Three Ways to Live Better (essay)
By Luke Labern
All of us are concerned with living well.
We may not all be philosophers, though we all, at times, engage in philosophical thinking. It is my view that whenever a human being engages in philosophy, especially regarding their life—whether their identity, their moral status, their purpose or any other issue—they are doing the single most important thing possible. All of us wish to live better, and when we philosophise and think rationally (rather than emotionally), we are extremely likely to improve our life in a variety of ways. As such, I am going to present three trains of thought for you to consider. The number three is arbitrary; my life is dedicated, in essence, to the task of improving my and other’s lives. The number three is, however, a catchy number, and because it will lead to a short essay, will allow me to write three things that I doubt anyone can reasonably argue with. As such, by focusing on just three very simple but very important things, their impact should be that much more profound.
I often make a habit of writing similar notes, but once again: please think through each point extremely carefully. Undoubtedly, the three thoughts here will be ones that you have not only heard before, but will have thought about—but what I am asking you to do here is to consider them very precisely, carefully and slowly. I will phrase them in simplistic terms, but the power and import of each idea has, in reality, the power to change your life. In truth, it would be impossible to ever really drain each of them of their vitality and full meaning; so anything you can gain from them will be most helpful. I know that I, personally, continue to learn about them and myself every day I continue to exist.
One other thing to note is that the points may actually seem to contradict one another. This is precisely what I was referring to earlier: misjudging the true important of words and concepts, and thinking “Ah, yes, that old cliché”, rather than actually considering what it would be like to put that concept into action, allows very subtle thoughts to be construed only as generalisations. I shall touch on this point later on, but I thought I should note it here at the outset.
By “better”, for the record, I mean more successfully, more happily; the term can really mean whatever you want it to mean, but for me, the best life is the one filled with the most success, the most positive emotion, the most strength, the most power and influence and the most authentic fulfilment of one’s potential.
1. Be ambitious.
Life can so easily become a matter of finding ways to “fill” time that it requires an entire paradigm shift to undo this way of thinking. With the gluttony of distractions around us (the internet, television and phones being the obvious examples), we become seduced into finding pleasure solely in other people’s creations. For me, this is as bad as it gets. Certainly, enjoying the works of others is one of the greatest things we can do—but when it becomes your soul purpose, you are wasting life. The case in point here is television. The extents to which people will dedicate their lives to consuming one of the many highly-polished American television shows which purport to be about meaty issues—but which are really quite vacuous at heart, covered up well by admittedly superb production—become an escape. There is nothing wrong with escapism, and indeed I believe it to be an essential element of the modern human condition. But there is a limit.
When your life is defined by the television shows you watch, there is no question that you have surrendered the greatest part of your self. As always, there is a logical grounding: if you are too busy enjoying—read: worshipping—the creations of others, how can you be making the most of your own? Creations here can mean literal works of art, or it could mean the cultivation of personal relationships. More broadly, though, let us speak of goals.
If your day is defined by how many episodes of the latest addictive television series you have watched, where does that leave your goal? Slotted in somewhere later on? If so, it has already been demoted from the place it should be. More likely, however, is that it has been lost altogether. There is a phrase I have been very taken with since I conceived of it, and it is a litmus test for how you value your days:
Each night when you go to sleep, ask yourself a question. Was the day you just experienced essential to your existence? Could you have lived your life without this day? If you find that it has not been an indispensible day, I would argue that it is a waste.
I have never heard a single counter-argument to the idea that every human being should have a series of goals: a large, all-encompassing goal—their life’s dream, then broken down into more and more specific and manageable goals. The reason I have never heard a counter-argument is because anyone who disagreed that this is the soundest way to live—regardless race, age, religious persuasion or intellectual ability—would not know themselves well enough to argue the point. In order to know who you are, and survive the strongest test that life affords, one must know what it is they want out of life. By formulating one’s life dream, they will know what they stand for, what they are willing to give and what they are not willing to give.
Having a dream is, for me, the single most important thing you can do.
Now, a dream could well be modest: “to be happy” is the ‘dream’ I hear most often of all. No doubt this is a sensible thing to say; but is that really all you want? It is perfectly happy to be an utter hedonist and be happy. You could sacrifice your family, friends, intellect and existence to heroin, for example, and be very happy. I believe that most people do not understand that happiness is not an end-result: it is a by-product. Happiness can only result under the right circumstances; an unfortunate event can ruin any moment, and that is truth. A far more powerful thing to aim for is a real goal, a definable goal.
Let us presume that the same person who wished for happiness has now defined their goal to be “very good at their profession”. I would, again, challenge this. Why not be more ambitious? Certainly, this was already a solid step. But why not change that goal to being “the best in their profession”?
The important thing to note here is not the likelihood of the outcome—not at first—but rather the paradigm shift I mentioned earlier. The moment one has a goal like this, a variety of things happen.
First, there is a clear path. To be the best in your profession is not a fuzzy or confusing goal. It implies a mastery of all the skills required, and the need for a superb reputation. This, in turn, gives a path to the goal. If the end-goal is to be the very best, then there will need to be other goals between: to be one of the best; to be very good; to be good; to be proficient; to start in the proficient. Each denotes a stage in both the dreamer’s life and can be broken down further. There is an obvious starting point, and it is likely that it has already been surpassed. Next, the acquisition of basic skills is required. Then, practise. Over time, as goals are ticked off, there will be a real sense of achievement—and hasn’t it been earned? It undoubtedly has.
Now, to return to the original point—what has happened to “filling time”? That awful phrase is no longer in the vocabulary of the ambitious dreamer. There is still time to indulge in escapism—and indeed in the very same things—but there is a new mentality. This time, they are rewards for hard work—not ends in themselves. Never again will the ambitious dreamer congratulate themselves for watching an entire series in a day. If they did do that, they would scold themselves. Filling time is no longer an option, because their time is precious. Their time is used. More than that, it is savoured. Because of their unflinching dedication to their goal, and their addiction to the feeling of success and consistent achievement, the idea of having to fill time has become a relic of the past.
Their lives are not only richer, for having put themselves and their dreams before pointless recreation—they are still able to engage in the recreation they would have abused, but do so with a much clearer mind and a far greater sense of self.
I hope you agree that in this case—and for anyone who chooses to be ambitious and thus driven—their life is infinitely richer than it would have been through sheer modesty alone.
2. Enjoy life at every moment: enjoy what you have now.
Here, then, is where the contradiction may seem to be to the unthinking. How can I ask the ambitious dreamer to enjoy every moment of their life—if they did that, how could they possibly want more? Isn’t that greed?
Absolutely not.
Being ambitious gives a life meaning—regardless of belief in God or philosophical position. It leads to a drive that allows days never to seem like stale ponds, but a flowing river. Life has a direction, a purpose, a reason. This does not mean that at each stage during the journey to the goal life should be looked at as unsatisfactory.
Life is life. Achieving one’s goals does not change this inherent quality: it only means that one has achieved what one set out to do, which brings with it a sense of fulfilment, pride, happiness and a real sense of control. Achieving a goal is something to do in life, but life itself remains the same. Having long dispelled meditation as something ‘I would never be into’ (this relates to the third and final point), my mind gave me the following gift, which I now share with you:
If you cannot be happy with what you have now, no future acquisition will grant you it.
This is almost Buddhist in nature. Though I dislike attributing my thoughts to any system, the power of this thought was about not just material goods, but goals, too. Existence is existence. If we cannot enjoy the smells, sights and sounds of our lives now—we will never enjoy them. There is no excuse for not making the most of one’s life. If you cannot appreciate the staggering feat which is your existing at this very moment, it is highly unlikely that any far less important and impressive achievement—for example, temporarily possessing a lot of money—will ever satisfy you. Life is our most precious resource, and it is the single most pleasurable thing we will ever be given.
In tandem with ambition, then, there are already numerous benefits. If you are both happy with your life now, and each day undertake work to make it even better—could there be a simpler or more solid journey to happiness or success? No lottery win could rival the pleasure of enjoying life both before and after success, especially if that success was earned, rather than randomly gifted. The authenticity of feeling not only comfortable, but confident, in one’s own skin, are assets that should not be taken lightly.
There is an objection that I am sure will be brought up by some who resist the attempts of all to help them restructure their lives, partly because they are driven by emotions more than reason, and partly due to their inability to assess themselves as well as they do others (though realistically, either they can assess themselves but are too weak to do so, or are equally as inept in their judgements of others). This point is: ‘what if I’m not happy? Then what? How do I just “enjoy existence”?’
This can sound tempting, but it is an error. In fact, there is nothing quite so refreshing to a mind exhausted by dark thoughts that contemplating something that is more fundamental even than their negativity. If you can close your eyes and hold your mind still, attempting to clear all ideas from your consciousness, and simply quieten down the universe… you can discover, with practise, that as intense as those pressures and issues on your mind seem, there is something deeper. Something underlying even these issues—which could be death or loss. That something is your existence.
Consider the depressive who is really tired of life after a year of depression. If they could meditate in this way for just a few seconds, they would immediately feel relieved—if only for the duration of the meditative period. Initially, this may stem from the fact that they are quite literally no longer thinking of what consumes them—they have focused in a novel way, and are considering first nothing, and then their own existence—the fact that they are there at all. What is more powerful than this simple dislocation of painful ideas with more intriguing ones, is the special nature of these thoughts.
I have always found particular solace in the fact that the only beings that experience pain, or have any idea of its existence, are those who are alive. The only people who can feel pain are the only people who can experience love; the only people who can smile, the only people who can triumph and the only people who can craft a life and look back at it. To be in pain is a badge of honour. The great secret to coping with pain and hardships of all types, I have found, is not to attempt to escape the pain—not to blindly take drugs to numb it, to self-harm oneself into oblivion—but to embrace the pain. By accepting that pain is only ever temporary—for we are all born terminally ill, and are heading towards death at a steady pace—we can then sensationalise the pain; we can dramatise the pain.
What is more appealing: suffering pain quietly, or engaging with the pain—savouring it even?
For me, it is always the latter. There is no inherent dignity in absorbing pain and trying to hide it, especially when such an act leads only to far worse repercussions later in life when we flare up and resent those who could not see through our carefully-woven disguises. To embrace the pain, to let it be known that one is in pain and to make it clear that one is fighting the pain all the way—that is a far healthier way to live.
And what has this to do with enjoying life at all times?
Well, to embrace pain is to be happy.
Hiding—whether a secret, a lie or one’s true self—is never a pleasant activity. To be honest to and about oneself is another form of accepting one’s existence. Accepting one’s existence is not good enough, however: I demand that you who are reading this be proud of it. I demand that you think of it as the most incredible thing you have ever heard, as you would the birth of a child. The ultimate paradigm shift is the one in which one’s existence takes centre stage. None of the trivial and arbitrary things in life—like money, societal position and status—can ever come close to the purity and magic of existence. They are nothing without it—they would not even exist. Without the impossible reality that is our being alive, and having just one life—the perfect amount—none of these things would matter.
To understand that existence is our most precious asset, and to embrace and enjoy it by placing this fact at the centre of one’s life (and thus doing those things one truly wants to do, avoiding those things one truly does not want to do and by becoming the person you truly want to be)… is undoubtedly to live a better life.
3. Always be open to new ideas—even about your deepest beliefs. Always seek truth before reassurance.
It may, potentially, be claimed that this idea in some way clashes with the first (be ambitious). The thought might be that in order to be ambitious and fulfil one’s goals, that one should be dogged and unflinching, taking on no new challenges to the thought processes that led to the agreed goal and path. The distinction is between being dogged and dogmatic. Being tireless, and truly giving one’s all, is exactly what is required—being dogmatic (that is, unthinkingly following a path) is precisely what is most harmful of all. The case may be that the goal you have chosen is wrong. Wrong in the sense that is either unattainable, or unhealthy, or unhelpful. On the grand scale, there is really very little to be said against any particular goal if it was chosen authentically and its fulfilment will truly grant happiness and wellbeing to the person attempting to attain it. There is, however, a problem in that we are all fallible—specifically, here, in terms of zealousness.
To use an example, consider a devoutly religious person who was brought up as a Christian from birth. After the usual crises of doubt, and perhaps realising that no child is actually able to be religious (rather, it is a form of brainwashing, akin to saying that there is such a thing as a “Tory child”, when of course the child knows nothing of politics—and even less of religion), the person finds themselves at a crossroads. At this point, they take my advice and decide to devote themselves to God. Perhaps their goal is specific—the attainment of some sort of nirvana perhaps, or some goal of establishing a religious group, book or family. As I said before, there is really little to be said against this decision if it is intended to bring wellbeing and fulfilment not only to the person involved, but to others. Except this:
There is something disgusting about living a lie.
This is a personal position of mine that has driven much of my life, to the extent that I have sacrificed much happiness for the sake of truth. Depressing truths are more important to me than pleasant lies. This is not true of all people, and indeed many people actively seek the latter. All of my writing is persuasive in its attempt to promote truth as the best driver of life, and this will be no different. Here, the crisis does not lie from my personal denouncement of religion of all forms—this may well be irrelevant to the case at the hand. The point is that a goal chosen authentically may not be authentic. Over and above the fact that, to me, a person who devotes their life to organised religion—rather than their own spiritual and philosophical journey—is heading in the wrong direction, it is almost certain that at some point they will have another crisis of doubt—only this time they may not “recover”. They won’t recover because, in this example, they have discovered their real belief: that they do not believe in Christianity. The example can be replaced with almost anything: a realisation of one’s sexuality, a realisation of one’s love or lack of love for another, a realisation that one has been living a lie or even—and this is especially relevant for me—a realisation that one has been hiding away from their talent, hiding away from the activities that they should be doing.
Being too dogged—to the point that one will ignore clear evidence, and push away those trying to help them who see more clearly than they do—can lead to wasted time. This, as I have said before, is a waste of the most precious gift we have—life—and is the closest thing to a sin I can conceive of. As Seneca writes, “life is short—if you know how to use it”. To commit to something—as passionately and honestly as anyone who has lived—may well lead to a realisation, many decades down the line, that you have wasted the best part of your life on something that you not only do not agree with, but despise.
To be always open to new ideas, challenges and debate—to always read widely, critically and thoroughly—is to futureproof your life. By being aware of your own beliefs at all time, you will be doing yourself a wonderful favour. There are three reasons in particular that I believe this is an important thing to do.
Firstly, you do not risk wasting your life. Any niggling doubts you have about your choice—for example, your faith or sexuality—are addressed immediately. Undoubtedly, there may be a latency period; it may come at the end of a tough few months—but isn’t it better to confront problems after months rather than years? Being proactive in addressing difficult issues is always the swiftest root to productivity. If you find out that you have taken the wrong path, it is always better to find this out when you have wasted the least amount of time. That being said, I am not advocating quitting: doubt is natural, but doing something you utterly despise and know is not really for you, isn’t. Faith is one thing; being ignorant is another.
Secondly—and I think this is the most persuasive reason—you validate your goal. If you constantly challenge your beliefs (such as faith in God) by seeking the strongest counter arguments and you still believe—your faith is that much stronger, for you have challenged your belief, thought critically about it and still have faith. It may even be more useful to consider your belief as starting anew: to know that your beliefs—the most important part of you—are also current, is a wonderful insurance policy that you are living your life well.
Thirdly, you open up an entirely new world for yourself. At any point in your life you may realise that the decisions you have made are not the same as those you want to make in the future. At no point should a human being—who is possessed of freedom—feel trapped. That is slavery, and is universally condemned: why, then, would you wish to enslave yourself? If you “know” that the next forty years of your life are going in a certain direction; if you know who you will be with, what routines you will fulfil and where you will end up—is that really a life worth living? I do not care how wonderful one’s future is: to know every aspect of one's future before living it could never be worth it. If I had no choice to change my life at any moment, and to head in any direction, I would hand back my ticket and leave life immediately. This point cannot be stressed enough: there is literally no telling what your life could be like if you are always open to ideas. Dogmatism of any kind—even of a positive principle like humanism—is a disease. The only time one can apply a label to someone’s beliefs with any accuracy is after their death—but even then, that does not capture the entity in flux they were. Why, then, would anyone wish to curtail their freedom and proclaim themselves a "life long” anything? I question my faith regularly—about my lack of faith of God, my faith in myself, in my path, in my goals, in the people around me, in my wish to continue living. This may sound bleak, or even perhaps harsh—but remember what I have just said. Each time I continue to re-validate those things, my love for them grows: I am proud of my beliefs and the people around me because I know that they are not only emotionally, but logically the right choices: I believe in them. I honestly believe there is nothing more healthy one can do than to challenge themselves in the most drastic way possible.
Can anyone honestly dispute the point that it would be better to challenge their beliefs—and be found that they still agree with them—than to go on living with what is essentially, old mental furniture? Fondness for the past is one thing—attempting to live in a time that no longer exists is quite another.
These, then, were three ways in which I believe any life can be improved. As I said, it was entirely arbitrary: the content, however, was not. Regarding the ideas, I will most likely expand upon them in future essays (I am thinking here of my form of meditation and a detailed exegesis in ways in how to challenge oneself). The seeds, however, are there—and I believe they are all powerful and simple enough to be incorporated into your life immediately, if you so choose. I hope they are as useful for you as they have been for me.
Philosophy,
Published 07 August 2013
Published 07 August 2013