Does life have a meaning and our task is to find it or is life itself the meaning of everything? I am worth to the extent that I have built, created, produced, completed, concluded things and activities or my value as a person simply lies in living life intensely in every moment, with passion, love, curiosity and desire to grow, avoiding conditioning as much as possible? These kinds of questions sooner or later we all ask ourselves, even without realizing it. And perhaps it is precisely for this reason that most people are afraid of loneliness, because it is in those moments, when we are alone with ourselves, that we ask ourselves questions that we cannot answer.
Eastern philosophies, Buddhism and Taoism above all, have been teaching for millennia that the secret of happiness lies in knowing how to live here and now. A fascinating maxim, which however few manage to apply, perhaps because it does not find fertile ground within us and therefore it simply remains a beautiful phrase to quote from time to time. conveyed a precise but misleading message that forces us to live constantly under pressure developing limits and mental disorders that prevent us from fully exploiting all our potential? From an early age, the family instills in us the idea that we must soon stop playing and fantasizing and we must learn to use the tools and the surrounding environment to build things, learn a trade, produce results and always carry out everything we started. The message is clear: life basically consists of cycles that break down into planning, execution and conclusion.If you think about it, everything we do goes through these three stages. We are encouraged from childhood first by the family, then passing through school and society, to plan, execute and complete one thing after another. Studies, sports, work, social and working life must all be rigorously marked by results. The results always have priority over the activities and things themselves. At school we are constantly encouraged to study well and a lot but to prepare for the exams, that is, intermediate or final stages that represent a term, a conclusion, a goal. In sport we are judged not so much by the passion we dedicate to it, but by the results we obtain. At work the same happens and in social life our value is directly proportional to what we have built, achieved or accumulated. That this is reality is also confirmed by the expressions we often use to define others. Have you ever noticed, for example, that some of the most used phrases when we refer to others are: "he is a great entrepreneur, he has built an important business ... he has accumulated a lot of money ...", or "she is an extraordinary writer, she has sold so many books… ”In short, each one seems to be much greater, capable, intelligent and happy in the measure of how many things he has accomplished, what he has concluded. Success and happiness seem to be intrinsically linked to results and not to the passion and love that go into the activities and activities themselves. On the other hand, when we want to define a person we consider a failure we often use the expression “he has done nothing in his life…” We are so victims of “conclusionism”, if you will allow me the neologism.
Here then is that for a lifetime the conditioning to complete, conclude, produce results, produces a continuous stress that is certainly the basis of many mental pathologies. How could it be otherwise if looking around us we only see professional sportsmen who show prizes as evidence of their achievements or wealthy entrepreneurs who measure their value on the basis of how much money they have accumulated. Who has not asked himself at least once: "What sense has my life, what have I concluded so far? " And referring to the models that society offers him, he feels he has not achieved anything and is assailed by depression. But perhaps the problem lies only in not knowing how to ask the right questions. The questions that help us get out of this vicious circle that keeps us enslaved are different. First of all in front of any potential thing or choice we should always ask ourselves a serious and healthy Why? How have children always known, always asking "why?" it is a passepartout that opens many doors. Then there are other questions such as: is that all there is to it? What do I really want? What do I want? What Do I Really Need? The last three are particularly demanding, however they should not be considered as a direct request to our unconscious, which as a sort of guardian angel should tell us what we lack. Rather they should be considered and used as tools that help us create a map, establish a route, and therefore the direction in which to move. But we have to take the path. And our passion, desire and curiosity should always guide us.For example, if we choose a job based on how close it is to home, the salary we will earn or how comfortable we will feel, life will never change. We will remain in our comfort zone, where we will die a little bored every day, from the repetitive routine and the lack of stimuli.However, if we choose our work thinking about what we like and truly satisfies this will not be tiring and limiting, but it will end up enriching our lives by forcing us to continually expand our comfort zone. This is an important change of perspective, because you have to start thinking about what we like and want, and then choose accordingly the path that will lead us in that direction. you will feel normal, happy and fulfilled only when you have completed all that you have proposed, then your mind will always be in the future. The future for you will represent the point of arrival, the examination board to which you should be accountable for your work. So you will miss the here and now, you will always feel pressured to achieve the results that will always and only be in the future. And at the end of life, when you ask yourself what was the point of living, you will not have an answer, you will only be able to mention results, often just empty numbers.The secret is to consider the future as the energy that creates and determines your development, your growth. You don't have to consider the future as a goal, an exam to offer results. Rather, you have to let the future come towards you like a warm wind that gives you sensations and images.
