Philosophical Enlightenment

In everybody's lives their comes along a juncture, good or bad, which results in a change in philosophy and possibly a change in direction. Life, normally, whether you know it or not will take that pre-determined path that leads you towards your inevitable goal, whatever that might be. You may have never even thought about this goal at any point in your life but your actions and the consequences from those actions have lead you to this point in your life. Then a certain event will transpire to transform your feelings whether it be death, the death of a close one or maybe even a near-death experience. At this point life seems to take on a whole different meaning. All of a sudden you become aware of your actions and will quietly admit to yourself that you will no longer be truly ignorant to the consequences of those actions. In addition to this, maybe not all of a sudden but possibly over a larger period of time, your life starts to change facilitated by a distinct change in philosophy. This is not the cliched moment of mental clearness where you become aware of the bigger picture but an incremental transition to a life that will not be pre-destined but will be experienced rather than be made to sit in the passenger seat.

At the same time things become much more duanting. Life before such an adverse event was much more distorted but much easier. Its that age old jealousy of the simple builder who probably reads the Sun and who is probably not the sharpest tool in the box but you feel so much jealousy because he is happy with his place in the world, he is the king of his own castle surrounded by all the things he could ever need in life. His life probably hasen't been one long happy journey but it has unwittingly or not brought him relative peace and happiness. Would he therefore be the same person if a) he was more aware of world around him and b) he had gone through a life changing event?

What im trying to push at is the that maybe it does take a life-affirming event to change your philosophical approach to life but maybe being ignorant can bring equal amounts of pleasure and pain. On one hand life would be much easier to handle but do people really want to carry on being as ignorant as some pople are?