7 Lessons From Running The Marathon Of Life For 23 Years

It's the experiences you encounter and the people and situations you confront in your life that matter, not the stretch of time for which you live. So, without further ado, let's dive deep into the life experiences and lessons learned from the 2+ decades lived on the face of this earth by an introverted soul.

1. Don't let others tell you how to feel

Some of the intrinsically valued and unique characteristics of life are that it's uncertain, full of tragedy, and hard to its core. What makes it even harder is the people around. We sometimes care for the environment around us so much so that it becomes difficult to keep our sanity in place.

Gaslighting is a form of emotional abuse that's seen in abusive relationships. It's the act of manipulating a person by forcing them to question their thoughts, memories, and the events occurring around them. A victim of gaslighting can be pushed so far that they question their own sanity.

This happens in our mundane life in our office, class, friends circle, at home, or whatever place we spend our time.

Letting others decide for you how to feel and what to say in the reaction is pure evil and toxicity to your mood and behavior, broadly. If this continues to happen without deliberate and conscious effort made towards its solution, it may create a snowball effect that may cause some behaviors which would eventually reflect in your personality.

You can get inspired but you shouldn't let others manipulate your thoughts and belief system. Or else your value hierarchy might collapse with time which can, probably, result in weak foundations of your whole sanity and existence. And that's not good. That's really not good.

2. Break the chains ASAP

Our mind has this capacity of tagging others with certain labels. We want others to be the way we want them to be and so do they want us to be how they want us to be. It's not a bad habit or an evil thing intrinsically, per se. It depends on the context in which you execute such behavior.

We want, like, and desire our environment to complement our mood, personality, and obviously our belief system and values.

Putting others in a box of certain labels, names, adjectives, and status is an instinctive trait of human beings to follow. It comes naturally to man. If you are targeting some other person with this trait of yours, know that it could turn its direction in 180° like a boomerang at any point in time.

Tagging and labeling people is a contextual matter to deal with. It all depends on the intention that one carries for its execution. If the intention is to pull others down and not let them move forward and grow, It's time to break the chains and free yourself of this mental prison. There's nothing scarier than a mental prison. You could be free in a Nazi Concentration Camp as Viktor Frankl was, while chances are that you could feel stuck, uncomfortable, and imprisoned in the lap of your lover, the world's most freer place.

Breaking the chains is really important for living to your fullest. As soon as you come out of those stereotypes, you'd see and feel things differently and more clearly. You can divert your energy and focus somewhere where it is needed in the truest sense.

So, the sooner the chains break, the better it is.

3. Religion and worldly life could dance together

Looking closely and critically at the philosophy of theology, a conclusion could be retrieved that the fundamental skeleton of almost all religions is the same.

You got a sovereign power and then there are a set of rules and regulations that you have to follow. Those rules, regulations, and restrictions are preached by a set of humans called, Prophets, Saints, preachers, Imams, Pops, et cetera.

The only difference among religions is the portrayal and representation of these fundamental elements of each religion.

A common misunderstanding of a vast majority of people is that religious and non-religious life could not go in parallel with each other. As in, you'd either have to think about your career or praying at a mosque or church or any other holy place.

And that's one out of million other reasons that most people identify as Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus but are not seen practicing any religious activity.

What most people miss, along the way, is that the fundamental philosophy of religion is actually a set of rules, regulations, and restrictions that aim at beautifying the practicality of life. It's for the betterment of life.

Religion is actually, basically, and fundamentally a hope that keeps you moving forward and helps you not lose your mind in the face of suffering and pain in life. You could experience that easily by consciously noticing people in times of suffering that they seek comfort and hope in turning towards God, religion, saints, prophets, holy books, and practicing anything kind enough to relieve their pain and suffering.

4. Negation ≠ Evil

What we learn, consciously or subconsciously since our childhood, is that negation in every domain is bad, evil, and undesirable. Rejection, failure, anxiety, pain. All of these along with a gazillion other things are rejected in our society of so-called social creatures.

Little did I know that it all depends on the perspective and the realm of subjectivity in which you are currently in. This idea of subjectivity has been taken seriously by Quantum Mechanics and the Theory of Relativity in Physics.

We can crown Einstein for the concept of relativity. Although many deep thinkers and philosophers gave forth the idea of subjectivity Einstein was the first one to prove it with his thought experiments and make it a solid theory.

If there were no negations, there would be no suffering. If there were no suffering, there would be no improvement, advancement, and growth. If there were no improvement and advancement, there would still be tribalism. If there was tribalism, there would still be unnecessary dominance of the powerful over the poor and lower class in the dominance hierarchy. And all of this is, obviously, not helpful and not good at all.

This leaves us with the notion that suffering is inevitable. It's gonna happen no matter what. It's upon us to decide whether to welcome it and treat it optimistically or fear it and flee away like most of us do all the time.

One proposition could be to flee the situation. The downside of which could be compared to that holiday you took from the stressful bundle of files at your desk upon returning to which after a week, the stack has gotten bigger and touches the ceiling. 

Another, and my, proposition here would be to look in the eyes of the demon of suffering and dance with it on a piece of romantic music in the background. Once you start doing that, you build the confidence to deal with it the next time. And believe me, it's the only option that could save your S.

5. To read is to taste the real flavor of reality

This would definitely sound cliche if I mentioned the reading habits of Warren Buffet and Bill Gates but this may come surprising enough to you if I told you that Jordan Peterson read at least 3 hours every day while writing his magnum opus, maps of meaning.

"Books are bloodless mentors"

If you wanna educate yourself, read a book. If you wanna get rich, read a book. If you wanna escape your reality, read a book. If you wanna travel a thousand miles in a second, read a book.

With each book read, you get closer to reality. With each book read your clarity of reality increases. Each book is a gateway to a unique universe, be it fictional or non-fictional. Each book opens up new opportunities for you.

Some people challenge themselves to read a certain amount of books per year. Others read without considering achieving any figure at all.

I started out by challenging myself on the GoodReads app like others. But then I switched to reading less and chewing more on the content. I try to read difficult and thought-provoking stuff from the political philosophies of Plato and Socrates to the existentialism of Sartre and the contemporary merge of philosophy, evolution and human psychology by Jordan Peterson.

By difficult I mean difficult to understand. Something that requires conscious mental effort and deliberate thinking. Such content builds your horizon and make your thoughts and feeling articulate and I don't regret it.

The only thing that I regret is why didn't I started reading early in my life. And that regret is reasonable enough to consider. Anyway, better late than nothing.

6. The fool is the precursor to the savior

In the story of The Emperor's New Clothes, the emperor is naked but no one will say it for fear of ridiculing him. The person who says "The Emperor has no clothes" is a child and a fool who is oblivious to the possible consequences of embarrassing the one with absolute power. However, once one person publicly destroys the shared delusion it all falls apart and the Emperor is ridiculed.

The naivety and optimism of a fool are often what is necessary to try something so daunting as saving everyone, particularly when it has been tried and failed so many times before. If you were to boil it down even further to the point where it loses much of its meaning, to say "the fool is the precursor to the savior" is almost like saying "it takes a glass half full kind of guy to think something can be done about it".

Moving further, my life is not that extraordinarily happening but whatever I've done and started, I've always felt like a complete idiot and useless at the beginning. And I'm not the only one who feels that way. Watch this video and pay attention to what Jordan Peterson says from 4:30 onwards.

Hearing a guy of such stature as Jordan Peterson, I contained my courage to come out with this confession and to connect the dots of my emotional state with the consequences of that mental state.

19 to 25 is the age to go as wild as you can to explore and experience things. Don't be expedient in your actions. Keep it as real and raw as possible. The real and raw vibe would add the element of familiarity and extra attachment to The Experience. Be foolish enough to contain anything under your skin. As Jordan Peterson says, and I quote:

"If you aren't willing to be a fool you can't be a master."

7. Slow Down

Human race has always been on the run to insert ease and convenience into the stream of life.

With the advent of Industrialization and postmodernism, man has achieved what he was set out for from the very beginning of the emergence of consciousness. But this modernist advancement of man in every domain has made human society more vulnerable and anxious. In short, we have been corrupted by our own inventions, discoveries, philosophies, and creations.

As Mark Manson writes in his book, The subtle art of not giving a fuck, and I quote

"Technology has solved old economic problems by giving us new psychological problems. The internet has not just open-sourced information, it has also open-sourced insecurity, self-doubt, and shame."

And these psychological and spiritual problems have extended to the point where we can't cope up with them now.

The most prominent metaphysical and spiritual problem that I felt I've been a victim of by our modern world of social media, instant information access, and convenient transportation, is being rushy and doing, or at least intend to do, things at more than 1X speed.

Our pace of life has been accelerated and is continuously accelerating with each second passed. And it's the most terrifying thing to deal with. As Mark Manson says

no matter what you do, there's always an 11-year-old already doing that on the internet.

And this "achieving more in and with less" approach has paralyzed our whole society with unnecessary worries and anxieties.

We can't imagine ourselves, at least for once, in a scenario where we finish last. We equate that with failure.

Humanity has pushed itself in this huge pit of the vicious cycle of starting early and finishing early. Everyone wants more in less time than actually required.

We've parted ways with feeling the real flavor and taste of moments. As the Italian poet, Cesare Pavese, says and I quote:

"We Do Not Remember Days We Remember Moments."

This topic is very dear to me and really is close to my heart. I can write and write and write on it. The rationale behind this is that my life has taken an almost obtuse angle turn after realizing I have the option of taking things slowly. There's no need to rush. Feel the time and live the moment.

If you liked what you read, I'm sure you'd like my other pieces on such interesting topics too.

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