In a previous post, we revealed the missing piece for achieving fulfillment. To put it short: we learned how to be engineers or doctors, but we never learned how to find the right profession, maintain a loving relationship, or die in peace. Our culture operates under the belief that the latter will instinctively resolve themselves. A belief that leaves us prey to the events of our childhoods. In the scope of a lifetime: this is ruinous. We will dedicate our years to an empty job, leaving our talents undiscovered; we will marry the wrong person, leaving our passions dormant.
While we did a splendid job of satisfying our physical needs, it is time we turn our gaze to the deprived psychological and spiritual needs. In the future, we can imagine a culture where the ideal is not to be rich or famous but to be happy and content—and an environment that will support each individual’s labyrinth toward it. For now, we need to do it for ourselves. I hope this essay will ignite your flame of skepticism and self-actualization.
The ideas presented here spurred from The School of Life: An Emotional Education.
Self
One of the quirks of being human is that we seldom know the contents of our own minds. We may have a general sense of what we want to eat for lunch or where we want to go for vacation— but it is fleeting and malleable. We habituated action based on those “hunches.” That is fine for deciding on a shirt for the day but is adverse for choosing a career path. Instead, we should take the time to examine our minds, detect the roots of our desires, and map our psyches.
All of us are victims of our childhoods. We all carry a burden given to us partially by our ancestors and partially by our parents. In our maturing, we are bound to collect a wound or two. Those decide what we can and cannot do in life. They narrow our world and manifest symptoms that—if unsolved—will haunt our lives. We ruin our marriage because we blame our partner for our sorrows; we miss our children’s youth because we cannot detach from our work; we never write our magnum opus because we do not believe we have anything to contribute.
Our primal wounds, like concrete, solidify without intervention: they become our “personality.” We do not hide from the angst they produce but deceive ourselves and others: we get addicted, become extremely cheerful, delude through cynicism, imagine ourselves superior, or pretend we are simpler than we really are. Retention of those defense mechanisms will forever stifle our potential.
There are things we can do about it. Psychotherapy helps us accept ourselves, heal past wounds, and open up to the freedom of possibility. Philosophical meditation creates the space for contemplation and examination of emotions. Art introduces ideas that challenge our current beliefs. The point is: you can—and must—know yourself.
Others
Since all of us are acting out past wounds, we should develop a “charity of interpretations.” We often rush to judge others based on their behavior rather than the pain that caused it. Most people do not wish to hurt us but to soothe their heartache. They call us “idiots” not because they want to belittle us but because somewhere in their past, they lacked love and confidence and now, need to feel superior. We should look beyond the behavior, recognize the wound, and react with kindness to the damaged child hidden inside the adult-looking person in front of us.
We are all familiar with shyness. At the core of the shy person is the belief that he is fundamentally different from others and the self-doubt that it is boring. But in reality, we are all inherently the same, as Montaigne remarked: “Kings and philosophers shit, and so do ladies.” We are in danger of coming across as boring only if we fail to communicate our deepest selves. Our deepest selves hold the key to charm and connection: vulnerability.
When it comes to our anxieties, the sophisticated move is to accept them as a natural response to a situation. Anxiety is not hostile; it is an indication that there is an insight we have not yet found a productive place for. We should ponder over worry for the revelation it harbors. All the while accepting that we do not aim for everlasting tranquility but to be a little calmer than we were before.
Relationships
Our relationship exceptions are a product of Romanticism ideas. Those ideas set a burdensome, unrealistic weight on love—any deviation from which is a sign that something is wrong. Love should be unconditional; sex should be passionate and uncomplicated; disagreements should not exist; emotions should be telepathic. Those base an enjoyable romantic movie but create frustration and misery in reality. We should replace those with a classical, more accurate vision of relationships.
A relationship is an intersection between two inherently different humans that share similarities in some crucial areas. The widespread notion today—a relatively new idea—is that we should have only one relationship that combines both the passion of love and the pragmatism of the day-to-day. The complexity and convolution of those strings result in the inevitable grayness of arguments and compromises. We must embrace that reality. It may be a less ostensibly glorious vision of love, but in many ways, it portrays a gentler, more intimate communion.
Sex is a heavily psychological pillar of life and a pillar-stone of a good relationship. We seek to satisfy not only our bodily needs but our emotional needs. We crave warmth, intimacy, and acceptance; we want to embrace and be embraced. The bed needs to be an emotionally safe space, a place where one can disclose repressed feelings and needs. We often hide what we want because they seem absurd or misaligned with our view of who we are. But a good relationship must have open, honest communication about the needs and wishes of each individual. The bedroom can be a sacred environment where one can release the burdens he collected during the day.
Work
Alongside love, work is the biggest determinator of life satisfaction. Paradoxically, although resources and opportunities are abundant, we are in jobs we do not enjoy or find meaningful. That, to a large extent, is due to the beliefs we absorbed about work. We inherited rules about which jobs are acceptable—rules that were set by our parents and usually tuned by the economic compass. We never took the time to examine our values or inquire about our pleasures around work. Consequently, we find ourselves signing papers at a bank or pushing buttons at a software company, waiting for the day to end and for “real life” to begin.
Another psychological aspect that plays a part in our work life is self-image. Many of us unconsciously labeled success as something for others to achieve. We feel like imposters: the best we can do is put our heads down and hope to get promoted every couple of years. So we never attempt that new idea or the shift to a riskier but more fulfilling profession. This error derives from the natural gap between our intimate view of ourselves and our edited view of others. We know, all too well, about our faults, impulses, and failures but see only the outer layer of others, and so, deduce that we are inferior. Remember and imagine just how much the life of everyone—including CEOs—is filled with foolishness and that we too, can be successful.
We deserve sympathy for living in a capitalistic era. The world has become increasingly expensive and competitive: a resource accumulation free-for-all. Most of us are terrified of getting into the ring, so a corporate job seems like a haven. We know that fulfillment lies elsewhere but do not change because we cannot tolerate the risk. As a result, we develop defense mechanisms to mask our longings. If we were to examine that, we would find that both psychologically and financially (in the long term) deviation is favorable. A “regular” job may provide comfort, but work we enjoy may provide sizable success.
Culture
Life is chaotic, disorganized, and formless. There are no guidelines for it: no one knew, no one knows, and no one will ever know, the right way to live. But, great thinkers of the past left us their morals and lessons for self-fulfillment. Ideally, culture directs us to those ideas and shapes our minds with the best humanity can offer. In such a culture, we can imagine the importance of virtue as a guide for merit: the people at the top are wise and kindhearted; they set an example.
When proving our current culture for the values it affirms, we can see that something is wrong. We emphasize looks, fame, and money, while the means to get them are secondary. Businesses decide based on revenue at the cost of harming their users, while teachers and doctors remain underpaid and underappreciated. A culture of wealth-based “winners” and “losers.” Consequently, we spend our lives feeling inferior and chasing façades of success.
We can cultivate our own culture. We can delineate an authentic guide to life by exploring the ideas of the past, the morals of art, and the virtues of great leaders. And we can continuously grow by surrounding ourselves with those (viz. books, paintings, music, friends) that align with our life philosophy. We have the freedom to choose the values upon which we build our lives.