Category: Good Living

Self-control through greater cause: Martin Luther’s solution for not eating the marshmallow

”Here stand I, I cannot otherwise!” Threatened with excommunication Martin Luther stood in front of the Emperor Charles V and the Holy Roman Empire and was asked to take back his interpretation of scriptures because they defied the power of the pope. Martin requested some time to think, prayed, consulted a few friends and gave his response the next day: ”I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. May God help me. Amen!”

A four-year old girl is left alone in the room with one marshmallow on the table. The child is told that she can eat the marshmallow whenever she wants. But if she is able to hold off until the experimenter returns, she will get a second marshmallow.

According to Roy Baumeister, one of the most distinguished social psychologist alive, willpower is the ”greatest human strength”. It is also the one thing that most of us think we have too little of. In fact, when people are asked about their failings, lack of self-control is on the top of the list. Yet its importance is tremendous as the famous marshmallow experience has showed. The children who were able to hold out the entire 15 minutes the researcher was away at the age of four outperformed those who couldn’t in all possible fields of life when they were adults. They scored 210 points higher on SAT, became more educated, earned higher salaries, put on less weight, were more popular among their peers, used less drugs and so forth. Willpower seems to be the single factor that explains future success better than almost any other measure, including IQ.

But where to get willpower?

Ralph Waldo Emerson, one of the most influential American thinker of all time, was highly impressed by Martin Luther’s words. In his essay Fate he ponders on the strong hold that fate has in how our lives turn out. ”Nature is no sentimentalist, — does not cosset or pamper us. We must see that the world is rough and surly, and will not mind drowning a man or a woman; but swallows your ship like a grain of dust.” Nevertheless, we humans are equipped with something special – thought and will. With them we can carve our own destiny if they are deep and strong enough.

For Emerson, the source of strong will lies in surrendering oneself to a greater cause:
”Alaric and Bonaparte must believe they rest on a truth, or their will can be bought or bent. There is a bribe possible for any finite will. But the pure sympathy with universal ends is an infinite force, and cannot be bribed or bent. Whoever has had experience of the moral sentiment cannot choose but believe in unlimited power.”

In other words, when we have principles and values that we believe in, our will is unbent. When we discover a cause that is greater than ourselves, it becomes a motivational mainstay that sharpens our will: ”When a strong will appears, it usually results from a certain unity of organization, as if the whole energy of body and minds flowed in one direction.” We are so empowered by our cause that we are able to stand any pressure.

Here I stand, upon these principles. If they lead me into excommunication, then so be it. For these principles are stronger than me. Failing them would be to fail what is worthwhile in life. Therefore I stand by them, whatever it takes. I have no choice. The fate of these principles is the fate of myself.

Success in life is about willpower. And willpower is ultimately about finding a cause for oneself that is so great and capturing that it molds one’s whole being to flow towards this one, noble goal. The best way for getting things done is to connect one’s things to something that is larger than oneself. When one has found a true mission for one’s life, the necessary self-control emerges from within.

”Here stand I, I cannot otherwise!” Threatened with excommunication Martin Luther stood in front of the Emperor Charles V and the Holy Roman Empire and was asked to take back his interpretation of scriptures because they defied the power of the pope. Martin requested some time to think, prayed, consulted a few friends and gave his response the next day: ”I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. May God help me. Amen!”

A four-year old girl is left alone in the room with one marshmallow on the table. The child is told that she can eat the marshmallow whenever she wants. But if she is able to hold off until the experimenter returns, she will get a second marshmallow.

According to Roy Baumeister, one of the most distinguished social psychologist alive, willpower is the ”greatest human strength”. It is also the one thing that most of us think we have too little of. In fact, when people are asked about their failings, lack of self-control is on the top of the list. Yet its importance is tremendous as the famous marshmallow experience has showed. The children who were able to hold out the entire 15 minutes the researcher was away at the age of four outperformed those who couldn’t in all possible fields of life when they were adults. They scored 210 points higher on SAT, became more educated, earned higher salaries, put on less weight, were more popular among their peers, used less drugs and so forth. Willpower seems to be the single factor that explains future success better than almost any other measure, including IQ.

But where to get willpower?

Ralph Waldo Emerson, one of the most influential American thinker of all time, was highly impressed by Martin Luther’s words. In his essay Fate he ponders on the strong hold that fate has in how our lives turn out. ”Nature is no sentimentalist, — does not cosset or pamper us. We must see that the world is rough and surly, and will not mind drowning a man or a woman; but swallows your ship like a grain of dust.” Nevertheless, we humans are equipped with something special – thought and will. With them we can carve our own destiny if they are deep and strong enough.

For Emerson, the source of strong will lies in surrendering oneself to a greater cause:
”Alaric and Bonaparte must believe they rest on a truth, or their will can be bought or bent. There is a bribe possible for any finite will. But the pure sympathy with universal ends is an infinite force, and cannot be bribed or bent. Whoever has had experience of the moral sentiment cannot choose but believe in unlimited power.”

In other words, when we have principles and values that we believe in, our will is unbent. When we discover a cause that is greater than ourselves, it becomes a motivational mainstay that sharpens our will: ”When a strong will appears, it usually results from a certain unity of organization, as if the whole energy of body and minds flowed in one direction.” We are so empowered by our cause that we are able to stand any pressure.

Here I stand, upon these principles. If they lead me into excommunication, then so be it. For these principles are stronger than me. Failing them would be to fail what is worthwhile in life. Therefore I stand by them, whatever it takes. I have no choice. The fate of these principles is the fate of myself.

Success in life is about willpower. And willpower is ultimately about finding a cause for oneself that is so great and capturing that it molds one’s whole being to flow towards this one, noble goal. They best way for getting things done is to connect one’s things to something that is larger than oneself. When one has found a true mission for one’s life, the necessary willpower emerges from within.

Want happiness? Make those around you happy! 5 reasons why this is the best strategy.

Take whatever book or article that reports the results of recent scientific research on happiness. One conclusion they have in common is that social relationships are what make people happy or unhappy. Here’s Daniel Gilbert, professor of psychology at Harvard, for example:

”If I had to summarize all the scientific literature on the causes of human happiness in one word, that word would be ’social’. … If I wanted to predict your happiness, and I could know only one thing about you, I wouldn’t want to know your gender, religion, health, or income. I’d want to know about your social network—about your friends and family and the strength of your bonds with them.” (from Harvard Business Review)

The best way to have good relationships is to be good towards others. That’s because relationship is about mutuality, you can’t have a high-quality relationship with someone if you don’t give something into it. Thus we are more happy when we care more about the relationship than we care about ourselves. For social animals like us, it is through relations that happiness enters our being.

So the importance of relationships is paramount for our happiness. But there are at least four additional reasons why we should care about others happiness more than our own happiness. Reason number two is purely prudential: I do a favor for you and I can expect a favor from you when I need it. I exchange favors more or less formally with those around me; some owe me, to some I do owe. By doing good deeds I build a buffer of supportive network that is there when I need it the most.

This social exchange perspective is made stronger through the mechanism of reputation. When I do good deeds to someone, the word tends to spread around – and the word spreads around even more efficiently when I am an asshole towards someone. Because people value justice, those who have a reputation of being good to others can expect favors even from people whom they have never directly benefited. Similarly, nobody wants to step up for a guy who is known to care only about himself.

The reason number three is about emotional contagion. I am affected directly by the mood of others. Through mirror neurons and other mechanisms I pick up the moods of those around me and they have a direct effect on my own mood. Bring in front of me a person who radiates excitement and I feel more energetic myself. Bring me in the midst of miserable people and my mood drops. A human being is not an a island. Thus there can’t be an island of happiness in the midst of a sea of sadness.

When we see someone smiling, it makes us more happy. Scientist call it emotional contagion.

Fourthly, researchers show that when people do acts of kindness towards others it is many times the giver who gets a bigger boost in happiness than the receiver. As a social species our brain is wired to give us a boost of happiness when we are kind to others. In the same way that it is wired to give us a boost of happiness when we eat sugar. The difference is that the positive effect produced by good deeds lasts much longer.

But most deeply, we identify with other people. The closer they are to me the more their pains and joys are also my pains and joys. In my last post I described how having a child expands our identity from a person who cares only about oneself to a person for whom my own well-being and the well-being of the child are almost inseparable. But actually the same thing applies to some degree to all our relationships. My identity is more or less overlapping with all those people that are close to me. Therefore their joys and miseries affect me directly, as if they would be my own joys and miseries.

So a practical advice: If you visit the same cashiers in a shop every day, do something extra for them. Make them smile a few times and in the future your own happiness will receive a boost everytime you see them. And if you live with somebody, you better make sure that you think more about how to make him or her happy than you think about how he or she makes you happy. As we are more prone to notice our own good deeds this is the only strategy that can make a relationship sustainable, balanced and happy for both.

Being a human is about being with others. Our own well-being and happiness is entangled to our social relations in a number of ways. Even to the degree that our best bet in increasing our own happiness is to invest in the happiness of others.

It is paradoxical but it is true. The less you care about your own happiness and the more you care about the happiness of others, the more happy you are yourself.

Take whatever book or article that reports the results of recent scientific research on happiness. One conclusion they have in common is that social relationships are what make people happy or unhappy. Here’s Daniel Gilbert, professor of psychology at Harvard, for example:

”If I had to summarize all the scientific literature on the causes of human happiness in one word, that word would be ’social’. … If I wanted to predict your happiness, and I could know only one thing about you, I wouldn’t want to know your gender, religion, health, or income. I’d want to know about your social network—about your friends and family and the strength of your bonds with them.” (from Harvard Business Review)

The best way to have good relationships is to be good towards others. That’s because relationship is about mutuality, you can’t have a high-quality relationship with someone if you don’t give something into it. Thus we are more happy when we care more about the relationship than we care about ourselves. For social animals like us, it is through relations that happiness enters our being.

So the importance of relationships is paramount for our happiness. But there are at least four additional reasons why we should care about others happiness more than our own happiness. Reason number two is purely prudential: I do a favor for you and I can expect a favor from you when I need it. I exchange favors more or less formally with those around me; some owe me, to some I do owe. By doing good deeds I build a buffer of supportive network that is there when I need it the most.

This social exchange perspective is made stronger through the mechanism of reputation. When I do good deeds to someone, the word tends to spread around – and the word spreads around even more efficiently when I am an asshole towards someone. Because people value justice, those who have a reputation of being good to others can expect favors even from people whom they have never directly benefited. Similarly, nobody wants to step up for a guy who is known to care only about himself.

The reason number three is about emotional contagion. I am affected directly by the mood of others. Through mirror neurons and other mechanisms I pick up the moods of those around me and they have a direct effect on my own mood. Bring in front of me a person who radiates excitement and I feel more energetic myself. Bring me in the midst of miserable people and my mood drops. A human being is not an a island. Thus there can’t be an island of happiness in the midst of a sea of sadness.

When we see someone smiling, it makes us more happy. Scientist call it emotional contagion.

Fourthly, researchers show that when people do acts of kindness towards others it is many times the giver who gets a bigger boost in happiness than the receiver. As a social species our brain is wired to give us a boost of happiness when we are kind to others. In the same way that it is wired to give us a boost of happiness when we eat sugar. The difference is that the positive effect produced by good deeds lasts much longer.

But most deeply, we identify with other people. The closer they are to me the more their pains and joys are also my pains and joys. In my last post I described how having a child expands our identity from a person who cares only about oneself to a person for whom my own well-being and the well-being of the child are almost inseparable. But actually the same thing applies to some degree to all our relationships. My identity is more or less overlapping with all those people that are close to me. Therefore their joys and miseries affect me directly, as if they would be my own joys and miseries.

So a practical advice: If you visit the same cashiers in a shop every day, do something extra for them. Make them smile a few times and in the future your own happiness will receive a boost everytime you see them. And if you live with somebody, you better make sure that you think more about how to make him or her happy than you think about how he or she makes you happy. As we are more prone to notice our own good deeds this is the only strategy that can make a relationship sustainable, balanced and happy for both.

Being a human is about being with others. Our own well-being and happiness is entangled to our social relations in a number of ways. Even to the degree that our best bet in increasing our own happiness is to invest in the happiness of others.

It is paradoxical but it is true. The less you care about your own happiness and the more you care about the happiness of others, the more happy you are yourself.

Birth of a child – or when you expand from an individual into a duovidual

I haven’t updated this blog for a while because I was fully absorbed in one of the greatest miracles of my own personal life: The birth of my first child! To keep up with the philosophical intentions of this blog I will resist the temptation to proclaim to everyone how wonderful event this was, how the child is the cutest ever and how great it is to be a father! Instead I will use this opportunity to reflect the deep-going changes in identity and worldview that this event gives rise to.

In west we have an atomized view of the individual: I am separated from all the others. I ought to be faithful to what is inside of me, to my unique personality. In the end of the day it is my own responsibility to make myself happy, to look for my own interests and make sure I am living the life I want to live. Accordingly, I should be primarily interested in the maximization of my own personal happiness only.

"The so-called Western view of the individual" is about "an independent, self-contained, autonomous entity" - Markus & Kitayama

Having a child challenges all this. The little fellow is not just another person who I can use to increase my own happiness. In terms of identity and motivation he is quite much inseparable from myself. My interests and the baby’s interests is the same; what is good for him is what is good for me; what I want is that the baby feels good. My happiness is embedded in him, his fortunes and misfortunes influence my mood at least as strongly as my own fortunes and misfortunes.

So we can say that I have deeply transformed through becoming a father. Or more accurately, what is ’I’ has expanded. The individual I was before no longer exists: I have become a duovidual. The newborn has become part of my identity, part of what I see as myself.

There is nothing mystical or unusual in this. When the sense of belongingness in some social relationship becomes deep enough it makes better sense to think of the relationship as the functional unit of what it means to be myself. In fact, a historical look reveals that most of our history we human beings have been so deeply embedded in our social relationships that it has made better sense to talk about ”an interdependent view of the self” instead of the modern ”independent view of the self.” In fact, the word individual as referring to a person didn’t exist before the 18th century.

We humans are social animals, deeply embedded in and defined by our close social relationships. Nothing brings this fact more at home for a western individual than having a child. A child is born, the individual is dead: Long live the duovidual!

I haven’t updated this blog for a while because I was fully absorbed in one of the greatest miracles of my own personal life: The birth of my first child! To keep up with the philosophical intentions of this blog I will resist the temptation to proclaim to everyone how wonderful event this was, how the child is the cutest ever and how great it is to be a father! Instead I will use this opportunity to reflect the deep-going changes in identity and worldview that this event gives rise to.

In west we have an atomized view of the individual: I am separated from all the others. I ought to be faithful to what is inside of me, to my unique personality. In the end of the day it is my own responsibility to make myself happy, to look for my own interests and make sure I am living the life I want to live. Accordingly, I should be primarily interested in the maximization of my own personal happiness only.

"The so-called Western view of the individual" is about "an independent, self-contained, autonomous entity" - Markus & Kitayama

Having a child challenges all this. The little fellow is not just another person who I can use to increase my own happiness. In terms of identity and motivation he is quite much inseparable from myself. My interests and the baby’s interests is the same; what is good for him is what is good for me; what I want is that the baby feels good. My happiness is embedded in him, his fortunes and misfortunes influence my mood at least as strongly as my own fortunes and misfortunes.

So we can say that I have deeply transformed through becoming a father. Or more accurately, what is ’I’ has expanded. The individual I was before no longer exists: I have become a duovidual. The newborn has become part of my identity, part of what I see as myself.

There is nothing mystical or unusual in this. When the sense of belongingness in some social relationship becomes deep enough it makes better sense to think of the relationship as the functional unit of what it means to be myself. In fact, a historical look reveals that most of our history we human beings have been so deeply embedded in our social relationships that it has made better sense to talk about ”an interdependent view of the self” instead of the modern ”independent view of the self.” In fact, the word individual as referring to a person didn’t exist before the 18th century.

We humans are social animals, deeply embedded in and defined by our close social relationships. Nothing brings this fact more at home for a western individual than having a child. A child is born, the individual is dead: Long live the duovidual!

What are the ways that a life can be good? There are three of them

What makes a life good? The question is quite broad, we can admit that. One might answer by listing nice things; a cappuccino at a pleasant café on a Sunday afternoon, a gathering of good friends at the summer cottage and so forth. But there is also a deeper question: What do we mean by good life anyway? Or rather, what are the ways that a life can be good?

This question has haunted me but only when I read Dan Haybron’s book The Pursuit of Unhappiness did I find an answer that would appeal to me. He suggested that there would be essentially three different ways that a life could be good and these dimensions are well-being, morality and aesthetics. Let’s look what is meant by them.

Firstly life can be good simply by feeling good from my point of view. So we could say that a good life is a life that is good for me. A good life is a life that we have a positive feeling about. Some might call this happiness but I feel that it is a too narrow concept. Well-being covers better the broad array of ways through which a life can feel good for a person. In any case, one’s own well-being is a quite straight-forward way through which one’s life can be good.

But we can also say that someone’s life is good from the moral point of view. A certain life can be good disregarding one’s own feelings about it if one has been able to make a positive contribution to the world through one’s actions. Someone might sacrifice his or her own happiness for the sake of others and thus decrease the goodness of that life from the well-being perspective. At the same time, however, that life has reached a certain nobleness as regards morality.

Thirdly, the life of a person can be aesthetically pleasing. We can read a tragic story of someone who suffered immensely within his or her life, did the wrong choices and caused misery to those around him or her. This life might not be good from the well-being perspective nor from the moral perspective. Yet there might still be some aesthetic value in the life; it might demonstrate a certain tragic beauty.

It is easy to see that these three ways to look at good life are independent from each other. The same life can be good within one perspective but lacking in others. We can demonstrate this by looking at four persons, let’s call them Arthur, Bertha, Cecilia and David.

Arthur is an arrogant guy who knows how to make the life pleasant for himself but at the same time doesn’t care at all about the well-being of others. For him others are just instruments to be used for his own pleasures. His life might (although even this can be doubted) be good from the first perspective but bad from the second and indifferent from the third.

Bertha, in turn, has given up everything to fulfill a duty of helping the poor in some remote corner of earth. For her this duty is a heavy burden and she is not really happy out there. In addition, her life might be so repetitious that it doesn’t make an aesthetically pleasing story either. But from the moral point of view we could say that she lived an exemplary life.

Cecilia is then this tragic girl who was born into poverty, was ill most of her life, stole things to come by and even murdered someone under obscure conditions before killing herself after the love of her life abandoned her. Happiness and morality were absent from her life. Yet there might still be some tremendous beauty present in her melancholic life story.

David then is mister Right. He always does the right thing; he has cool hobbies, engaging work, perfect wife and three kids to be proud of. In addition, he is friendly towards everybody, does voluntary work in some NGO and helps the poorer kids of the neighborhood to get a good education. His well-being is excellent and his morality intact. But nobody wants to make a movie out of his life because there is not a single flaw in it that would make it interesting. Aesthetically, his life is boring.

The question about good life is the most fundamental question that a human being can ask. When you ask it the next time remember that there are three different ways to answer it. What dimension is your strength and what is your weakness?

Is there a dimension that is missing from here? How do these three dimensions resonate with your life? Share your comment!What makes a life good? The question is quite broad, we can admit that. One might answer by listing nice things; a cappuccino at a pleasant café on a Sunday afternoon, a gathering of good friends at the summer cottage and so forth. But there is also a deeper question: What do we mean by good life anyway? Or rather, what are the ways that a life can be good?

This question has haunted me but only when I read Dan Haybron’s book The Pursuit of Unhappiness did I find an answer that would appeal to me. He suggested that there would be essentially three different ways that a life could be good and these dimensions are well-being, morality and aesthetics. Let’s look what is meant by them.

Firstly life can be good simply by feeling good from my point of view. So we could say that a good life is a life that is good for me. A good life is a life that we have a positive feeling about. Some might call this happiness but I feel that it is a too narrow concept. Well-being covers better the broad array of ways through which a life can feel good for a person. In any case, one’s own well-being is a quite straight-forward way through which one’s life can be good.

But we can also say that someone’s life is good from the moral point of view. A certain life can be good disregarding one’s own feelings about it if one has been able to make a positive contribution to the world through one’s actions. Someone might sacrifice his or her own happiness for the sake of others and thus decrease the goodness of that life from the well-being perspective. At the same time, however, that life has reached a certain nobleness as regards morality.

Thirdly, the life of a person can be aesthetically pleasing. We can read a tragic story of someone who suffered immensely within his or her life, did the wrong choices and caused misery to those around him or her. This life might not be good from the well-being perspective nor from the moral perspective. Yet there might still be some aesthetic value in the life; it might demonstrate a certain tragic beauty.

It is easy to see that these three ways to look at good life are independent from each other. The same life can be good within one perspective but lacking in others. We can demonstrate this by looking at four persons, let’s call them Arthur, Bertha, Cecilia and David.

Arthur is an arrogant guy who knows how to make the life pleasant for himself but at the same time doesn’t care at all about the well-being of others. For him others are just instruments to be used for his own pleasures. His life might (although even this can be doubted) be good from the first perspective but bad from the second and indifferent from the third.

Bertha, in turn, has given up everything to fulfill a duty of helping the poor in some remote corner of earth. For her this duty is a heavy burden and she is not really happy out there. In addition, her life might be so repetitious that it doesn’t make an aesthetically pleasing story either. But from the moral point of view we could say that she lived an exemplary life.

Cecilia is then this tragic girl who was born into poverty, was ill most of her life, stole things to come by and even murdered someone under obscure conditions before killing herself after the love of her life abandoned her. Happiness and morality were absent from her life. Yet there might still be some tremendous beauty present in her melancholic life story.

David then is mister Right. He always does the right thing; he has cool hobbies, engaging work, perfect wife and three kids to be proud of. In addition, he is friendly towards everybody, does voluntary work in some NGO and helps the poorer kids of the neighborhood to get a good education. His well-being is excellent and his morality intact. But nobody wants to make a movie out of his life because there is not a single flaw in it that would make it interesting. Aesthetically, his life is boring.

The question about good life is the most fundamental question that a human being can ask. When you ask it the next time remember that there are three different ways to answer it. What dimension is your strength and what is your weakness?

Is there a dimension that is missing from here? How do these three dimensions resonate with your life? Share your comment!

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?

Statue of John Robert Osborn19th 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?

Statue of John Robert Osborn

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 speeding down mountain Los Pueblos Amigos, one of the steepest and most famous MTB track in Costa Rica.
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?