I found this old essay of mine from my freshmen intro to Philosophy class. Here is an excerpt. Do I still believe these things? I dunno. I'll reflect more later.

So let’s break it all down. Compose a series of thoughts and ideas and flesh out my own personal philosophy. First and foremost I believe life is a crazy crazy thing. I believe that despite life’s craziness and absurdities, that it has some sort of agenda. That agenda is to live. But not live like a bum, hating your very own existence. Life is about living it to the fullest and achieving happiness. Life is about generating success so that your family will live in happiness. That means play to win, but that win isn’t for you per se, but for the future. I do believe that there are forces that try to block this goal. These would be what philosophers refer to as The Will. This will can be troublesome, but I believe that it can be overcome and contained. Otherwise if it isn’t contained it can generate major problems. I believe that to control this Will one has to use logos in everyday situations. Rational thought and logic can beat this Will into submission. I agree that society needs logos to survive. Without logos there would be chaos and destruction. It holds our lifestyle together. I agree that this life we live can seem like a dream, but that we are truly here because we can doubt that idea. Doubting our existence only confirms it. I believe in the fact that people are all trapped in a cave at some point. We all have the potential to leave that cave if we want to. I believe to truly know reality you have to travel back and forth from this cave and achieve your own individual thought. I believe in spirituality and a God of some sort. I believe that we must live our life to its full potential and try and do some good. This will give us a ticket into some sort of afterlife. Even if there is no afterlife, the idea of one is something that motivates people all across the world everyday. I don’t believe in religion necessarily, but I can see that it preserves moral order for a lot of people and it is a necessity to keep balance.

I believe that by realizing death is inevitable that we truly become free. By accepting we learn to fully live. It gives us a sense of importance to the life we live. We are freer, and more eager to spend the time we have wisely and in the best way possible. I do believe that there are certain things in life we can’t control, but we shouldn’t harp on them, but instead try to fix the situation. By doing this we keep on moving without any delays. However I do believe that part of life is to face the mini-hell we live in. But this mini-hell wasn’t created by God, but by humanity itself. We created it through ignoring our problems and simply trying to get around them. I believe that if we can face this hell that we have achieved what we should have. I believe that overall we were placed here to make a good life and that is our test. Will we destroy ourselves in the process of life, or will we overcome it and face it head on with optimism and hope? That is the real question. Once it is answered the rest is up the individual. Either go out and do something, or die feeling that you achieved nothing. I personally want to leave this life knowing that I have done all I can to see life to the fullest.

Our world is full of tricks and problems. It is a hell created by our own kind. If we can meet this head on and still do what needs to be done then we are living an examined life. Everyone has their own examined life. My examined life may be different then yours, but as long as we die happy our goals have been reached. The examined life doesn’t mean that we cannot be wealthy or successful. It simply means to look into yourself and find what you need and seek. Then go out and achieve those things. Once this is done so is the constant worry that this is all a waste. Such is life.