Journal Entry 7

March 4, 2008

Chapter 7. A Good Day

The conviction that life has a purpose is rooted in every fibre of man, it is a property of the human susbstance. Free men give many names to this purpose, and think and talk a lot about its nature. But for us the question is simpler.

Our standard of having a 'good day' seems very different from Primo Levi's standard. Many people expect or more so DESIRE for a good day, but I wonder what is exactly a good day? How long is a good day suppose to last? Based on the passage that is italicized above, 'purpose' is the substance for every human. All of us are searching for a purpose in life. Although some tend to be excessivly enthusiastic, many of us just live our lives hoping that someday a lightning bolt would come down and the 'purpose of our life' would be in front of our door. However, this concept is wrong. We overly struggle to obtain happiness by expecting good things to happen in our lives, but I've learned that happiness can be obtained from the way we think. Simply a 'good day' can be few hours or even few minutes. The real importance of it is wheter or not we are able to appreciate it and take it into consideration. Happiness is not an everlasting time period (though many of us wish it was), but it is the small things that we value and treasure that is considere true happiness. God or Satan might challenge us with hardship, but we must endure it and think optimisitically. Buna was essentially opaque and grey, but Primo Levi called 'today' a good day because of the sunlight. This, to me, was a powerful message.