Hi there! Thirs is my first post, in a blog where I am entitled to write whatever I want in whichever way I prefer. As the title reads, reality can ruin your day or make it better, actually everything could depend on up to what extent you accept without question some mainstream concepts worshiped in society.
There are really many topics I could write about, but I think today I will choose something that is closer to practice and you can apply from now on to improve the quality of your existence.
First let me know I don't care at all if you like my posts or not, for I am not trying to get more readers. I am trying to share my sheer philosophy.
The topic is this: Comfort does not give happiness. Only by working hard and striving you can fulfill yourself. Your body and mind give you back what you ask them for. If you ask for more energy, working and training harder, they will give you more energy and you will feel better. If you just slack off, your body and mind will give nothing and you will feel worse, empty.
If this is true, then why are the goals of many people based on the comfort? A flat with elevator, a big house, an expensive car, an easy job... I guess this could be related to the human instincts as an animal. We instinctively tend to spend as little energy as possible as a remnant of our previous, wilder life. Also the desire for expensive and big items could be related to wanting to be dominant, the advertisements just target these instincts (there is more to explain about that, but let's leave it for other occasion).
Our society evolved faster than ourselves, that fact causes that our approach to happiness or fulfillment is probably outdated, specially in the developed countries of the first world.
So, let's expose the embarrassing truth clearly. There are two versions of what being successful, happy, fulfilled means:
- The sheer, pure fulfillment, that comes from struggling, hard work, exercise, creativity and situations out of the comfort zone.
- The socially accepted version: Success means achieving a level of comfort and then pretending that you are happy with it, when you are actually the furthest from happiness. Actually the second part (pretending that you are happy) could be more important than the first.
Now I challenge your concepts once again: Please compare the feelings in these different situations:
First situation: Go into a fast food establishment, something very tasty. Eat it in front of the window if possible.
Focus in:
1. What you tend to do if you notice someone looking at you eating.
2. What you feel when somebody else enters the shop, and what when they enter the shop after watching you eat.
The answer is, you feel kind of relieved that people are eating rubbish yourself, that they are also doing something that does not make you happy. It is a fact, but the interpretation can be more complex. Let's say that when you do something you are not happy about, you need other people to do it as well, so that you can feel it is the right decision, even though you are not happy. Ideally, if everybody did the same thing, that thing would be the right thing to do for there are no options that can make you doubt about it.
Second situation: Buy a very expensive car.
Focus in:
1. What you feel when people look at your car.
2. What you feel when somebody decides to buy the same car as you, and what when they decide it after seeing you drive it or riding in it.
You can try analog experiments in other situations:
- Get married*
- Buy a big house
- Have some children*
- Buy and expensive big tv
- Buy snacks
- Have legal drugs (tobacco, alcohol, coffee)
You could as well think about other situations.
Now, try these things:
- Go training hard
- Work your hardest at work
- Go away for a couple of days, go hard on yourself, walk many kilometers, sleep rough
What do you feel when other people do it? And when they decide to do it after seeing you?
The natural feeling here is that you don't care what they do, for you are truly happy doing this, and that causes that it becomes genuinely right for you and you don't need anybody to support your decision in what you know is right from the bottom of yourself.
* In the case of marrying and having children lots of people do it because of social pressure and expectations, the fear to be alone, the fear not to belong to the society, etc. That is why these situations can also be good ones for the experiments.
