6 Philosophies to keep you going in life

Photo by Etienne Girardet on Unsplash

“No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always b*tchy. No Fun — for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax — This won’t hurt”. Those were the words of Hunter S. Thompson. He shot himself in the head 4 days after, at his home in Woody creek, Colorado. Drew Berryman, Ernest Hemingway, Virginia Woolf, and Sylvia Plath were among other famous writers that couldn’t stand the vanity, pain, and meaninglessness of life. Kurt Cobain, George Sanders and Chester Bennington also couldn’t take it anymore at some point and called it quits.

Some people have claimed that we are all crazy people trying to act normal. We are all asking “what’s the point in all of these?”as we all try to find meaning, to feel “less sorry” for ourselves, as we might feel many many times under this experience. There’s no shame in admitting cluelessness. Cheer up! You are not alone.

Whenever I say “the pain is where the light enters” or “To each his own” or “we all begin to die the minute we were born”. Then I hear “here we go again” as my wife shrugs. At which moment I never fail to reiterate that one can’t get through life without philosophy.

I have since constantly wielded 6 philosophies to keep me from going “Hunter Thompson”, at least for now.

• Acceptance
• Dukkha
• Karma
• Minimalism
• Gratitude
• Memento mori

1. Acceptance: Accept the card life has dealt you and just play it. In acceptance you don’t judge, it’s neither good nor ill, you just take it as it is. Accept what you’ve defined as happiness, joy, gloom, depression, anger, whatever shows up in your experience. Resist the temptation to latch on any of them nor own them, no matter how tempting that may seem. No state is permanent. They all come and go. Always remember “this too shall soon pass”. Everything appears in consciousness on their own, all you need to do is observe. See what happens when you watch a movie, you are completely detached from what’s happening. See your life as a movie. Learn to be open. Being open to whatever happens (shame, joy, praise, criticism, fear etc) removes resistance and allows you to flow with the universe and live your life.
2. Everything is Dukkha: The Pali word in Theravada Buddhism, Dukkha, means “Suffering”. It’s one of the fundamental teachings in Buddhism. One has to be aware that there’s a basic unsatisfaction in life no matter how much you have or own. Satisfying one desire leads to more desires. More knowledge, more money, more happiness, more friends, more degrees, more patience. This list is endless. Your desire is making you unhappy. For example, You think when you make a certain amount of money, reach a particular income level, or achieve a certain milestone, then you’d be happy, as if to say that happiness is the destination. Imagine you’re an employee in entry level, then you work really hard and all you want is that promotion. You put in more and more hours and finally you get that promotion. Does it stop there? No my friend! There’s another level to reach, you want to be a manager, a senior manager or even more. Just simply enjoy the journey, the work you put in everyday, the learnings, what you can teach others. That’s the focus. Happiness is the journey and not the destination. Be aware of your desires and don’t let them own you.
3. Karma: Be conscious of your choices. Since you were born you have been influenced by a number of things; parents, friends, books, actions, thoughts, if you decided to eat a double cheese burger or porridge beans. This is your karma. Our choices are very important and determine what we are and become. The choices you make create the consequences. Imagine when you chose not to invest a portion of your income in mutual funds or buy some ETFs, and then much later in life you begin to blame your children for not taking care of you. You failed to look after yourself. It’s also like always having sodas and pastries at home to snack and blame everything else but yourself for being overweight. You have to be accountable and take full responsibility for your choices. No devil. No demon. No god. No angel. You and only you should be blamed. Wake up Neo! Just be aware of where you put your energy and the life you’ve chosen. Choose wisely!
4. Minimalism: Is there a benefit to owing so much? Plenty houses, cars, clothes, gadgets. So goes on the list. If you actually need all you own, then by all means go ahead. But why own what you don’t need? Why own what doesn’t serve you? If you own what doesn’t serve you, then you serve it. You become the slave and it becomes your master. Whatever you own you are attached to. The more you own the more attachment you have. Learn to be happy with having less. According to Joshua Fields Millburn & Ryan Nicodemus, “Minimalism is a tool that can assist you in finding freedom. Freedom from fear. Freedom from worry. Freedom from overwhelm. Freedom from guilt. Freedom from depression. Freedom from the trappings of the consumer culture we’ve built our lives around. Real freedom”. Reduce your attachments and be free. Learn to be comfortable with having less because LESS IS MORE!
5. Gratitude: “Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues but the parent of all others.” — Marcus Tullius Cicero. And check this quote by the vibraphonist Lionel Hampton; “Gratitude is when memory is stored in the heart and not in the mind.”Hampton couldn’t have put it any better. When we talk about gratitude we don’t mean a quid pro quo. When you feel gratitude, you acknowledge God and diminish your control for the outcome. Gratitude beams the light on your oneness with the universe. Remember to always be grateful for the “little” things. Like being grateful for meeting less traffic on your way to work, or being grateful for your waking up. When you learn to be present with every moment, you stop trivializing a lot of things. Mediation can help with that. You can talk to Sam Harris on this. Listen to the Making Sense podcast or his meditation app, Waking Up!
6. Memento Mori: “remember death”. Death is the solemn path everyone must walk. We should each contemplate our mortality. The thoughts of death takes away every anxiety. The ancients stoics did this relentlessly. In his letters, Seneca speaks of the benefits from meditating on death, “Let us prepare our minds as if we’d come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life’s books each day…The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time”. Marcus Aurelius also practiced memento mori. He said, “You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.” The Samurai used death as a mental practice to enjoy life, conquer fear, and become better warriors. “The Way of the Samurai is, morning after morning, the practice of death, considering whether it will be here or be there, imagining the most sightly way of dying, and putting one’s mind firmly in death. Although this may be a most difficult thing, if one will do it, it can be done. There is nothing that one should suppose cannot be done.” Look forward to your death with excitement. Let the memory of death be the force that makes you take action and live every moment with awareness.

My final thoughts:

Life is a paradox and Humans are complex beings and the best we can do is try to understand ourselves, use that knowledge to better understand others and the world we live in.

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” — Dr. Seuss.

I would love to recommend some of these books and I hope they are good read for you.

• Awareness by Anthony de Mello,
• The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer
• Waking up by Sam Harris
• Open by Johan Norberg
• 10% happier by Dan Harris
• Atomic habits by James clear

I’d love to hear from you. Please be kind to leave a note. Thanks!