Category: Happiness, meaningfulness and good living
4 reasons why you should believe that dreams come true – and 3 reasons why you should not
I wrote a sentence in my last post that started to haunt me. The sentence was: ’Most of the dreams we are really committed to work for are actually achievable.’ Do I really believe it to be true? Isn’t that something that all those cheap happy-happy-self-help-gurus proclaim with their false smiles? On the other hand, there is a grain of truth in it. In the end, it is good to believe in it – but only under certain conditions.
First reason to believe in the power of your dreams is that the clearer goals you have the more possibilities you see. When you have a clear idea of what you want then you are able to see how your actions in different contexts can advance that dream. An optimist who believes that the dream can come true is much more prone to achieve that dream. This is mainly because he or she is always on the lookout for opportunities to take steps towards its fulfillment.
Similarly, when you believe in your dream you have more energy and courage to work towards it. When you see a weak possibility you jump at it and see where it takes you. The one who tries knows whether something leads to success or not. The pessimist will not even try – and thus never will find out whether there would have been a path of possibilities available. This is the logic behind the saying of Henry Ford according to which: ”Whether you believe you can or believe you cannot, you are probably right.” There might be a possibility or there might not be. As a pessimist you will never find out.
Thirdly, the world tends to help those who believe in their dreams. When you get enthusiastic about your dream then you most probably share it with those around you. And they might be able to give you invaluable advice, resources or contacts thus greatly increasing your change of success. Additionally, engagement is highly contagious and the kind of disease that people really want to get infected with. So when you are really engaged in a project it usually is easy to find other people who want to go with you in the same direction. Transforming your dream into a clear and communicable form activates not only the resources of yourself but also those around you.
Finally, the bigger and clearer the dream is for you, the more you are willing to sacrifice for it. Our time and other resources are limited and if you want to achieve something extraordinary you usually need to focus quite a large portion of them towards this one thing. Having a clear goal makes clear that you don’t get sidetracked but really work towards that dream of yours.
There are thus a number of good reasons to believe that all dreams are achievable. The more you believe in it, the bigger chance you have to actually achieve your dream. But there is – as always – another side of the story.
Life doesn’t always go according to the plans. It isn’t a coincidence that happening and happiness have the same first four letters – it reflects the ancient idea that happiness is what happens to us rather than something we can control. A surprisingly big part of our success or failure is due to external factors. In Silicon Valley they have recognized this. Therefore someone who has few bankruptcies behind him- or herself is not seen as a failure but as an experienced entrepreneur.
Believing that everyone can always achieve their dreams if they just try hard enough is totally untenable believe in the real world where a hurricane or a global economic crisis can undo everything you have worked for in a single sweep of fate. More specifically, this attitude leads to three detrimental consequences:
Firstly, you are too harsh on yourself. When you don’t achieve something you blame yourself. You see that it was your own fault that you failed. You become depressed thinking that you are a-good-for-nothing. You loose your ability to try again because you are sure that it will only reconfirm the fact that you are not able to make it. You doom yourself into cynical and embittered passivity in the face of life.
Secondly, you are too harsh on others. If you see people who are worse off than yourself you believe that it is their own fault. This attitude of superiority is one of the plagues of our modern times. There are far too many arrogant hotshots who don’t know anything about life but who are sure that their success is totally their own merit and that they deserve every kind of privilege that puts them above the others who have only themselves to blame. A person’s success or failure in life is quite much dependent on the economic, social and educational capital they have at their disposal. When you read those from-rags-to-riches stories you realize that almost always there was somebody who helped the protagonist on the way and provided the necessary means to make the journey to a new world. How many potential achievers are out there that didn’t have that necessary mentor at the right moment? And the statistics show that at least in America those stories are becoming more and more rare. American dream seems to be most achievable in countries where free education and other welfare policies make it possible for those starting at the bottom to reach their full potential.
Thirdly, by concentrating too blindly on your target you miss everything else that is worthwhile in life. It is always heartbreaking to read those stories about highly successful men who realize in their 60s how they missed out on the whole family thing and how they then try to compensate by spoiling their grandchildren. Be careful about what you dream because by choosing what you dream about you also choose away those things that are not part of your dream.
So what to do? In some situations, the believe in dreams coming true seems to be very fruitful. In others it leads to a dismal worldview. Which to choose?
Luckily we don’t have to choose and blindly follow only one of the beliefs. Instead we can be flexible and look at the world through the one that better suits any particular situation. As long as things work out as they should you can follow the success framework – it gives you energy to reach even further. But when life hits you with a hard hand straight in your face you should have the agility to change framework and not blame yourself or others but accept the situation that lady Fortuna has prepared for you. And then go on to find a dream more suitable for your new situation.
How is your bucket list doing? Want to know what are the 20 items I want to do before I die?
What are the most awesome things that you definitely want to do before you finally ’hit the bucket’? Answering this question right now can be a revealing or even life-changing experience. I’ll tell you why and then you’ll have an exclusive look at the 20 items that ended up on my own personal bucket list.
Why bucket list is so powerful? The answer is simple: Because most of the dreams we are really committed to work for are actually achievable. And getting clear of your dreams is the first step in this process. Additionally, even if you already have a certain dream you’ll be amazed by the power that the simple act of putting it on a paper has for committing to it and realizing it. So even if it sounds a bit cliché and silly, do it!
For me the wake-up call to do the list came in early morning hours of a bus trip between El Salvador and Nicaragua. I woke up to see Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman chat with each other in Spanish on the bus TV. Even though the movie was dubbed into Spanish the subtitles were in English (twisted, isn’t it) and captured by the charm of these two older gentlemen I watched the movie to the end. The movie was Bucket List and it is about two men from different backgrounds who are united by the approaching death and decide to join forces and do the things they always wanted to do. The plot is somewhat predictable but was still able to raise important issues about how one should live one’s life – and also move me to tears at few points.
The most obvious question raised by the movie is of course: Have you done your bucket list yet? If not, then do it! Not tomorrow, but right now!
To practice what I preach I did the exercise myself.
The first thing I realized when I started to answer the question was that I intuitively try to put my life in some kind of categories through which to think about the question. Two dimensions immediately came to my mind: the professional dimension of creating and achieving something. And the personal dimension of those people that stand close to me. After that I realized that I want to give something to the world also beyond my immediate social relations. And finally I thought that perhaps I should also ask what personal joys would I want to experience before I die. Beyond these four dimensions I really couldn’t think of anything that would be worthwhile to include on a bucket list.
So here are my dimensions for the bucket list (please comment if you feel that something important is missing):
1. Professional life: What targets I commit myself to aim to achieve during my limited lifetime?
2. Personal life: What beauty I want to experience in my relations to those near to me?
3. Giving: What do I want to give to the world before I die?
4. Experiencing: What memorable moments do I want to encounter before hitting the bucket?
So what items ended up on my bucket list?
In professional life my mission is to explore the eternal question about how to live a good life. I want to deliver some fragments of wisdom that could enhance people’s actual capacity to live a good life. But with the bucket list I had to get more concrete than that. And the first concrete target that came to my mind is to write and publish at least three different books: one in professional academic philosophy (preferably published by Oxford University Press, if I am allowed to dream big), one book about good life targeted at a more general audience and one fictional novel. In my trade, the books are the milestones of the progress of our thinking. Hence, items 1, 2 & 3.
1. Write a book in academic philosophy.
2. Write a book about good life for a more general audience.
3. Write a fictional novel.
Secondly, good philosophy is rarely done in isolation and one of the most exciting experiences in my short career have been the thrilling conversations I have had the honor to have with many wise people. This is a dimension I want to have more of and to put it into concrete targets I came up with items 4 and 5.
4. Have at least five professor-level contacts whom I can call day or night if an exciting idea hits me.
5. Give a lecture in one of the top universities in the world.
Thirdly, during my short initiation into philosophy and the scientific community I have encountered many great mentors that have unselfishly given so much guidance and invaluable advices to me that I am forever thankful for them. This is a debt I want to pay back for those that come after me. This is items 6 & 7.
6. Be amongst the persons that a future philosopher thanks in the acknowledgment section of her or his breakthrough book as one of the most important advisors in making his or her work possible.
7. Get some form of award for good teaching abilities.
Personal life proved to be a tricky section in terms of clear targets. One of my strongest personal dreams is to have children and be a loving father to them. But how to remake that into a clear bucket list item? Or how can one reduce love story or friendship into certain measurable bucket list items? Finally I came up with four items, 8, 9, 10 & 11.
8. Be able to support each one of my children in achieving what they dream about, whatever that might be.
9. Have a person to whom I can honestly tell that I love her until death do us apart.
10. Be the first person that a friend calls to when a major turning point of life hits him or her.
11. Organize at least every other year a huge party where around 100 good people I know gather together for a long night of joy and companionship.
Giving. Life has been fortunate for me. I have won the lottery of life by being born into a loving family in a peaceful and democratic country with strong social security system and good educational opportunities. Not all people are so lucky and therefore I feel that it is my responsibility to enhance their possibilities to live out a good life. I know that I could give quite much of my possessions away without it affecting significantly my happiness level. At the same time the amount I am giving away could change the life of a big number of people, save them from a disease, give them education and so forth. Let’s start, however, with a quite moderate monetary goal (item 12).
12. Give constantly at least 10% of all my income to good causes.
But I would like to get more personal than that. Martti Ahtisaari received a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts for world peace in, for example, Namibia, Kosovo and Aceh. Yet even more impressive demonstration of his good work is the fact that in Namibia there are now lots of boys carrying his first name, Martti. Naming one’s child after someone is perhaps the greatest gesture of honour one can give. I don’t believe that my contribution will ever be as grand as Ahtisaari’s. But the true test of one’s devotion to helping others is not in numbers. It would be mind-blowing if some people felt that my contribution to their life had been so great that they want to honor that by giving my name to their son – or why not a daughter. Of all the items here I believe that this (number 13) is the hardest to achieve but in the bucket list you are allowed to put also your more ’impossible’ dreams.
13. Have a baby named after me.
Experiencing. Finally, why not have some fun in life while it lasts? These things need not much explanation. I’ve wanted to try paragliding for many years but haven’t got into it yet. Meditation sounds very interesting but despite a few tries I haven’t had the patience to really make it into a daily habit. I enjoy traveling and love the sea. And some sporting challenges are always rewarding to achieve. You’ll find these items (14-21) below.
So here is my bucket list as of now, written just around the time I turned 30:
Professional life:
1. Write a book in academic philosophy.
2. Write a book about good life for a more general audience.
3. Write a fictional novel.
4. Have at least five professor-level contacts whom I can call day or night if an exciting idea hits me.
5. Give a lecture in one of the top universities in the world
6. Be amongst the persons that a future philosopher thanks in the acknowledgment section of her or his breakthrough book as one of the most important advisors in making his or her work possible.
7. Get some form of award for good teaching abilities.
Personal life:
8. Be able to support each one of my children in achieving what they dream about, whatever that might be.
9. Have a person to whom I can honestly tell that I love her until death do us apart.
10. Be the first person that a friend calls to when a major turning point of life hits him or her.
11. Organize at least every other year a huge party where around 100 good people I know gather together for a long night of joy and companionship
Giving:
12. Give constantly at least 10% of all my income to good causes.
13. Have a baby named after me.
Experiencing:
14. Paragliding.
15. Cross an ocean with a sailing boat.
16. Be able to uphold a state of meditation for an hour.
17. Live at least a half a year in three different countries.
18. Run the marathon.
19. Conquer a few cool mountains.
20. Complete a Worldloppet cross-country race in ten different countries.
21. Participate in the Jukola orienteering competition.
If reading my list didn’t move you to make your own list, watch the movie for additional inspiration. Even if for just to see how the dying character played by Jack Nicholson is finally able to complete the list item ’Kiss the most beautiful girl in the world’. For me, seeing that scene was one of the moments when tears filled my eyes. The answer was so simple yet so surprising.
P.S. I would really love to hear your story. What items would you include in your bucket list? What kind of experience was doing the bucket list for you?
Jumping on a grenade: To become a hero you have to think beyond self-interest
19th December 1941 Sergeant-Major John Robert Osborn showcased the ultimate limits of human heroism As his group became divided from the main battalion in the hills of Hong Kong and had to withdraw against an overwhelming enemy he stayed behind to single-handedly engage the enemy while others ran to safety. After joining the others they soon found themselves surrounded by the enemy. Several enemy grenades were thrown towards them but the soldiers picked them up and threw back. Suddenly, a grenade landed in a position where it was impossible to return it in time. To protect his troops, Osborn shouted a warning and threw himself on the grenade. He was killed instantly.
There are many lessons to be learned from this dramatic real-life story. One of them is about human motivation. All too often we hear people saying that people are motivated solely by their own happiness. That human beings are self-interested creatures whose every single act contributes towards their own well-being. It would be quite absurd – and dishonoring – to say that John Robert Osborn was motivated by self-interestedness when jumping on the grenade. Instead we should see that he was moved by something that he considered to be so worthwhile that he was willing to sacrifice his life for it.
Many people love to debate about whether human beings are essentially egoistic or altruistic creatures. In my opinion the whole distinction is founded on a mistake. The mistake is to think that altruistic behavior must be something which is against your personal motives. Instead we human beings can be motivated by many different things, some more related to our own well-being while others are more about the well-being of others. Osborn’s case was not an isolated incident. There are several recorded incidents of similar deeds of saving your comrades by sacrificing yourself. Less dramatic acts of self-sacrifice are a significant part of everyone’s life.
So instead of this imaginary polarization between two opposing positions the real question is this: To what extent a certain person is motivated by his own well-being and to what extent by some wider concerns? Some people lean more towards egoistic end of the continuum while others are more able to take others into account. Test here where you are located.
How egoistic or altruistic we are is largely determined by our cultural upbringing. Some cultures put more emphasis on self-interest while others learn children to value more the perspective of the others. In this regard there haven’t been many cultures during the course of human history that would have emphasized more egoism and self-regard than the current western culture. The catch is here: The way we see ourselves and others is a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more the politicians, economists, media and we all as individuals talk about human beings as rational and strictly self-interested, the more we become such cold and calculating creatures. And the more we have to suppress our natural tendency for empathy and regard for others. No wonder economy students demonstrate the least other-regarding behavior in tests.
Yet despite this cultural propaganda to behave egoistically all of us transcend the limitations of such a selfish lifestyle and demonstrate remarkable deeds of acting in the name of the well-being of those around us. When the situation calls for it there are greater capacities for other-regarding behavior in us than most of us would ever imagine. John Robert Osborn’s act is a testimony for this.
By emphasizing such acts and the general human capacity for empathy we can strengthen the other-regarding tendencies in our society and in our own lives. Therefore the most essential question as regards egoism and altruism is this: In what direction do you want to develop yourself and those around you?
19th December 1941 Sergeant-Major John Robert Osborn showcased the ultimate limits of human heroism As his group became divided from the main battalion in the hills of Hong Kong and had to withdraw against an overwhelming enemy he stayed behind to single-handedly engage the enemy while others ran to safety. After joining the others they soon found themselves surrounded by the enemy. Several enemy grenades were thrown towards them but the soldiers picked them up and threw back. Suddenly, a grenade landed in a position where it was impossible to return it in time. To protect his troops, Osborn shouted a warning and threw himself on the grenade. He was killed instantly.
There are many lessons to be learned from this dramatic real-life story. One of them is about human motivation. All too often we hear people saying that people are motivated solely by their own happiness. That human beings are self-interested creatures whose every single act contributes towards their own well-being. It would be quite absurd – and dishonoring – to say that John Robert Osborn was motivated by self-interestedness when jumping on the grenade. Instead we should see that he was moved by something that he considered to be so worthwhile that he was willing to sacrifice his life for it.
Many people love to debate about whether human beings are essentially egoistic or altruistic creatures. In my opinion the whole distinction is founded on a mistake. The mistake is to think that altruistic behavior must be something which is against your personal motives. Instead we human beings can be motivated by many different things, some more related to our own well-being while others are more about the well-being of others. Osborn’s case was not an isolated incident. There are several recorded incidents of similar deeds of saving your comrades by sacrificing yourself. Less dramatic acts of self-sacrifice are a significant part of everyone’s life.
So instead of this imaginary polarization between two opposing positions the real question is this: To what extent a certain person is motivated by his own well-being and to what extent by some wider concerns? Some people lean more towards egoistic end of the continuum while others are more able to take others into account. Test here where you are located.
How egoistic or altruistic we are is largely determined by our cultural upbringing. Some cultures put more emphasis on self-interest while others learn children to value more the perspective of the others. In this regard there haven’t been many cultures during the course of human history that would have emphasized more egoism and self-regard than the current western culture. The catch is here: The way we see ourselves and others is a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more the politicians, economists, media and we all as individuals talk about human beings as rational and strictly self-interested, the more we become such cold and calculating creatures. And the more we have to suppress our natural tendency for empathy and regard for others. No wonder economy students demonstrate the least other-regarding behavior in tests.
Yet despite this cultural propaganda to behave egoistically all of us transcend the limitations of such a selfish lifestyle and demonstrate remarkable deeds of acting in the name of the well-being of those around us. When the situation calls for it there are greater capacities for other-regarding behavior in us than most of us would ever imagine. John Robert Osborn’s act is a testimony for this.
By emphasizing such acts and the general human capacity for empathy we can strengthen the other-regarding tendencies in our society and in our own lives. Therefore the most essential question as regards egoism and altruism is this: In what direction do you want to develop yourself and those around you?
What is the most fundamental question in life? Hint: It is not about meaning of life or about what exists fundamentally
Have you ever wondered what is the most fundamental question for you or for any human being? There are a few candidates but in the end only one stands a closer scrutiny. The nominees that come most readily in mind are the classic questions about the origin of the world, about what exists fundamentally and about the meaning of life. Mesmerizing as they are, they nevertheless aren’t the most fundamental for us.
The two first-mentioned questions could be understood as questions about the nature of the universe. Where did it come from and what is it like? Other way to put them would be to ask in what kind of world do we live in? The reason they are bad candidates as the fundamental question for us human beings is that they haven’t given adequate attention to the one asking these questions, the human being itself. If we would be eternal, disengaged and god-like creatures then that kind of noble question might be worthy of our attention. But instead we have a limited time here on earth, we care about our faith and therefore we have to choose carefully how we spend that restricted time. Devoting oneself to answering these questions means that one has made a choice in which one has given priority to this activity instead of – for example – trying to find a cure for cancer or be a good father to one’s children.
We are thrown into a world in which we need to act. As sociologist Hans Joas has put it: ”Action is the way in which human beings exist in the world.” Every moment we make a choice about what we do. Whether we want it or not, we have every second the possibility to act in a multitude of ways. Therefore the most fundamental question for any human being is about what to do. What to do right now and more generally within one’s life. All the other ’fundamental’ questions are only derivatives of this more general question. For example, finding the meaning of life, true nature of happiness, reason for the existence of the universe, whether god exists, what is morally right and wrong and so forth would give us good reasons to act in certain rather than other ways. But all of them can only answer subquestions such as what to do, given religion, or what to do, given our interest in our own happiness. What we need to answer, however, is what to do, given all.
Other way to phrase the same question is to ask ’How to live a good life?’ This is so for the simple reason that we have an interest in living in better rather than worse ways. Already Socrates recognized this to be the most fundamental of all questions. For the great philosophers of ancient Greece, the question about good living formed the most fundamental question of all philosophy. The aim of philosophy was not theoretical but about aiding people in their quest to live a good life.
Curious fact about the question of good life is that every single human being answers it but only a small amount of people ask it seriously. This is because we answer it through the way we actually live. Your life is at every moment your best answer to the question of good life. You can’t escape your life and therefore you can’t escape answering this question through your way of living. The problem is that if you haven’t answered the question yourself then somebody has answered it for you. You are either guided by values and needs chosen by you or then you are guided by values, desires, wishes and so forth that the surrounding culture and media has given you.
The most important step towards a good life is to start taking responsibility for it. This means that you start to seriously consider whether the model of good life that you are living today is really what you would have wanted to choose. It means that you start to seriously think what is the best way to live given your unique personality and situation. Carving your own values and path of good living doesn’t happen in a day. It requires long-term engagement in serious reflection and dialogue with other people. But then again, the reward is the best there can be: A good life designed just for you!
Why fearless living is an attitude and what does it have to do with taxis that lack safety belts?
The American couple Eve and John had just settled into the unstable northern Uganda and were invited to a dinner in their friends house. Suddenly, a huge blast penetrated the night and made everybody jump up and drop their forks. Eve got scared but everyone else seemed to be very nonchalant about the event. Their local friend Adam smiled as he always did and said that it was ”probably just a small bomb” and that ”these things happen all the time where I am from.” When Eve didn’t calm down he hurried to add that it probably was not a bomb at all but maybe just a hand grenade. He told that ”there is no point in worrying. Things happen here. That is what? That is life here. Just get on with it.”
Sense of security is a funny notion. It is one of our most basic needs; we need to feel secure in order to feel good. But often it doesn’t seem to have much to do with the actual risks present in one’s life. What we humans are after is a sense of security, not security itself. And this can be found in many different ways. Some use seat belts when driving a car. That’s common back home. Some have a few huge stickers in the car stating that Jesus is the savior and that their fate (and concurrently their driving) is in his hands. This is common here in Central America. In this context using the seat belt would be as if one stated that one doesn’t have faith in God. Both strategies seem to lead to relative comfort for the driver and passengers alike.
It actually seems that the human afraidness is quite constant. Often persons seem to have a certain amount of fear inside of them. The circumstances then dictate where this fear is directed. If there are serious risks in one’s life one worries about them. If there are only minor risks in one’s life one puts the same amount of worry into them. Thus we find absurd examples of protected people loosing their sleep because of some minor spot on their skin while some remote friend of them keeps calm in the middle of a life-threatening civil war. As Proust – perhaps reflecting his own experiences – has said: ”One may be afraid of not sleeping and not in the least afraid of a serious duel.”
This explains why it seems that in two different countries where the risks – as measured for example by life-expectancy – are radically different one nevertheless finds people that seem to have equal comfort in living. It is said that in countries with high volcanic activity people are unusually calm. They have accepted that everything they have – their houses, their family, their lives – could be taken away by a random twist of earth. With so many actual risks around them the usage of car safety belt feels like a minor matter and accordingly most car backseats in Central America seem to simply lack even the option of putting the belt on. And you might have guessed that the local driving style would in most cases be classified as high risk or very high risk by any western standards and the statistics show that this actually is the case.
On the other hand, in the protected lifestyle of Western middle class one views car seat belts as a matter of life and death; people condemn deeply and morally those who drive without a seatbelt. Because of the technical development we wealthy westerners have an increasingly strong feeling that life is in our hands. The natural catastrophes, wars, illnesses, infant mortality and so forth that made the life of our ancestors very unpredictable are now tamed to such extent by modern technology and health care that we can on average expect somewhere around 80 years of living.
The problem is that instead of making people worry less this decrease in actual risks makes people worry more about the remaining risks. The most complaining about the dangers and risks of living I have heard from persons that objectively shouldn’t have any worries as compared to the majority of the human population.
Instead of celebrating the freedom that this lack of risks has created we seem to curl up inwards, becoming more and more afraid of ever more minor risks. Nowhere is this more clear than in modern parenting. The psychologist William Damon has noticed how more and more of the playground equipment he played around when he was kid have been forbidden as too risky during the last decades. Dodgeball is banned and monkey bars have been stripped off. He is afraid that the attempt to generate a totally secure environment for our kids might not be good in the end because children need to explore the world and their abilities.
The point to take home is this: A life without fear is not a matter of the external conditions but a matter of attitude. Life is never risk-free. We are all going to die some day. To make the most out of the days before that we should not let fear control our lives. Increased security should lead to increased playfulness – not increased fearfulness. Life is about quality, not quantity. Increased life expectancy is of no use if it doesn’t lead to increased life celebration – even with few risks.
The American couple Eve and John had just settled into the unstable northern Uganda and were invited to a dinner in their friends house. Suddenly, a huge blast penetrated the night and made everybody jump up and drop their forks. Eve got scared but everyone else seemed to be very nonchalant about the event. Their local friend Adam smiled as he always did and said that it was ”probably just a small bomb” and that ”these things happen all the time where I am from.” When Eve didn’t calm down he hurried to add that it probably was not a bomb at all but maybe just a hand grenade. He told that ”there is no point in worrying. Things happen here. That is what? That is life here. Just get on with it.”
Sense of security is a funny notion. It is one of our most basic needs; we need to feel secure in order to feel good. But often it doesn’t seem to have much to do with the actual risks present in one’s life. What we humans are after is a sense of security, not security itself. And this can be found in many different ways. Some use seat belts when driving a car. That’s common back home. Some have a few huge stickers in the car stating that Jesus is the savior and that their fate (and concurrently their driving) is in his hands. This is common here in Central America. In this context using the seat belt would be as if one stated that one doesn’t have faith in God. Both strategies seem to lead to relative comfort for the driver and passengers alike.
It actually seems that the human afraidness is quite constant. Often persons seem to have a certain amount of fear inside of them. The circumstances then dictate where this fear is directed. If there are serious risks in one’s life one worries about them. If there are only minor risks in one’s life one puts the same amount of worry into them. Thus we find absurd examples of protected people loosing their sleep because of some minor spot on their skin while some remote friend of them keeps calm in the middle of a life-threatening civil war. As Proust – perhaps reflecting his own experiences – has said: ”One may be afraid of not sleeping and not in the least afraid of a serious duel.”
This explains why it seems that in two different countries where the risks – as measured for example by life-expectancy – are radically different one nevertheless finds people that seem to have equal comfort in living. It is said that in countries with high volcanic activity people are unusually calm. They have accepted that everything they have – their houses, their family, their lives – could be taken away by a random twist of earth. With so many actual risks around them the usage of car safety belt feels like a minor matter and accordingly most car backseats in Central America seem to simply lack even the option of putting the belt on. And you might have guessed that the local driving style would in most cases be classified as high risk or very high risk by any western standards and the statistics show that this actually is the case.
On the other hand, in the protected lifestyle of Western middle class one views car seat belts as a matter of life and death; people condemn deeply and morally those who drive without a seatbelt. Because of the technical development we wealthy westerners have an increasingly strong feeling that life is in our hands. The natural catastrophes, wars, illnesses, infant mortality and so forth that made the life of our ancestors very unpredictable are now tamed to such extent by modern technology and health care that we can on average expect somewhere around 80 years of living.
The problem is that instead of making people worry less this decrease in actual risks makes people worry more about the remaining risks. The most complaining about the dangers and risks of living I have heard from persons that objectively shouldn’t have any worries as compared to the majority of the human population.
Instead of celebrating the freedom that this lack of risks has created we seem to curl up inwards, becoming more and more afraid of ever more minor risks. Nowhere is this more clear than in modern parenting. The psychologist William Damon has noticed how more and more of the playground equipment he played around when he was kid have been forbidden as too risky during the last decades. Dodgeball is banned and monkey bars have been stripped off. He is afraid that the attempt to generate a totally secure environment for our kids might not be good in the end because children need to explore the world and their abilities.
The point to take home is this: A life without fear is not a matter of the external conditions but a matter of attitude. Life is never risk-free. We are all going to die some day. To make the most out of the days before that we should not let fear control our lives. Increased security should lead to increased playfulness – not increased fearfulness. Life is about quality, not quantity. Increased life expectancy is of no use if it doesn’t lead to increased life celebration – even with few risks.
Are you living for yourself or just for the image of yourself?
You know the frustration when you overcome your fear, manage to do a great performance – and then your friend tells you: ”Oh sorry, the camera malfunctioned and I didn’t get any pictures!” Me too. And that means that we are the victims of our modern culture that emphasizes images instead of actual living.
I realized this when I was back in civilization after having spent a week in the rural village of Lagartillo in Northern Nicaragua. Looking at myself at the mirror and seeing my unshaven looks I realized that I had lived a whole week without once seeing an image of myself. With mirrors, cameras, facebooks, youtubes and so forth this is a rare condition nowadays.
In the modern world of images, we seem to have lost our capacity to actually live out our lives. Life has become a matter of producing impressive images of an awesome life. People go to great lengths to produce that one perfect image to put on Facebook to impress others. More important than what our lives actually are like, is how they look like.
The image: The author riding down mountain Los Pueblos Amigos, one of the steepest and most famous MTB tracks in Costa Rica.
Nowhere is this more clear than on holidays. I’ve travelled with people that live their whole journey through the lens of the camera. Whatever impressive comes their way, the most important thing is not to actually experience the thing but to have a good picture of it. They are not present in their holidays but give up their actual holiday experience for the images they can show to others somewhere in the future. If they miss to capture something impressive their frustration is strong.
Even the sports nowadays are more about posing than the actual physical movement. I’ve noticed how fourteen-year-old kids refuse to even stand on a skateboard if someone is not filming. When they perform something extraordinary they don’t celebrate the thing itself. No, they run to the cameraman to see if he got it filmed all right. The sports that gain popularity are those from which you can capture impressive images from. In traditional sports like football, basketball, tennis, jogging or icehockey one can be in a constant flow of excitement for hours in a row. But in many of the modern extreme sports most time is spent waiting or preparing while the actual performance can last for only a few seconds. The thing is that with a good camera one can capture cooler photos from those few seconds than from the long hours of running on a field chasing an unsexy leather ball. The sports that look good attract more and more followers instead of sports that feel good.
How did we end up here? The technological development and our modern society of abundance are the driving forces. Jean Baudrillard argues that during the 20th century we transferred from a society that focused on commodities into a society that focuses on the consumption of images. Modern advertisement doesn’t any more sell us products but rather images and identities that the products present. We have entered the age of hyperreality in which simulated experiences and feelings have started to take the place of actual experiences. In this complex world generated by mass communication, advertisement, computer games, internet avatars and consumption of identity through branded products we have partially lost contact with ourselves. We have entered a Disneyland kind of world where the boundaries between real life and simulated life have become blurry.
The reality behind the image
Sounds complicated? Yes, the mix-up that has generated our modern condition is very complicated. I feel personally quite helpless and confused when those strong powers are messing up our way of living. But basically the thing is that because of the messages that we are bombarded with through TV, magazines and advertisement we feel that we have to keep up with the lifestyle that they promote as good and normal. Instead of being able to concentrate on our actual lives we have started to devote as much energy to our simulated lives: Making sure that our life looks like as it should; making sure that we are able to produce enough cool images to put on Facebook and other places to convince other people that we live up to the standard.
And as that standard is generated by professional actors, photographers, script writers and directors, our actual or simulated lives will never be able to reach it. We end up on an endless chase after the dream life that is impossible to make into reality in the first place.
I myself am not innocent either. When during this trip I’ve seen something impressive my first reaction has been to look for my camera. I also remember the frustration when I lost the contact information of the guy who had an underwater camera and got pictures of sharks we saw on our scuba dive in the Blue Hole. As the popular catchphrase nowadays goes: ’Pictures, or it didn’t happen!’ So although I know its bad for me and try to fight against it I still am as captured by our culture of images as any other traveller and citizen.
How then to fight the seductive world of images that aims to alienate us from our lives? It is so pervasive feature of our culture that simple step-by-step instructions don’t seem adequate. The most important thing is to strengthen one’s personal values and one’s self-knowledge. The more we know about what we really care about the more we are able to devote our energy to those issues. The more we remind ourselves about our real sources of happiness – family, close friends, making a meaningful contribution both inside and outside of work – the more we are able to concentrate on them. And the more we concentrate on them, the more our happiness is based on sustainable values instead of chasing the elusive dream of a life that looks perfect. We need to feel more and pose less.
The change starts with a simple question you should ask yourself everytime you are starting to do something: Am I doing this for myself or for the image of myself?
Crossing the world to find yourself: How to use traveling as a tool for personal growth
In the Tortuga Boluuda hostel in Léon, Nicaragua, I was examining a Land Rover Defender parked outside when an English gentleman arrived on the scene. It turned out that he and his wife were on a two year long car trip around the world that had already taken them through the whole Asia and was now taking them through America from north to south. I saw the opportunity and immediately asked what such a long trip had learned them about good living. The most important lesson was clear: Traveling changes your worldview, whether you want it or not. They had experienced it themselves and everyone they had met who had done a similar trip told the same. Are you prepared to change? Would you like to use traveling as a tool for your personal growth?
The gentleman explained that by living in your home country you learn to look at the world through the lenses provided by that culture. The people around you condition you to look at the world in a certain way. You acquire the feeling that certain forms of behavior are normal and acceptable while certain others are not. This is what changes when you travel long enough. You become aware of other ways to look and evaluate the world around you. As a mundane example the gentleman told how in Kazakhstan the public toilets lacked doors:
So there he was, sitting in the toilet with his pants down when a local farmer with a donkey passed by. The Englishman looked at the farmer, the farmer looked back at him, and he felt that this was totally normal. Back in Britain the same scene would have felt extremely embarrassing.
To use traveling as a tool for your internal growth three conditions have to be met:
Firstly, any deeper change of worldview requires time. A week or two is not enough because you carry your cultural package wherever you go. Only through time you learn to gradually look beyond it in interpreting the behavior of others. This is why everyone should at least once in their life live amongst a culture that is not their own. One doesn’t have to take such a ambitious trip that spans all continents to achieve that, it is enough to stay put in some other country preferably a bit further away from home. More important than the location is time, the longer you stay the deeper insight you achieve about the new culture – and through that of your own culture.
Secondly, one needs some courage, the gentleman told. When you step outside your worldview and examine it critically you simultaneously step outside of your comfort zone. It can be quite a painful experience to learn that something you have believed in and based your life decisions on isn’t so certain after all. Abandoning your deeply-held beliefs is hard. To achieve that you have to have enough strength of character. Otherwise you easily fall into a defensive state where you blind yourself from seeing what could be detrimental in your current worldview and furiously defend it against all differing ways of living.
Thirdly, you need to expose yourself to the real life of the country you are in. It is perfectly possible to travel around the world without leaving the comforts of western living behind. One can take sunbaths in a gated resort on the coast of Tansania feeling lucky that the realities of the poor life of the local people is out of sight. But this kind of disneyland-traveling doesn’t learn you anything. What you need to do is to step outside the tourist traps and encounter the local way of living. Visit their homes, walk around in their farms, eat with them. Only in meetings with ordinary people does genuine cultural exchange occur.
The gentleman told also another perhaps even more revealing example of how important the skill to interpret situations from the perspective of the other is. This time the scene took place in Honduras:
The couple had camped in the jungle near a village where indigenous Mizkito people lived in very rural conditions. Driven by curiosity the local kids had come to look at them and befriended them. The couple was eating and the kids asked for food so they gave a little food for the kids. Next day the kids who again had come to play around with them asked for some cooking oil. They even suggested that they can wash the car and get some oil as a reward. The couple running low on the cooking oil told that they can’t give it to them. Later they noticed how someone had stolen the oil bottle. When one of the kids returned the man told him how disappointed he was. Embarrassed the kid returned the empty bottle and said that the oil went to his mom.
From the western point of view the situation is clear: The kids stole the oil and stealing is morally wrong. End of story. From the local, more collective perspective where ownership is not such a holy cow the situation is more complicated. In these kinds of cultures it is regarded as common place that those who have share with those who haven’t. Even though the couple from their own perspective was running low on food and had a tight budget ($20 per day which is already quite little), compared to the kids they were extremely wealthy. From the perspective of the village people the car alone confirmed that. They might have felt it unjustifiable that the couple was not willing to share even a little bit of oil with them. So they took the justice in their own hands.
Hearing this story was a learning point for me. If I would have been in their situation I most probably wouldn’t have been able to look at the crime from this perspective. And most probably if this had happened during one of the first days of their trip the gentleman wouldn’t have had the widened perspective either to look at the matter from this angle. But after more than a full year of travel and contact with different indigenous people he had already learned a thing or two about their worldviews. The long nights spent at small villages in Ukraine, Mongolia, Guatemala and other countries along the way had paid off.
But be warned, the internal growth comes with a price. It might be surprising to learn that the hardest part of a long-term trip is going back home. It is quite understandable, however, given the changes you have gone through. You are a different person, most probably enlightened in many ways compared to your old self. And there you are, back home where nothing has changed: Your friends are the same, your work and colleagues are the same, the society and everything is the same. How are you able to cope? There seems to be a place carved for you by your old self but somewhat you feel that you don’t fit into it anymore.
Two issues in particular worried the gentleman. Firstly he felt that in some ways his views about the upsides and downsides of modern western societies had changed. And he was afraid that his old friends and colleagues would not understand his changed viewpoints. Secondly, he had been a quite successful leadership consultant before their trip. But given all he had experienced and all the ways in which his attitudes and values had changed during the trip he wasn’t sure that he simply could jump back in that career.
They still had a long way to go – through the South America, cross the Atlantic, and through the Africa – but sooner or later he would have to take issues with what way of living he could commit himself to in the future. What kind of place could he find in the society that had been his home throughout his life but that he had to learned to look from a new angle because of their trip?
By exposing yourself to different people with different world-views you run the risk of changing yourself, your values and your way of living – sometimes even radically. That is called evolution of thinking, it is personal growth. But are you ready for that?In the Tortuga Boluuda hostel in Léon, Nicaragua, I was examining a Land Rover Defender parked outside when an English gentleman arrived on the scene. It turned out that he and his wife were on a two year long car trip around the world that had already taken them through the whole Asia and was now taking them through America from north to south. I saw the opportunity and immediately asked what such a long trip had learned them about good living. The most important lesson was clear: Traveling changes your worldview, whether you want it or not. They had experienced it themselves and everyone they had met who had done a similar trip told the same. Are you prepared to change? Would you like to use traveling as a tool for your personal growth?
The gentleman explained that by living in your home country you learn to look at the world through the lenses provided by that culture. The people around you condition you to look at the world in a certain way. You acquire the feeling that certain forms of behavior are normal and acceptable while certain others are not. This is what changes when you travel long enough. You become aware of other ways to look and evaluate the world around you. As a mundane example the gentleman told how in Kazakhstan the public toilets lacked doors:
So there he was, sitting in the toilet with his pants down when a local farmer with a donkey passed by. The Englishman looked at the farmer, the farmer looked back at him, and he felt that this was totally normal. Back in Britain the same scene would have felt extremely embarrassing.
To use traveling as a tool for your internal growth three conditions have to be met:
Firstly, any deeper change of worldview requires time. A week or two is not enough because you carry your cultural package wherever you go. Only through time you learn to gradually look beyond it in interpreting the behavior of others. This is why everyone should at least once in their life live amongst a culture that is not their own. One doesn’t have to take such a ambitious trip that spans all continents to achieve that, it is enough to stay put in some other country preferably a bit further away from home. More important than the location is time, the longer you stay the deeper insight you achieve about the new culture – and through that of your own culture.
Secondly, one needs some courage, the gentleman told. When you step outside your worldview and examine it critically you simultaneously step outside of your comfort zone. It can be quite a painful experience to learn that something you have believed in and based your life decisions on isn’t so certain after all. Abandoning your deeply-held beliefs is hard. To achieve that you have to have enough strength of character. Otherwise you easily fall into a defensive state where you blind yourself from seeing what could be detrimental in your current worldview and furiously defend it against all differing ways of living.
Thirdly, you need to expose yourself to the real life of the country you are in. It is perfectly possible to travel around the world without leaving the comforts of western living behind. One can take sunbaths in a gated resort on the coast of Tansania feeling lucky that the realities of the poor life of the local people is out of sight. But this kind of disneyland-traveling doesn’t learn you anything. What you need to do is to step outside the tourist traps and encounter the local way of living. Visit their homes, walk around in their farms, eat with them. Only in meetings with ordinary people does genuine cultural exchange occur.
The gentleman told also another perhaps even more revealing example of how important the skill to interpret situations from the perspective of the other is. This time the scene took place in Honduras:
The couple had camped in the jungle near a village where indigenous Mizkito people lived in very rural conditions. Driven by curiosity the local kids had come to look at them and befriended them. The couple was eating and the kids asked for food so they gave a little food for the kids. Next day the kids who again had come to play around with them asked for some cooking oil. They even suggested that they can wash the car and get some oil as a reward. The couple running low on the cooking oil told that they can’t give it to them. Later they noticed how someone had stolen the oil bottle. When one of the kids returned the man told him how disappointed he was. Embarrassed the kid returned the empty bottle and said that the oil went to his mom.
From the western point of view the situation is clear: The kids stole the oil and stealing is morally wrong. End of story. From the local, more collective perspective where ownership is not such a holy cow the situation is more complicated. In these kinds of cultures it is regarded as common place that those who have share with those who haven’t. Even though the couple from their own perspective was running low on food and had a tight budget ($20 per day which is already quite little), compared to the kids they were extremely wealthy. From the perspective of the village people the car alone confirmed that. They might have felt it unjustifiable that the couple was not willing to share even a little bit of oil with them. So they took the justice in their own hands.
Hearing this story was a learning point for me. If I would have been in their situation I most probably wouldn’t have been able to look at the crime from this perspective. And most probably if this had happened during one of the first days of their trip the gentleman wouldn’t have had the widened perspective either to look at the matter from this angle. But after more than a full year of travel and contact with different indigenous people he had already learned a thing or two about their worldviews. The long nights spent at small villages in Ukraine, Mongolia, Guatemala and other countries along the way had paid off.
But be warned, the internal growth comes with a price. It might be surprising to learn that the hardest part of a long-term trip is going back home. It is quite understandable, however, given the changes you have gone through. You are a different person, most probably enlightened in many ways compared to your old self. And there you are, back home where nothing has changed: Your friends are the same, your work and colleagues are the same, the society and everything is the same. How are you able to cope? There seems to be a place carved for you by your old self but somewhat you feel that you don’t fit into it anymore.
Two issues in particular worried the gentleman. Firstly he felt that in some ways his views about the upsides and downsides of modern western societies had changed. And he was afraid that his old friends and colleagues would not understand his changed viewpoints. Secondly, he had been a quite successful leadership consultant before their trip. But given all he had experienced and all the ways in which his attitudes and values had changed during the trip he wasn’t sure that he simply could jump back in that career.
They still had a long way to go – through the South America, cross the Atlantic, and through the Africa – but sooner or later he would have to take issues with what way of living he could commit himself to in the future. What kind of place could he find in the society that had been his home throughout his life but that he had to learned to look from a new angle because of their trip?
By exposing yourself to different people with different world-views you run the risk of changing yourself, your values and your way of living – sometimes even radically. That is called evolution of thinking, it is personal growth. But are you ready for that?
Why are you sweating your ass off in work when you could be fishing right now?
Have you heard the famous story about a Harvard business graduate and a poor fisherman? If not, start by reading it. Because already twice this trip I have felt that I’ve met a living example from that story. Yesterday, finding myself in the home of a twenty-something fisherman on the small coral island of Caye Caulker and learning that he goes fishing three or four times a week I asked what does he do on the other days. ”Hang out with friends, eat good food, drink some rum, go partying, hook up with girls, have sex” was his answer.
I would imagine that many young guys would dream about that kind of simple life filled with earthly pleasures and taking place on the stunningly beautiful Caribbean coast of Belize. But if you find that kind of lifestyle attractive ask yourself why are you not living it?
For most of the young western guys living that dream would be possible: There seemed to be plenty of fish in the ocean and the skill needed to get it up from there is not exactly any rocket science. Besides, living in Belize is cheap compared to western countries so one can make ends meet with going out fishing only a few times a week. Many western travelers staying on the island were saying that living here is awesome and that they would like to stay for a longer time – yet everyone of them were going back home to get back into the corporate treadmill. What is holding us back? I’ll tell you in a minute.
The second encounter with happy fishermen was perhaps even more ’authentic’ and happened in the tiny, remote and rural village of Orinoco on the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua where I was the only tourist. Observing their daily living I couldn’t help but being impressed by their life. Here they are, living in extreme poverty by all Western standards. Yet they don’t seem to be lacking much: their food is good by any standard – fresh seafood, organic fruits and vegetables -, they live close to their extended families and friends with a strong sense of community, and the weather is pleasant. And above all, to achieve this lifestyle they work much less hours per day than we ’wealthy’ westerners.
The reason me and other travelers impressed by the coastal lifestyle of Nicaragua and Belize are not relocating is that the western standards of proper living have an internal hold of us. I couldn’t enjoy being a fisherman in the long run, despite the beauty of that way of living. Why? Because certain sense of progress, achievement and career advancement is lacking from that life. With that way of living I would ’already be there’ and we in the west are told that what we want in life is always ’behind the next achievement’. Ours is a world of go-getters, hunger is what keeps the wheels greased. Be a tiger, not a happy sloth! It is this attitude we carry in our souls even on our vacations. We are able to chill out only because we know that it is only a temporary break-off from the ’real life’. And real life is a life where you should have a clear sense of progress.
There was not a trace of this strive for achievement in the village of Orinoco – they were happy to work only to the extent that they have some food on the table. Some days a few hours, on others more, some days not at all. And on Caye Caulker the fellow tourists I met were all telling how the slow pace and chilled out atmosphere grows on you from the moment you step your foot on the island. They learned not to look at the watch and many of them realized at some point that they had spent much more days on the island than they had planned for. Yet when their time was up they returned to their home countries with the more achievement-oriented lifestyle again grabbing a hold of them.
So what is the takeaway? Am I suggesting that every western person should break the chains our culture has captured us with and escape into a more easy, less stressed and happier lifestyle? If I would, I would be practicing hypocrisy because I myself am still possessed with a strong urge to achieve something in my life. But awakening to the knowledge that there are alternatives available is relieving in itself. With alternatives in view one can take a more relaxed attitude towards one’s choice of living. If at some point I realize that I am not achieving what I want to achieve that is not the end of the world. Winning the rat race is not the only way towards fulfillment. By changing the way I want to live my life I can be as happy or even happier in that new situation.
And most importantly, when you truly realize the existence of other ways of living you loose your innocence. From that moment onwards you are making a conscious choice about which of the alternatives you are committing yourself to. I know that with enough time spent on this island I could internalize its way of living and from that moment onwards the western striving would seem alien to me. So change is possible even thought it requires time and effort. The fact that I am not trying to change is already a choice, a commitment to my current way of living. So ask yourself, is life of ease your cup of tea or are you willing to consciously commit yourself to a more stressing lifestyle of pursuit?
The classic story about a Harvard business graduate and a poor Mexican fisherman
On his well-earned holiday, a Harvard business graduate watched how a small fishing boat approached the harbor in a small coastal Mexican village. It was still late morning but the boat was full of fish so he asked how long time did it take to catch them?
”A few hours.”
”And what are you going to do now?”
”You know, the usual: Play around with my kids, have some quality time with my wife during the siesta. Stroll around the village in the evening hanging out with my amigos, drinking some wine, playing my guitar.”
Upon hearing this the successful business man knew that he could help the poor fellow:
”You know, I am a Harvard business graduate. If you follow my advice you could change your life!”
”What do you mean?”
”With that amount of fishing you can support your current lifestyle, right?”
”Yes, quite much so.”
”Then, if you would work also the afternoons you could use the gained extra money for investments. Soon you could by another boat and hire some guys to run it. Your revenues would increase again and soon you would be operating a fleet of fishing boats.”
”And then what?”
”Then you could leave the fishing to the others and concentrate on the business part. You could cut out the middle man by selling directly to American distributors. You would of course have to relocate to LA or New York but that would be a necessary sacrifice for the success that awaits you.”
”And then what?”
”By working hard you could be a millionaire in twenty or so years.”
”And then what?”
”Then comes the best part: You would sell it all, cash in the money and retire into a small coastal fishing village where you could just play around with your kids, have some quality time with your wife, stroll around the village in the evenings and hang out with your friends, drinking some wine and playing the guitar.”On his well-earned holiday, a Harvard business graduate watched how a small fishing boat approached the harbor in a small coastal Mexican village. It was still late morning but the boat was full of fish so he asked how long time did it take to catch them?
”A few hours.”
”And what are you going to do now?”
”You know, the usual: Play around with my kids, have some quality time with my wife during the siesta. Stroll around the village in the evening hanging out with my amigos, drinking some wine, playing my guitar.”
Upon hearing this the successful business man knew that he could help the poor fellow:
”You know, I am a Harvard business graduate. If you follow my advice you could change your life!”
”What do you mean?”
”With that amount of fishing you can support your current lifestyle, right?”
”Yes, quite much so.”
”Then, if you would work also the afternoons you could use the gained extra money for investments. Soon you could by another boat and hire some guys to run it. Your revenues would increase again and soon you would be operating a fleet of fishing boats.”
”And then what?”
”Then you could leave the fishing to the others and concentrate on the business part. You could cut out the middle man by selling directly to American distributors. You would of course have to relocate to LA or New York but that would be a necessary sacrifice for the success that awaits you.”
”And then what?”
”By working hard you could be a millionaire in twenty or so years.”
”And then what?”
”Then comes the best part: You would sell it all, cash in the money and retire into a small coastal fishing village where you could just play around with your kids, have some quality time with your wife, stroll around the village in the evenings and hang out with your friends, drinking some wine and playing the guitar.”
Facing death is a wake-up call to live your life to the fullest: The most important legacy of Steve Jobs
At first sight death seems to be the opposite of good life – it is quite literally the end of it. But philosophers throughout the times have known that by acknowledging one’s own mortality one is able to rid oneself of the trivialities of everyday life and chains of conventionality to live a more authentic, personally expressive and fuller life. Few contemporary people have, however, expressed this insight more precisely than the late Steve Jobs as is evident already from this quote:
”Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”
Steve Jobs did many marvelous things in life. Founded Apple and lead it into developing stuff like the the Mac computer, iPod, iPhone, iPad, iWhatever. Lead Pixar into revolutionizing computer-based animation with films such as Toy Story. But for me personally by far the most impressive thing he ever did was a commencement speech he held at Stanford University in 2005. In this short speech he gives three invaluable lessons about how one should approach one’s life to live it to the fullest.
Firstly, life makes a coherent story only when we look at it with hindsight. The problem is, of course, that we have to live it forward. Steve illustrates this with a story about how he as a young college drop-out took a course in calligraphy without it having any practical application in his life at the moment. Ten years later, however, this knowledge of beautiful typography partially made the base for the sophisticated visual design that has ever since been the trademark of Apple products. For Steve, this is a lesson about dots: ”You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”
Secondly, make sure to love what you do. Steve recounts the difficulties he faced when he was 30 and suddenly fired from the company he had founded and which had been the focus of his entire adult life. The experience was devastating but eventually lead into many great things such as founding and leading few other companies – and finding a wife – before returning to steer the Apple. He was convinced that the only thing that kept him going was that he truly loved what he did. And this is the lesson: ”You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.”
These are important lessons but perhaps the most important advice for successful life is the third one: Put your life into perspective by thinking about your death. As a teenager, Steve found great inspiration in the quote: ”If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” He tells that since then he has looked into mirror every morning and asked himself: ”If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” This is a powerful question. If one would seriously ask it everyday one could avoid many lukewarm choices and stagnant phases of life in which one is too lazy or too afraid to effect the necessary change. The question pulls one out of the comfort zone of conventionality and puts the mirror in front of oneself: Am I really living the life I want to live?
Now Steve Job is dead. He didn’t want to die but he had accepted the fact that it is the destination we all share: ”No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.” His contribution to the technological development has been enormous but in ten years the products he helped to design have become antiquated and new, better and more powerful ones have replaced them. He knew it himself: ”Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.”
On the other hand his wisdom for life will not be outdated as long as there are human beings who struggle with life and with the inevitable death. I hope that the longest-lasting legacy of Steve Jobs will be that we should keep in mind the inevitable fact of life he himself today faced. Because facing your mortality is a wake-up call to seize control of your own life:
”Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”At first sight death seems to be the opposite of good life – it is quite literally the end of it. But philosophers throughout the times have known that by acknowledging one’s own mortality one is able to rid oneself of the trivialities of everyday life and chains of conventionality to live a more authentic, personally expressive and fuller life. Few contemporary people have, however, expressed this insight more precisely than the late Steve Jobs as is evident already from this quote:
”Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”
Steve Jobs did many marvelous things in life. Founded Apple and lead it into developing stuff like the the Mac computer, iPod, iPhone, iPad, iWhatever. Lead Pixar into revolutionizing computer-based animation with films such as Toy Story. But for me personally by far the most impressive thing he ever did was a commencement speech he held at Stanford University in 2005. In this short speech he gives three invaluable lessons about how one should approach one’s life to live it to the fullest.
Firstly, life makes a coherent story only when we look at it with hindsight. The problem is, of course, that we have to live it forward. Steve illustrates this with a story about how he as a young college drop-out took a course in calligraphy without it having any practical application in his life at the moment. Ten years later, however, this knowledge of beautiful typography partially made the base for the sophisticated visual design that has ever since been the trademark of Apple products. For Steve, this is a lesson about dots: ”You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”
Secondly, make sure to love what you do. Steve recounts the difficulties he faced when he was 30 and suddenly fired from the company he had founded and which had been the focus of his entire adult life. The experience was devastating but eventually lead into many great things such as founding and leading few other companies – and finding a wife – before returning to steer the Apple. He was convinced that the only thing that kept him going was that he truly loved what he did. And this is the lesson: ”You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.”
These are important lessons but perhaps the most important advice for successful life is the third one: Put your life into perspective by thinking about your death. As a teenager, Steve found great inspiration in the quote: ”If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” He tells that since then he has looked into mirror every morning and asked himself: ”If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” This is a powerful question. If one would seriously ask it everyday one could avoid many lukewarm choices and stagnant phases of life in which one is too lazy or too afraid to effect the necessary change. The question pulls one out of the comfort zone of conventionality and puts the mirror in front of oneself: Am I really living the life I want to live?
Now Steve Job is dead. He didn’t want to die but he had accepted the fact that it is the destination we all share: ”No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.” His contribution to the technological development has been enormous but in ten years the products he helped to design have become antiquated and new, better and more powerful ones have replaced them. He knew it himself: ”Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.”
On the other hand his wisdom for life will not be outdated as long as there are human beings who struggle with life and with the inevitable death. I hope that the longest-lasting legacy of Steve Jobs will be that we should keep in mind the inevitable fact of life he himself today faced. Because facing your mortality is a wake-up call to seize control of your own life:
”Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
Frank Martela 
