An experiment in Well Being

For a long time I have struggled with being emotionally stable and with relating to the people around me. Which is not to say that I have mastered these acts or that these are scientifically rigorous but there are a few ideas I have come across that I have a feeling can be really useful to anyone who tries to implement them.

I have observed that for a person to obtain a sense of wellbeing, they need three aspects of life to function really well.

1. A feeling that their life has a direction
2. A feeling that they have a deep love of at least one or two things
3. A sense of purpose and connectedness with something beyond them.

I feel it is appropriate to attempt to define these ideas more carefully.

1) A feeling that their life has a direction

To be able to say your life has a direction need not necessarily mean that your career or your relationship is moving forward, but an aspect of your life that impacts you very deeply is improving by the day. While this could include one’s career or their relationship , it can also include a number of different facets of one’s life. Here a few examples:

The list down here is not exhaustive to say the least :

1. How your body feels and its state.
2. Your family
3. Your desire to engage in creative projects
4. Your home and its quality
5. The amount of money in your bank account
6. Your longing to compete and dominate such as in a sport
7. Your mental peace
8. Your longing to engage in research and your desire for mystery
9. Your longing to understand and appreciate art and entertainment
10. Your spiritual life
11. Your education
12. Your social circle
13. Your career
14. The state of your assets such as your laptop, car etc
15. Your intelligence.
16. Your intimate relationships
17. Your routine
18. Your longing to engage in short distance travel , long distance travel or adventures in general

You might also notice in fact that more than three or four of these facets of life might be relevant to you. You might also want to combine one or two of them such as trying to generate a career in tours and travels(13, 18) and having the direction of your life being pegged to it.

2) A feeling that they have a deep love of at least one or two things

The love for something can be understood as something that fulfills the person engaging in it almost immediately and is capable of sustaining them. It must be noted that while one can obtain this from another person , they should strive to awaken this quality within themselves without the help of another person. It might be through the help of an activity.

Another form that this love may take is the form of flow or intelligence. There are moments in a person’s life that a person effortlessly conducts very complex activity without understanding how. While they may not feel the same high they may feel through love , the feeling of flow resulting from intelligence or competence is often just as fulfilling. Or in other words anything that is capable of dissolving a person or making them forget that they exist.

There are a number of activities that could come under this category , however what people generally consider their passion would fall here. The items in the list given above could also be included.

3) A sense of purpose or connectedness with something beyond themselves.

If we are to examine the idea of purpose or connectedness ,its primary reason for including into one’s life is to make them aware of the relative insignificance of their own lives and to accept it joyfully. This can take many forms. It could take the form of a cause, more precisely any cause that connects one to a purpose beyond their own life. This may be something as large as solving world poverty or as simple as feeding one’s dog. Another way of examining this would be for someone to ask themselves the question about why they are alive. However an idea isn’t the only way for one to accept their own insignificance. It could even take the form of subordinating oneself to a guru or a mentor and to take important life decisions in consultation with them while allowing them a significant amount of autonomy in making these. It could also mean the acknowledgment of otherworldly forces through the worship of a deity. The general idea is to put something beyond your own life.

4) Clarifications

There are some points that probably should be noted. The first item on the 3point list refers to all those areas that a person naturally feels drawn to and has almost no choice when it comes to determining their mental wellbeing. While the third item refers to those things that are consciously taken upon.

One might also notice that the second and third items on the list are attempting to make one efface themselves. This is in fact true , however both need not be available to people to the same extent. Some may feel more drawn to love, passion and flow while others may feel more drawn to purpose, meaning and connectedness to what’s beyond them

Now it is not necessarily possible that all three of these might be present in every person in a full fledged manner. Different people might be differently capable in all these three regards. While some might feel a deeper sense of purpose or connectedness, others may have greater clarity about where their life is heading. Others may also have the good fortune of being able to connect one of these elements with the other naturally i.e, some may have a deep sense of competence of a subject or a skill because they are aligned with what they consider their life purpose. Or it may happen that a person experiences a feeling that their life is progressing because they feel connected to something beyond themselves such as a cause or a purpose.

5) How do you develop them ?

A person might now wonder how they’d go about finding and developing these aspects of their lives. While every person’s journey in developing these is almost always unique and completely their own, it is possible to offer some pointers to someone wanting to embark on this journey.

The trivial way of falling in love is obviously to fall in love with someone but here are some other ways :

1. To bring in an element of risk taking or courage to it. For example, should someone develop a program , they should not hesitate to pitch it to an investor or write a research article about it. The feeling that engaging in the act of one’s love is making them courageous can be motivating enough for one to be helplessly drawn to them.
2. A person could try to surround themselves with a community of people who already feel deep love for that very thing. One’s social circle generally plays a huge role in determining what one values.
3. If we consider the act of love as being synonymous to motivation, it is well known that motivation can be inspired in multiple ways :

i) one could gather information about the object of love and try to look at it in a deeper way

ii) One could try to develop a visual map , or something visually appealing about the object of interest. For example should someone want to develop a love for graph algorithms , they could look at visuals about their real time functioning

iii) Motivation could also be gathered from imposing austerity upon oneself in the form of a resolution. Such as the resolution that they won’t leave the gym without doing a 100 bench presses. This might prove extremely useful if one wants to create a longing for the gym.

iv) It might also be motivating for a person to try to challenge the people around them

It might also happen often that the act of developing love may serve as a gateway for a person to a deep sense of purpose. A person who feels a deep sense of love for something and is overflowing with it may feel the longing to share it with the world and hence may derive a deep sense of purpose through it. This may work the other way as well , a person with a deep sense of purpose might be able to organize their minds to be able to feel love or motivation or competence for what they feel is in line with it.

The same points presented above for love could also apply when it comes to developing one’s purpose. There however is a key difference in my opinion. A person trying to develop purpose experiences a reinforcement of it through encountering obstacles on it on a daily basis whereas one’s love is reinforced through having one question their values and have what they love arise on top repeatedly. And of course the trivial way of experiencing purpose is through idol worship , or the worship of a deity. This might be a traditional god , one’s object of admiration or even a hero.

Perhaps there are some unorthodox ways of developing these traits as well. For example some people feel more confident or deeply for themselves when they detach from society or relationships. As unorthodox as it may seem , there are monks who have made it the focus of their life to detach from society and their possessions and attain spiritual progress through it. This is seen in a meditation that is commonly practiced called neti-neti. Whatever floats their boat.

Another predicament that many people face is that of analysis paralysis. They are often lost in the myriad of choices available to them. This can be simply resolved by one visiting their past and taking a careful look at it. All the activities that they felt naturally drawn to can go a long way in making them feel deep love.

There’s a lot more I want to say alas time and energy evades me. I hope this suffices , please forgive me if this is insufficient or ridden with logical inconsistencies