If there is one thing I take from this year is adaptation: finding the power to admit I am stuck in place and find a new way to fulfil my dreams and sometimes survive. Though there is a catch. It might sound easy to do, but in reality there is so much going on in your life and mind that the effort that has to be made is huge and takes all the emotional power your body carries.
I am going through these thoughts at the moment. I think of the stress and fear I feel, which makes me uncomfortable, almost like I am not loyal to who I am. I know this is not true and that I have so many dreams and aspirations, and that eventually I am on the right way for me.
I learn daily that these thoughts aren’t necessarily bad. Growing and changing is a big part of who we are as humans and it is Okay to change and have new dreams. More than that, the new dreams can help us achieve the old ones and make our lives even more fulfilled.
I am still at the beginning of my 20s and have so much more to achieve in life. It is okay to have doubt. It makes us leave our comfort zone and evolve.
For a very long time, I have been stressing over my own future. To be honest, I have been stressing about it ever since I was young. I have tried to worry less, but I have always wanted to be one step ahead. There were situations where I started underestimating myself or worse- telling myself that I am just not good or worthy enough.
Now I know that I am good enough.
The more I think about it, the more I realise that at this point, stressing over the future has no point: I have done my best and the rest is out of my control. More importantly, my new approach to the future helps me to be more present at the moment and this makes me happier. Enjoying the small moments with my family and friends is just so much more valuable than giving up to the thought of the upcoming future.
I will eventually figure out what will happen, yet all I can do now is to wait patiently, so why should I worry?
There are so many psychological researchers discussing these kind of behaviour, but that is not my point. All these negative thoughts about the future had a negative effect on my behaviour in the present. I did not have to conduct a research to understand that. The minute I switched my approach and became more present, I started appreciating my environment and myself!
Maybe I have a good reason to worry about the future, but there is always another road to take. It is okay to fail and make mistakes. This is how we grow and evolve as human beings.
Our brain is so powerful and we should always navigate ourselves into positive thinking!
When I think about freedom I think of an abstract concept that humans have evolved to perceive as the most important thing for their survival and evolution. We fight for other abstract concepts in the name of freedom and feel satisfied when we get a little bit spare time to have a little bit control over our lives. As I think about it more and more I have more questions about the mysterious evolution of the entire human race.
In the army, I have very little freedom; I can no longer choose my clothes, I share a room with four other girls, share the shower and sometimes I even get my dresser checked by the officers. I can’t even leave for a vacation without informing my commanders about it. This leaves very little freedom to me. Then it hit me: humans, the masters and rulers over both the animal and the plant kingdoms, evolved to have very little freedom!
Yuval Noah Harari put this concept beautifully in his book “Sapiens- a Brief History of Humankind” my all-time favourite book) and as I kept reading this made more sense to me.
We tend to overthink and build bigger platforms that eventually take every little bit of freedom (both consciously and unconsciously) from our lives. Even when we think we reached freedom, do we actually?
Here is an example: Let’s say I am the richest woman in the world and can afford anything I want. There are several platforms that might take over here; law that restricts me from buying illegal things, my conscience that will eventually force me to give money to charity; the fear of running out of money and even the concept of money itself and the social need to use money as a trade tool (and trade in general).
Animals and plants, on the other hand, don’t think about these kind of things at all (from my understanding at least); they care very little about freedom or trade. This makes life so much simpler. Even if humans wanted to give up on all the different social agreements that build our society, it would be so hard for one simple reason: we THINK. Our thoughts is what builds and can easily destroy our society and eventually the entire human race. Much like the different science fiction movies with the robots that eventually kill all the humans.
Our lives are full of abstract concepts like that. Understanding that these are just all imaginary agreements we have as humans can make it easier (or harder) for us to live, now that we fully understand this fact. Would we ever reach freedom? I don’t think so. Why? It is very simple: when we leave one platform, a social agreement, we tend to think of it as freedom, yet we still struggle with hundreds and even thousands of other platforms and social agreements in our lives.
The only thing we can actually do is to enjoy these little victories, the little moments of freedom and be happy!
When Einstein invented the “Theory of Relativity” he referred to the size of different objects and their impact in the universe. Like many, I chose to leave these kind of ideas back in physics class and absorb the ideas that will actually serve me as an individual in a modern society.
It was a long time since my last physics class, yet I found myself thinking about this theory a lot recently. As much as I appreciate Einstein’s work, the physics didn’t matter to me at all. I looked at the relativity of the different aspects that take space in my own life. A few days ago, I became a Seregant, which means that I have only 6 months left of military service. I was thinking about the different things that I have been through and realized how grateful I am for many things that I would never get to experience if I wasn’t doing military service. The negative experiences seemed so distant and with very little importance. I didn’t want that to be a major part of who I had become.
This made me think about time in general. My military service is only 2 years of my life and I want the rest of my life to be the best I can make out of it. I started thinking about all the great things that I want to accomplish in my life and about all the different things that stop me from doing what I love. I don’t want those things to become greater than the aspects that make me who I am in the infinite universe that is called “the soul”.
Moreover, I realized that those negative aspects that take such a big space in my soul effect my interactions with my family, friends and new people I meet in my life. I want to use the limited time I have with them and be (and make them) as happy as I can.
Thank you Einstein for changing my perspective on life.
Sandra Chen 