Labyrinth of the World and Paradise of the Heart

About three months ago I joined the podcast trend. Only as a listener, for now… I started to follow a young Czech lady called Kristyna. She talks about mindful self-growth, health, interior design or financial education, and relationships. I came across one of her epizode called The Labyrinth of the World and Paradise of the Heart. (It was named after a famous Czech book from John Amos Comenius).

She talked about a group game she attended when she was a very young girl at a summer camp. This game was called Labyrinth of the World and Paradise of the Heart and the scene of the game had been placed in the building with two floors. Each floor represented a decade of their life. Each room on the second floor was an area of their life (a family, work or a free time).

These kids started on the bottom floor where they spent 10 minutes experiencing their first decade of their childhood. They were remembering the feelings, the play time, laughs. After that time past the scene changed.

They all went upstairs to their 10-20 years old. There the kids were asked to complete all different tasks like a basic math exercise or PE for school. But they also had to choose the college or university or job they wanted to do. Some of the kids started earning money (only pretend money).

After 10 minutes playing around some quite simple choices there came the third decade - their 20-30’s. And life got tougher. Most of the people chose their job and started to earn more money. But they also started to pay for rent, car, going out, or holidays. Some were having families. They would pair up with another person and shared decisions together, making compromises or arguing…

But there was a very important character in this game, called Destiny. Black caped man touched somebody's hand to tell them their life was over after a sudden car crash (the person was out of the game immediately). Or somebody became ‘paralysed’ and was left to carry on with his ‘life’ (game) - to find a job, make money or live on benefits…

This girl, Kristyna, was playing this game too. She chose to enjoy life in her very own way. To work hard, play hard. With the ‘money’ she would make Kristyna would ‘travel’ the world. Time to time she would go to the room which symbolized her family. There was a lady pretending to be her mother. Kristyna would go there to tell her about all the travels she had done.

As the game went on, Kristyna realised she is a bit bored of only working and traveling and working again. She could see a few couples around her, having children, a bit less money to travel, of course. But they all had someone to share their stories with. She only had her ‘mum’. So after a quite honest talk with her ‘mother’ she decides to go on her last trip to see if she could meet somebody there. She promised that lady in the family room she will come back and tell who she met. That lady asked for it again and again.

Kristyna left for her travels, met a person but didn’t settle down with him in the end. She came back to ‘work’ and carried on with her simple life. After some time in the game she remembered her ‘mum’ and wanted to go back to the family room to tell her about unsuccessful journey to find a man. This teenage girl found the door again to see her ‘mother’, opened it and there… is nobody. Her ‘mother’ died, waiting to hear Kristyna’s story she was meant to never know...

That was a key moment for this girl. She, at a very young age, could feel what would be her life like if she chose this particular path. But experiencing the minute of being in the whole world only on her own with no family or partner, that changed her way of thinking. So after the game she made a great connection with her mother in real life. Kristyna still works and travels but also remembers that strong feeling of losing.

This was a very strong story and also meant that someone got the chance to experience this in a very young age and be able to see how the lives of people around her can drastically change by a simple touch of Destiny.

I felt happy to hear this story. Made me realise which of my values are actually important and some of my current problems just got much smaller. I love sometimes to stop and see my life from a perspective. Being reminded that life is not fair but you just need to become flexible to get through it.