On life and things in between…
My journey to the light
It is almost magical how things could change within a short amount of time. One day, there was a girl who’s very thankful for the life she currently lived; she saw the world as a beautiful place that her heart was filled with so much love. But the next day, things went downhill; one bad decision led to another bad situation — and vice versa. She ended up thinking she deserved nothing. She hasn’t done herself any favor just by being thankful. This cycle goes on and on, it changes almost seamlessly as day and night, and she survived, almost every time. She was me.
Up until these 23 years of living, I have experienced some of the worst and the best moments of my life (so far). Those spark the most basic questions; “Why am I here?” “What is the point of feeling so much pain and love?” “What is the point of living?”
I don’t understand life. Apparently, no one does. There was no guidebook or a tutorial just as I was born — even though I really wish I had. So, as I understand it, people are just trying to do things that work for them. Some treat life as a competition as it would make them feel like a winner. Some others treat it as a survival game and everything else is either a friend or a foe. Some, practically don’t care and live on autopilot. Happy, successful, and rich. I often find those words in every motivational book I read and now I’m getting to the point where all of those words seem to have no more meaning. They are merely ideas that sell the book.
I tried to live as what other people thought I was best for. I followed their advice, and I ended up lost. Every. Single. Time. As I was in that path that was engraved for me by others, I was stepping away from living a fulfilling life that could suit me. I didn’t know what I wished for and describe the term ‘fulfilling’, though, but, I just knew it… in my guts! (Probably not the best excuse, but it’s good enough for me to have that ‘woke’ moment).
So, I was done trying to live as what others think is good for me. And I switched my path to living in balance — as I have always believed in balance. I believed that being ‘in between’ would lead me to a better life. But no matter how much I tried, I always end up either with poor outcomes or — if I’m lucky, the good ones. I tried to fight it. I wanted things to turn out fine and go as planned, little did I know I was putting too much burden on myself that I always winded up feeling upset. I felt stuck and there was a hollow in my chest that told me no matter how hard I try, I won’t make things any better. I saw my life in dualism: good or bad, win or lose, happy or sad, contentment or regret.
But then, I stumbled upon Kierkegaard’s idea:
Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.
Everything happens simultaneously, it’s part of life. The pain and love, the lost and found, the happiness and regret, they are supposed to happen. Life is too complex and too dynamic to be figured out, the only answer is to simply live in it and just be. I realized that no matter which path I choose, which decision I make, I would still end up feeling things. It would feel great or horrible, but it is — a matter of fact, the point of being.
I remembered a book I once read, entitled Siddhartha by Herman Hesse. There was a moment in the book in which Siddharta was sitting by the river, listening to its sound.
“…when Siddhartha was listening attentively to this river, this song of a thousand voices, when he neither listened to the suffering nor the laughter, when he did not tie his soul to any particular voice and submerged his self into it, but when he heard them all, perceived the whole, the oneness, then the great song of the thousand voices consisted of a single word, which was Om: the perfection.”
This might be getting a little too deep, but let me get to the surface quite a bit. The passage emphasized about mindfulness, that in all the lives we live; we are only a part of its current. The complexity, the variety, emotions, thoughts, actions, moments, everything in between, it is just a way of life. Looking from inside the ‘river’, it’s loud, confusing, numbing; it rages. Looking from the outside, by simply being open, and you may see the flow, you will see that life only follows its law, it just keeps going, and that is the bigger picture.
All of these years I’ve been looking for ways on how to live the best life, but searching numbs me from other things which would make my life richer. Thanks to Kierkegaard and Herman Hesse, mindfulness becomes my new way of living a content and peaceful life.
