The Good Life

When I was in the woods, after 9 days of silence, I started thinking about how a good life for me was gonna be.

See, after I lost any faith in god, heaven, hell, I just went into depression. My previous life philosophy involved being chosen by god and being in heaven with him, I would earn that right by being a good kid, working hard, being good to others.

After you lose that, your life loses meaning. At least mine lost. Here is something most self help books get wrong. If your life isn’t meaningful, why improve it?

But that is not how I felt, I felt like things had meaning, but my intellect could only describe meaningless.

I had to meditate deeply in order to dig into my intuition and realize what I really want.

I don’t want to walk around thinking I’m smarter than anyone around me just because I know “In a billion years the universe won’t remember you”. This information could be correct yes. But it could easily be wrong. The thing is, this is the thought that appeared everyday in my search for meaning.

But after a while, my mind settled and this came up on it.

The Good Life

I divided in 5 topics. None addresses family and being with others, all that I find important, but they on themselves don’t lead me to a good life. Relationships are important, but for me, the good life involves knowing and applying those 5 topics.

Everything Changes:

There will be times when I’ll think my life has no importance, and then I won’t want to do anything. However, there will be times when I won’t think that. What happens then? When I’m not thinking that, I’ll want to remember working through the pain on those dark days.

The work is all that matters

Sure family is important, I’m not saying it isn’t. But don’t put any energy on awards or anything other than sitting down and working. Action matters, Ideas do not. All that exists is what was created, transformed. Nothing ever changes if you only think about it.

Being Proud Beats the hell out of Being Motivated

Pride gets you going, pride gets you confidence in yourself. Pride lifts your spirits in a way no drug can(well…). Motivation can actually make work more difficult, because if you chase it, you only work on easy tasks that keep you on the “flow”. You should go after the hard things, and then let the good feelings for later when you finish it.

Motivation should be the cherry

You eat the cake, even if there is no cherry. Cherry makes the whole desert sweeter, but should be the extra, not the main composition. It would ruin the cake if it was only cherries. Also, eat it last, it will make the experience taste better.

Work diligently, like a clock

Function like clockwork is an expression for something that works excelently and as expected. By my own definition, I respect things that work.

So Work.

Respect Yourself.