, but without friendship, without freedom and without reflective life, we would never really be happy.
Marcos returned, in himself, from his reflections, and looking at his young son he thought that he would like to transmit these teachings to his boy from now on.