( Picture taken by me on a very nice morning somewhere in 2017)
We all have lived our life to the point, where you are reading this and i am writing this. Some of us have lived a satisfactory life and some of us not so much. If you look at the numbers about mental health it is astonishing how many of us despite having access to tools and facilities which none of our ancestors had to choose to live a life that can not be called a happy life.
I mean this is not out of a self-help book, because I believe that the only person self-help book helps is the writer, and that’s why he/she wrote it. Enough with the pun.
This can be a long essay ( I mean, I can write a book over it but it will be qualified as a self-help book, pun intended) I will try to keep it succinct.
But what is the meaning of the phrase “life lived well”? We all have different desires to be fulfilled. One person’s necessity can be a luxury to another one. Let us take an example. Zara and H&M are luxuries in the part of the world I live in and can be basic stuff in the UK itself. On the contrary Ayurveda ( traditional Medicine from India) can be a luxury in the UK or Western hemisphere for all that I know and is cheap in India.
So living a life that is satisfying is life a utopian dream? I mean I have read so many books. They are filled with useless optimism sometimes and other times (which is a lot of times) filled with misery. Living our life is our choice, as it has been told to us countless times in many different ways. But let me ask you is it the case? Do you have any control over the things you do? I mean I had no control over my birth. I had no control over what language I was being taught. Had no control over the subjects I have to study in school. Heck, I had no control over the choice of school, I had to attend. I can give countless more examples.
This feeling of control is the thing. It is not “a thing”, but “the thing”. We all try to be in control all the time. We need a specific kind of t-shirt or coffee from a specific store or our partners need to look in a certain way.
We tend to reject things that do not align with the world view ours. We tend to reject and look down upon things that do not comply with our idea of the world. You will agree with me that lot of time we choose not to read and see the uncomfortable news on the TV.
All these things where we starting rejecting the world because it does not converge with our specific, narrow, and hard view of the world, may lead to a life which we call a satisfying life, but only in the case where we get everything that we wanted. Which has never happened till this point in living human history.
You should also understand, all the enlightened people out there in the east and west, all told us the same thing. It was to lead a satisfying life you have to change your expectation to down to zero.
But to be able to do it, we have to kill the Ego inside it. If you choose to agree or disagree with this piece, it would be your ego, not you. Ego makes 80% of what we are. We all have a distinct style, we all consider ourselves as somebody unique or distinct and are not a part of the herd. We all strive to be accepted by the masses but want to be unique.
Please try to understand, if you strive to be part of this world, then how can your life a well-lived life, because, by nature of desire and ego gratification, none of the people in this world is satisfied. You are applying the same set of standards upon you, which is telling yourself that shit smells good because everybody else is bathing in it.
I live well lived, would be the life where you have found stillness in your thoughts, where you have found that living in present is the only thing you can do, where you have accepted that there are certain things, you have no control over, and the only thing you have control over is you.
A life well-lived is not the life of a person who is rich, with physical assets, but who is rich with satisfaction and gratitude.
As an experiment, ask your self are you ready to die? An insane amount of thoughts will come to your mind. Some of you have to meet you are loved once for the last time, have to give something back, tell things to people and whatnot. But I would suggest, the day you accept that death is inevitable and become ready to die because you would not hold back anymore. You would tell your loved ones how much you loved them, you will do whatever you need to do to be ready.
This is just one way to prove that, it’s the baggage of the future which leads to the most dissatisfying life.
Once again the Question still looms over What is a life well lived? Is it the life of a person with a great family? Or is it a life of a sage ? or is it the life of a person, who has acknowledged the reality of the world as it is and choose to be happy and also accepted that with happiness, sad times will also come and he accepts the way of life as it is.
Many thanks to @adailydose for inspiring me to join this community.
This is sid, you can find me on Instagram as @sidmaximusjay.
Hope you enjoyed reading this
Cheers