Happiness and Death

This topic might sound a bit...depressing, I suppose. Ironic, isn't it? Haha. "Happiness is blindness," is the same as "Ignorance is happiness," isn't it? Or one quote is, "No one is really happy." Which made me wonder, "Probably the happiest time in one person's life is when they're born." Which is true, I believe.

When you reach elementary school age, there's school, then there's junior high, which the stress of grades. High school is stressed by getting into college, and in college, you worry about getting a job or your future degrees, or just grades, once again. After school, there's getting a job and the difficult world of occupation. At retiring age, you worry about your health or maybe if you have enough in your retirement fund. Then, there's death.

Here's the question: Why would people live if life was so hard? Is it for the small gaps of temporary happiness? Or being able to find friends? What is the point in living if most of life is hardships? And if there were suicides, what makes other people be able to NOT suicide?

I've also been thinking, maybe it's not really that I'm scared of death, but more that I'm scared of the process of dying and the painfulness. I'd rather be shot and die quickly than be stabbed in the stomach and die slowly. Think, dying slowly means you have more time to reflect on your process of dying and experience more pain.

To think that everyone will die one day is depressing, but true. It's a bit cliched to think, "Well then, just live your life to the fullest. Live for today, and not tomorrow." True, how do you know you'll be here tomorrow? Doesn't it depend on the situation? If you keep living for the present, what becomes of your future? What about life savings and retirement? Indeed, if you know today's your last day, it's the better deal to live today to its extent, but if you don't, what's the best choice?