There are probably as many ways to achieve success and happiness in life as there are philosophies, ideologies, values, and belief systems. This is the beauty and complexity of the human experience: you can be who and what you want to be, or at least try and then choose something completely different. Even in the darkest places and during the most chaotic times, we are adaptable and capable of transcendence.
Tag: personal development
There have been times in my life when days were extremely long and I was completely exhausted from work. That was something I enjoyed for a while. But my life inevitably returns to this default structure, covering the essentials, and I believe that right now that is enough.
Since the advent of psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, pharmaceuticals, and grandiose illusions of purpose, meaning, and happiness, those who do not fit neatly into “normal” behavior have faced stigma and violent prejudice. We have also dehumanized large segments of society in favor of political, ideological, economic, or dogmatic ignorance and stupidity.
There’s an element of our psychology that runs through everything we do — an integral, organic essence that zigzags like a dramatic line chart, dotted with significant events over the course of a lifetime. The y-axis naturally represents emotional impact.
Every lifetime has its ups and downs, peaks and valleys, flurries of activity, lulls and stagnation; times of stillness, contemplation and regrets, gratitude and love… but ultimately, it all ends. A forest, a community, a nation or empire; a civilization, a religion, a species — all of their stories eventually come to a close. That which endures through the ages is subtlety, energy, the building blocks for what’s next, fragmented timelines, and relics of what once was.
For each of us, on the winding road toward discovery, wisdom, meaning and making sense of this singular lifetime, we are endowed with unique capabilities. We can choose to free our minds of relics, fragmentation, and stagnant energies.