Moments and connections

Modern life shapes us into thinking of ourselves as individuals with sovereign autonomy. We set out to achieve big things in life. We earn and spend our own money. We instinctively compare our individual power and influence in society to the average to get some sense of how well we're doing. Over time, we come across enough stories of people making it despite the odds that we come to believe that success is something worth aiming for and that it's determined primarily by our own actions or inactions. This includes everything dear to us - hobbies, knowledge, fitness, relationships, marriage, kids, etc.

If you're living in a big city teeming with hard work and "success", life can seem fast. Time moves quickly. Everyone you know is doing something interesting, having great food, going on fun dates, travelling to new countries every year...the list goes on. Their lives feel so full. They're making the most of their time, and you think you should too. You feel the need to keep up. Just to feel that you're making the most of your life too. It feels important to do so and in that particular way.

And for the most part this approach works. Everything can go according to plan. This is especially true in a country with good governance, like most developed countries. In these places life is fairly predictable. Behaviours and systems are mostly predictable and reliable and the rules mostly make sense. It's easy to plan for the future. It's easy to believe that good outcomes come down to your own effort and drive more than anything because you're in such an environment.

But we're all human. And human beings don't get to live perfect lives where everything works out. We experience hardship, loss and pain. The future might suddenly become uncertain due to a terminal illness. All of these things can and probably will happen to us and/or people we love at some point. When these things happen I've noticed that the first thing we all do is reach out to people who care about us. I think this is a human thing. We need and look for love and comfort. And not just from friends and family, but in general from the world.

Why does being ill inside a hospital feel better than being ill at home with the same illness? Because in hospital you're not going through it alone. There are other patients. There are nurses and doctors to care for you. These people are literally looking after you during illness and recovery and it feels really nice. When I was discharged from hospital and told I could continue my recovery at home, on one hand I was happy to be getting back to normal life. On the other hand I was reluctant to give up this temporal "family" of people who were looking after me.

Having been through illness and mortal danger a few times since, I've found myself repeating this pattern of wanting to be around people who love me and wanting to feel loved in those times. In fact, that's all I wanted in those moments. My success, work, thrills and experiences didn't matter one bit.

You'll have heard phrases akin to "We're all in this together" and "We're all one big human family". Most of us merely pay lip service to these ideas without really living them fully, because we're too busy focused on comparing. Comparing ourselves to others and our own expectations which were once upon a time shaped by others. Our egos are constantly striving for a greater sense of self.

Until we have problems and need people to help and love us.

We need people to be there for us. Not just in the moment, but in general. Our lives are only possible because there are so many people around us choosing to let us live the life we want. If you did decide to isolate yourself in some place where no one else can reach you, you could claim to not need people. The trade-off would be what you're giving up in return for being able to avoid human contact. I'm reminded of the movie Into The Wild where the protagonist embarks on a journey to escape from the world around him and ends up in a solitary place, only to conclude in the end that "Happiness is only real when it's shared".

Of course, there are numerous examples of people who happily live solitary lives. But even if you are this hermit, I would argue that you're relying on people leaving you alone and not coming to disrupt your life.

(Image credit: me, CC BY-SA 4.0)

Fast forward to when we're dying, and it becomes clear that what's going to matter are our relationships, life experiences and memories. We'll wish we appreciated what we had more and that we did more of the things we wanted to do.

Even acquisitions - whether they be things or achievements - only matter in as much as they generate feelings within us based on how and why they're important to us. The experience of going from not having to having is what generates the feelings in the first place. So, even a person focused on acquisition is deep down simply wanting to feel an "acquiring experience".

What matters to us in the end are moments, feelings and connectedness.

Beautiful, joyful moments become memories. Feelings of joy, love and satisfaction associated with those moments turn those moments into fondly held memories and enrich our sense of who we are and how we've lived. Connectedness is about our relationships with people. To love and be loved are innate human modes - so fundamental to our existence, both in biological and spiritual terms.

To live well is to make these factors the priority in your life. For instance, we talk about building businesses and careers. Yet, why not build relationships? Why isn't the building of relationships with people our primary vocation, with business and career being secondary? Instead of acquiring more, why not also experience more? Instead of making arbitrary life milestones one's primary purpose, why not make creating beautiful moments the priority instead?

It's not easy to live this way when surrounded by the world as it is. A culture which treats you as a sovereign economic unit and considers economic expenditure on some item or experience as your primary valuable action for yourself and society. A culture which is obsessed with short-term highs of social media virality. A culture which makes you believe that you too need to "make it" and to do so quickly.

So reading this text isn't enough. Reading a dozen books on staying present and peaceful isn't enough. One has to train one's mind to live in this way. The mindset and thus the freedom to live a joyful life have to be earned - like nearly all of the best things in life.