Most readers now expect to see another top 10 advice from a guru on all matters, which in a few minutes will turn the idea of \u200b\u200blife with advice on what to eat and when to go to bed so that life sparkles with all its colors. However, today we will not offer you algorithms on the topic “How to live your life not in vain”, we invite you to take part in the discussion of how to force yourself to simply step aside and look at yourself from the side: on the day you have lived, on tomorrow's plans.
Let's try.
How to look at your life from the outside - the first part of the experiment
The importance of each event in a person's life is determined by his personal attitude to the situation - it sounds like a banality, but it is not. Let's do a little experiment right at home, alone with ourselves. Take an ordinary tea mug and a handful of small items such as walnuts. Let these be the most important aspects of your life, but just aspects, not tasks. For example, one nut may be "taking care ofhe alth", another - "time spent with children", the third - "creative pleasure", etc. Let the mug fill up, because in fact, each nut is the most important thing that we see for ourselves, but alas, not always we can implement.
Second part of the experiment
Doesn't it, mug - "our life" seems complete? But look how much space remains between large nuts. Take as many pine nuts in a handful as you can scoop. Each nut is tasks and plans, dreams and goals. There are so many tasks in our life that it makes no sense to list them. It's going to work, doing a project, saving up for a vacation… just dump all the tasks in a mug and make sure they fit easily between the important aspects of life. It’s more difficult with dreams, because we often confuse what we want with a simple to-do list for tomorrow. But try it.
The penultimate part of the experiment
Well, is your life good? Look, it's almost full. But what about what we do in reality? Where are our evenings on social networks and hour-long phone conversations about nothing? Where is watching a TV series, clicking the remote control on the channels, flipping through a glossy magazine, parties filled with alcohol? Take that exact mug of water and slowly pour it into your life. Well, how? Surprisingly, why we live in reality, wake up every morning and what we strive for in the evening, also fits perfectly between life aspects, plans, dreams and tasks.
drawing conclusions
Forwhat did we all ask you to do? Just for the last two steps, which will convincingly convince you that changes in your life are still necessary. We have just poured a full mug of water into our lives, and the liquid has been well distributed among our dreams, goals, and priority aspects. Do not be too lazy to fill the empty mug with water again to the brim, only this time do not pour it anywhere, but on the contrary - take a few walnuts and try putting them in the water.
Did it work? Water poured over the edge, and hardly one or two nuts (important aspects of life, as we remember) can balance on its surface. And now - unpleasant. Look at both mugs, which are full, and honestly point to the one that is really your life. And if after that you did not feel an unpleasant bitterness in your mouth, then you are a happy person. Or morally dead. One of two.
Beggar banker
What we described to you in a clear example of how absolute emptiness filled with everyday fuss gradually becomes the basis of our life, displacing everything that has at least some real value, a certain John describes well in his post, 46 a year old American who is considered a successful citizen of his country.
A successful banker with a family, big money and a position in society, like a blank wall, came across the realization that his version of how to live his life is only good for two lines of a boring obituary at the end of his life. Dreamer in youth, talented younga man who predicted a career as a writer suddenly realized that he was morally impoverished, left without a family, without plans for the future, without understanding why he should wake up in the morning. And he, like a chilling call, like a cry of his sore soul, throws into society, to everyone who accidentally stumbled upon his post in the wilds of the Internet: “People! If you still have life left - live! Do crazy things, travel, help without looking back to everyone you can! Leave a mark, because we are what we leave behind!”.
The pain of memories is dearer to us
You already during our first experiment were able to determine what constitutes the real value of your life, its priorities, its smaller, but such necessary tasks. You have refreshed your dreams in your memory and, perhaps, have already asked yourself the following question: how to live life not in vain? What to spend on this undetermined length of a clean roll of parchment, which is still spread clean in front of us?
Perhaps you have noticed that in our life mug there was no place for nostalgia - we did not allocate even a cedar seed to the share of memories, and here's why. The past is an amazing whirlpool that can take a significant chunk of life online. Immersed in memories, a person falls out of reality and freezes for a long time in sleep mode, and positive emotions from the past are no less destructive than negative ones - we at least strive to drive them away, but we go headlong into joyful nostalgia, wasting precious time.
Don't be proud of the past ifthere is nothing to be proud of in the present, do not regret the past if you did not have then what then came belatedly. Each of us has our own deadlines for the fulfillment of desires, and trying to fish out the emotional base that formed their basis from the depths of the sunken days is no more exciting than tearing open tea bags in order to sow a tea plantation is pointless and stupid.
What we live for
Why do we live? In childhood, such a thought does not occur to us, since the answer to this question is embedded in a person much deeper than an adult bothers to look, and the child, in fact, lives only by the depth of his own perception. In general, superficiality of judgment is unusual for children; this diplomacy comes to us over the years. For them, everything is very clear - we live to enjoy every minute, to enjoy it so much that even 15 minutes for lunch seems to be an unfortunate waste of time.
A child of preschool or primary school age can be explained that parents should work, but trying on the same situation for themselves - that he will have to sit in a stuffy office from 8 am to 6 pm in the evening, or pore in the shop, is unthinkable for him. He understands that he was born for something else - he wants to build beautiful houses, and not breathe cement dust, invent new toys, and not suffer from drawings to create them. In each profession, he primarily sees its colorful side. Often a day spent with dad at work, when the child sees how the father painfully holds out until the end of the working day, plunges the little manin shock - how, is this the concept that life is good?
The breaking of illusions is considered the first step in entering adulthood. “Growing up,” parents will say, not realizing that the basis of the foundations of the correct position in life is leaving the child’s life - nothing should hamper the pleasure of life. And the work we spend 50% of our lives doing is less than anything else.
No rules and no advice
The final part of our short conversation should be crowned with some kind of moral, like this: "Now you know exactly how to live your life in vain." However, returning to the beginning, we repeat - this is not a manual and not a set of step-by-step actions. Any guidance is the same algorithm inspired by someone with a specific goal, and it is strange to think that the task of some stranger will be the formation of your personal happiness.
Do the experiment we wrote about, then make yourself a cup of coffee or tea and just calmly think, but not about how to live life not in vain - after all, this, in essence, is nothing more than words. Think about what your very last look back at the past will be - a look without evaluation and comparison with someone where a bad deal flashes before your eyes and pride in a new promotion will make you smile.
Just think.
