(or at least not as successful as you’d thought you’d be)
If you’re like me, and statistically speaking you probably
are, you’re not quite living life the way your 5 year old self had imagined. I
don’t just mean that in that you’re not an astronaut, or a cowboy, or a
professional wrestler, but that you’re maybe starting to realize just how many “you”s
there are. For the early part of your life, the most important thing you’ve
ever heard about was you. The vast majority of young children don’t think about
the “big picture”.
Interestingly, a parallel is seen
with early humanity. From the dawn of consciousness to roughly the 16th
century when Copernicus revealed his famous heliocentric theory, it was thought
that the Earth was the center of the universe, similar to how young you thought
you were the center of the world. As you grow your perception changes, and you
realize that there are a LOT of people in the world, all of whom also assumedly
think that their experience is of primary concern for the world. Likewise, as
humanity grew and learned more about the world, people realized that despite
this 3rd rock from the sun being the only known habitat of life in
the universe, we were far from the center of it.
So, here you are, thinking about
your life and how it measures up to what you thought it might have been. And
you’re probably a little unimpressed! Studies have shown that the average
person considers themselves to be of above average intelligence, which of
course statistics tells us cannot be true. It would be fair to assume that the
average person also thinks that their lot in life isn’t quite measuring up to
what they “deserve”, but of course that can’t be true either.
If you’re neither very poor or very
rich, very stupid or very intelligent, very ugly or very attractive, odds are
you’re just like me (relatively speaking). Humanity can be represented by a
bell curve; there are far more “average” people than ones at the extremes of
the spectrum. So what do we do now?
Let’s assume for a moment that
there is no afterlife. No heaven or hell, just eternal nothingness once your
brain has turned off for good. That leaves you with a very short amount of time
on Earth in which to accomplish your goals. Does it matter? Should you chase
goals? If it’s all going to disappear in an instant someday, what’s the
incentive to work hard while you’re alive? Some people think that a lack of
belief in an afterlife is counter-productive, that if people don’t have a goal
(reach heaven) that they’ll not have any motivation to “do well”.
I couldn’t disagree more. Assuming
that I have a finite amount of time left on Earth to grow, learn, discover,
love, teach, feel, travel, and share; I feel an immense urge to go and DO IT.
If you have a deadline at work do you scrap the project or do you hustle twice
as hard to ensure that you finish on time? If your boss says, “Get it done
whenever”, will you really have a fire lit under you? I am very motivated by
the concept of my own mortality, and I think that subconsciously every other
human does as well. This is what separates us from the rest of the beasts of
the Earth, we alone have the curse of realizing that we will die someday, and
that knowledge has spurred us to become to top species on the planet.
Why do we follow celebrity culture?
Why do we idolize the movie stars, musicians, the financiers? Because we see
that they are fully realizing the life that we always thought we deserved. When
you see a picture of George Clooney at a party, some part of you recognizes
that the difference between him and you is so minute that had a few minor occurrences
in the past gone differently, that could be you rubbing elbows with “the elite”.
They are really no different than you or I, they are subject to the same
insecurities, the same doubts, the same physical and mental problems.
So maybe you can’t act like George
Clooney, or sing like Adele, or predict the stock market like Warren Buffet.
You can still enjoy life just as passionately as they can, and the key to that
enjoyment is understanding that the meaning of life is not acquiring wealth and
status, it is to feel strong emotions and maintain bonds with other people. If
you make your goal to get rich or to get a ton of Instagram followers, the odds
are you’re going to be disappointed (you’re just average, remember?). However,
if you set the goal of finding beauty and meaning in the everyday occurrences
of life, you will NEVER miss your goal.
I think I’m rambling a bit here, so
I’ll try to summarize this as best I can. We’re all more or less the same, and
we’re all going to die someday. Don’t compare yourself to others, because this
can only breed negative feelings like jealousy, regret, or bitterness. Instead
look at your life and marvel at the beautiful intricacy of it all. The fact
that life flourished on this planet at all, despite the harsh conditions
throughout much of Earth’s history is amazing. That your consciousness was able
to come into being in a body is truly lucky. That you’re able to read this on a
computer, probably from a great distance away, would blow the minds of anyone
that died before 1950 or so.
Like Louis CK said, “Everything is
amazing and no one is happy.” Why is that? We are living at the most privileged
point in human history, we are statistically safer, healthier, and better
educated than people were at any other point in human history, yet most of us
aren’t happy. Instead of worrying about what you don’t have, be grateful for
what you do have, because otherwise you’ll never measure up.
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