About life

You're up at 4 a.m. once more. Your relationships are, shall we say, a little bit up in the air, you're having trouble sleeping, and things at work aren't going so well.

You feel like the only person in the world who has been completely screwed when you are lying awake in the stillness of your room, in your lonely bed (which is located in an apartment somewhere among millions of other apartments in cities all over the world).

We've all undoubtedly experienced that at some point in our lives, if I were to wager. When everything seems to be against us and nothing seems to be going our way, we begin to believe that the entire rat race is a huge ruse intended to derail all of our hard work.

Whenever this happens, I have to come up with a counterargument, largely to talk myself out of the downward mental spiral that has me in this night of woe-is-me self-pity.

Platitudes, overly upbeat mantras, and pop culture nonsense don't appeal to me (although for those who need it maybe it helps). Overly optimistic perspectives, in my opinion, might be more damaging if they are not based on reality.

The best way I can express my despair is as follows:

Everyone experiences negative things because life is difficult.

Yes, I find comfort in it. I no longer feel like I'm being singled out because I realize how much hardship we all experience and that life's vicissitudes affect everyone.

Instead of thinking “who is me”, I sense a solidarity with everyone who is and has ever been living. Despite the fact that some people may be luckier, wealthier, or more brilliant than I am, they nonetheless experience suffering.

This is so because suffering can be stopped. The secret is to prevent suffering that isn't required, like punishing oneself for failing or consistently sabotaging your own best attempts to enhance your life.

The issue is that we tend to get back into the mindset that WE are the ones being taken advantage of and that WE are the only ones who appear to be struggling to realize their aspirations.

This sensation might result from endlessly scrolling through Instagram at all hours of the day, when we are led to believe that everyone else is enjoying their best lives with the ideal job, ideal SO, and fantastic trip destinations. We start to believe that we are the only ones who are struggling, which makes us feel as though we have failed in some manner.

Defining Success and Failure Differently

But how do we escape this frame of mind? How can we reclaim our best selves from the depths of self-hatred and bitterness? Although difficult, there might well be a solution.

Despite his weaknesses, the philosopher Alan Watts recognized that he wasn't always a good guy and that others weren't always what they looked to be.

He would mock the idea of self-improvement and explain to his audience how absurd it is to try to enhance a nonexistent self.

Sometimes we have to "muddle through," realizing that we can't outsmart ourselves, be genuinely compassionate to another person, or be unselfconscious on purpose.

The words "ought to be" and "should be" can cause a lot of harm because they cause us to spend too much time feeling inferior and unworthy when instead we should be praising the special mix of memories and experiences that make each person they are.

So let's say there is nothing we can do to better ourselves. Next, what? Then then, it would be lovely if we could accept ourselves with all of our shortcomings, peculiarities, memories, thoughts, and ways of being.

Since there is nothing we can do, we should just relax and take it all in. You will eventually take action because life is dynamic. Because you can never truly know everything about the world around you or what it is at its core, you will chose what makes sense to your brain at the time.

Life Is Difficult

Our own selves can resemble a decent government, which in its ideal state resembles a moderated type of anarchy. There are competing interests, moments of uncertainty, several false starts, and direction adjustments. But we all understand that this is preferable than a totalitarian state that confines citizens to repressive modes of existence.

The fact is, life is challenging. Numerous elements make up life, including the ongoing cycle of changes to the earth and the billions of people vying for resources, as well as cities evolving and changing as people travel through them. A human being cannot possibly know everything or know how to adapt to these changes.

So, if you're having trouble, are stuck in indecision, or are just having a bad day, don't give up.

Sometimes in life, you just get a bad offer at a specific time. But since you know that everyone ultimately experiences life's setbacks, you can start to chuckle a little, get back up, and start dancing again.

Because perhaps it is the real issue at hand. It's not gaining knowledge on how to improve, work more diligently, or master the environment. It involves learning to dance in time.