The Good Life Analysis

For many years, the United States has been the destination for a variety of immigrants. Undoubtedly, the majority of immigrants that seek lives within the U.S borders are from Mexico and most often embark on the journey to states in the Southwest such as Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, Nevada, and California. “A Better Life” takes place in East Los Angeles, California and tells the story of an undocumented man named Carlos, who has to struggle with the obstacles that come along with being illegal. The director, Chris Wietz, established a film that not only shined light on such a talked about controversy and the issues surrounding it, but also presented it from the perspective of someone who has to fight the system on a daily basis. In this review, I will touch upon the symbolism within the film, and the theme of hardships of immigrants.

The world seems to be a dark and unforgiving place, but happiness is hidden within. It is found in a beautiful view, an uplifting song, or a compliment from a friend. According to the Ted Talk video, The Habits of Happiness, Matthieu Ricard claims that everyone “has a deep, profound desire for well-being or happiness”(Ricard 2:39). Ricard uses the three techniques of Ethos, Pathos, and Logos to captivate and move his audience. With the use of metaphors, personal experiences, and even graphs Matthieu explained to his audience the full force and perception of the bendable word that is happiness. This Ted Talk dove into philosophical meaning on just how to achieve well-being, without having everything in the world.

Joel Kupperman in Six Myths about the Good Life: Thinking About What Has Value evaluates that humans as a whole want more comfort and pleasure in life as he it “may represent a tendency that is wired into normal human nature” (Kupperman 1). Through the explanation of pleasure as well as its arguable counterpart, suffering and the discussion of their values in addition to the counterargument of hedonic treadmill, Kupperman’s views about the role of pleasure in living a good life can be strongly supported and evaluated.

The Good Lives Model (GLM) is a modern theory of offender rehabilitation that pays as much particular attention on the offender as the offence itself. Its main focus is to provide individuals with the resources they need to live a “good life”. Not just a good life for its sake, but the type that is worthwhile and satisfying to the point that the individual would not have to think of or get involved in harming others again. The Good Lives Model (GLM) is a contemporary theory- it started as an… about a decade ago. Since then, it has become very popular among the correctional practitioners work in the rehabilitation of offenders in many jurisdictions

The movie A Better Life directed by Chris Weitz is the story of a troubled family who is trying to overcome the cultural barriers that have been thrown in their direction. A father named Carlos is trying to earn a living in order to provide his son Luis a better life than he has endured. The family moved from Mexico to California when Luis was a small baby. The audience learns throughout the movie that Luis’ mother left shortly after the move because she found bigger and better things. By doing this she left Carlos to take care of Luis and battle all of the negative influences in the society such as fighting and gangs. Over time, Carlos and his son drift apart and are now at the awkward teen phase.

The movie “A Better Life” is about an illegal immigrant Carlos and his son Luis. They are constantly at odds and his father works very hard and is still very poor. His son Luis is being influenced by local gangs that his father doesn’t approve of. Carlos strives to be self-employed however his vehicle is stolen and he and Luis set off to find out who took and get it back. Once he gets his vehicle back he is arrested and deported. His son and he have one last meeting before he is sent back to Mexico and he begs him to succeed. The end of the movie show Carlos being led back across by a coyote and is determined to go home.

In It’s a Wonderful Life, the main character, George Bailey, is a good, giving man who faces a rough patch in his life. I think that this story teaches us a great lesson on being thankful. I liked the part when, at the end, Clarence finishes his job and earns his wings. The part I didn’t like was when George said that he wishes that he was never born. The lesson that It’s a Wonderful Life teaches us about thankfulness is that you need to appreciate how blessed you really are and not to take it for granted. To apply this message to our daily lives, you can focus more on the little things and not so much on the big things. You can do this by focusing more on the house you have and the food that is being provided, rather than focusing on if it’s what you like or not or wanting to own more. George Bailey never got the opportunity to travel the world and build skyscrapers liked he hoped because he feels tied down to the family company he never wanted to own and work for. As George Bailey got older, he began to see everyone grow up to be what they wanted, and he sees all of his youth and opportunities go right past him. George decides to end his life because he believes he is worth more dead than alive. When Clarence, his guardian angel, sees this, he decides to show George what life would be like if he had never existed.

As a child, I grew up in a Christian family where my dad would read to my siblings and me from the Westminster Catechism. The first question from this text asks “What is the chief end of man?” And the matching response is “To glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” This seemingly simple answer is something I have taken to heart and strive to live out in my daily life. For me, this looks like spending time in the Word, journaling, talking with friends and people I come into contact with about their lives, and trying to maintain a positive attitude even when things don’t go quite as I had planned. I think glorifying God and truly resting and enjoying His peace and presence is

after landing in Plymouth, the land was divided into private lots and distributed to male heads of households, not just for use, but for ownership in the sense a 21st century Vermonter would understand.

In the essay “How to Choose Happiness,” Marie Kondo describes “tokimeku” as aspects of our life that helps us determine happiness. Kondo defines “to spark joy” is a way we find happiness through energy and devotion. She says as individuals we value more on buying new things and focusing on technologies. Consequently, Kondo says there are standards that don’t fulfill our happiness, such as earnings from our jobs, caring about our weight, and consuming different calories each day. Time is used to show own goals to please ourselves from determining our identity and showing determination in a way we want. Kondo proposes a concept to describe how “tokimeku” can help us with our lives by facing problems then seeking for solutions. For example, Kondo

The concept of living “the good life” means something different for everyone. There is a general understanding that living “the good life” is associated with unyielding happiness and lasting satisfaction. The exact meaning of this desired life was pondered by thinkers and philosophers for hundreds of years. They constructed principals of behavior, thought, and obligation that would categorize a person as “good”. Although some of these ancient philosophies about “the good life” had overlapping ideas, their concepts varied widely. This contrast of ideas can be examined through two major characters in two famous works: Aeneas in “The Aeneid” and Socrates in “The Apology”. Aeneas exemplifies the philosophy that the direct route to “the good life" is through faith, trust in the Gods, and family, while Socrates in “The Apology” emphasizes free will, and vast knowledge of life.

What is the meaning of life? According to Chris McCandless living free and not conforming to the natural way of life is the meaning to life, as shown in the book Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. Similar to Chris McCandless, Ralph Emerson believes that following your dreams and making your own trail is the meaning of life according to his short story “Self-Reliance” by Ralph Emerson. The purpose of man's existence is to avoid conformity and following one's own instincts and ideas.

When considering how the good political life should be guided, it is imperative to consider ethical, empirical, and prudential components. From an ethical perspective, the ideal political world is created to evaluate how a system should function as well as how actors should behave and prevail (Riemer 74). A "good life" from this view point would be based on only ideals which cannot encapsulate the entire truth of a political system, but is still relevant to the evaluation of its whole. From a more realistic perspective, the empirical component focuses on what really happens and the actual values held in a community including the behavior of those running the political system (74). Political scientists who focus on empirical practices are mastering

In today’s world, humans are often misled on what really is a good life. We are constantly shown through the television and magazines that being rich and famous is the way to go when it comes to a good life, when in truth many of them are miserable by problems that usually wouldn’t affect the common person. In truth there are only a few that are rich and famous and do achieve what can probably considered one of the greatest achievement’s by a man which is having a good life. In my opinion, the decision if someone has a good life or not is up to them and their will to strive for something better than average during the high school years of their life. The reason I feel like it begins at that age in their life is

What is the good life? The definition of a good life will vary; but how I can make create my good life is by the happiness I create and what I can see through and find happiness. Life has twists and turn and it is never the same; day- in or day- out. The choice I have made is to accept the good with bad endure all things; but my happiness and the happiness of others is the fundamental goal.