Is Guilt a Useless Emotion?

Today I wish to question the use of guilt as an emotion. Guilt is typically defined as feeling culpable and responsible for things past or possibly for things still to come. However isn’t this a little odd as why should we worry about things we have no control over? If you got angry at your good friend the other day then why feel guilty today? Please don’t get me wrong, realising that what you did was perhaps uncalled for or wrong is perfectly fine, but there is no need to then place a burden upon yourself which will make your life all the worse, this will only add to the damage the initial anger caused. Having an appreciation of how mistakes can be improved is fine, but don’t view it in a negative way.

Guilt is a negative emotion and as such can be very destructive. I know that I personally have a problem with being too hard on myself. I beat myself up about small things and drive myself into the ground for any mistakes made. This problem is also probably linked to the fact that I’m a bit of a perfectionist. Thus my standards are too high, and I can never meet them. Not meeting my expectations leads me to feeling guilty and aggravated which causes a negative cycle and then its all downhill from there.

An interesting example of this would have to be when I played competition tennis at age 15 or so. Coincidentally the tennis has been broadcasting on Australian TV recently as the Australian open is going on in Melbourne. Or perhaps I should say it is concluding in Melbourne as today is also the day of the finals. Anyway, I started playing tennis at around 12 and by the time I was 15 I was, trying not to sound to vain here, quite competent really. However when at 15 I started doing competition tennis I found to my dismay that I would lose pretty much all of my matches, even when my opponents had terrible technique and were obviously far worse than me (technically). Why was this? Ultimately I believe it was due to the stress and guilt I placed upon myself and how I would play badly due to putting myself in a negative state of mind, by beating myself up internally. Basically I’d make one bad shot, give myself a difficult time about it and then never manage to psychologically pick up my game again. Hence I would make a huge amount of unforced errors.

What I’m getting at is that tennis is a very psychological game. I always like to compare it to a fight. When talking singles its just you and the opponent. Hence if they win a point there’s only one person to blame, and that’s yourself. I’d come back each Saturday feeling despondent and being unhappy as well as angry with myself for having yet again lost, normally to an inferior opponent.

Guilt is an overrated emotion. Often people feel guilt for things they did years ago, and while it is good that they wish not to repeat that it is not good that they live in anxiety and fear of that past. Accepting responsibility is immensely important and I encourage it 100%, but it need not lead to guilt. Guilt is a waste of our time. If you do something wrong you accept it, you take responsibility for it, but you do not beat yourself up about it. Where does beating yourself up get you? Nowhere fast would be an appropriate answer, or perhaps the answer should be backwards.

Try watching a game of tennis some time, you’ll understand just how psychological it is. Not that any other sport isn’t of course, but I suppose as I used to play it I understand it particularly well. Its interesting to see that someone who was playing badly can turn their game around or vice-versa, all as a result of mood. Its obvious that being in a good mood can improve not only your actual performance but how you perceive that performance. Allow me to explain:

Imagine yourself playing a game of tennis, and you’re in a really good, positive frame of mind. Typically that means that the positive frame of mind will fuel you and make you play all the better. But even if you still lose (which isn’t to say that the positive thinking isn’t making you play better), you can still think “wow that was a great game of tennis and despite losing I played a good game.” Unfortunately I was never mature enough to think this back when I played tennis, but somewhat ironically it can’t just be thought but sincerely believed, otherwise the thought is like someone else saying it and you saying “bollocks, I played terribly and got beaten as a result.” Personally I find the first, more positive outlook much better and I think it also helps people to perform better too, not to mention just living a more enjoyable life generally.

So where does guilt come into all this? Well, as I mentioned earlier, guilt is a negative emotion and negative thoughts lead to negative results, at least such has always been my personal experience. Taking responsibility for your actions is all well and good, but dwelling on past and potential future failings is psychologically harmful. Indeed the Buddhist philosophy of “Living in the Now…:” coincides with the idea that we should not live in the past or the future, but rather in the ever evolving period of now. Guilt is an escape from the present, inserting worries over which we don’t have control, over what is done, or not yet even the case.

Maybe I’m naïve and foolish to believe that guilt is overrated, but I honestly feel that so much could be gained and that people could move on and better themselves so much more if guilt were at very least toned down, if not eliminated. As the science daily website http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070516081014.htm argues, self-compassion (the ability to treat ourselves kindly) is extremely important. As it puts it: “Life’s tough enough with little things that happen. Self-compassion helps to eliminate a lot of the anger, depression and pain we experience when things go badly for us”. Surely self compassion would be not putting yourself through unneeded pains and anger in the form of guilt.

Remember that getting ride of guilt and hence being more compassionate to ourselves need not remove responsibility. As the science daily site explains: “Self-compassion allowed people to accept responsibility for a negative experience, but to counteract bad feelings about it.” The website also explains how “researchers found that: People with higher self-compassion had less negative emotional reactions to real, remembered and imagined bad events.” It certainly seems that eradicating guilt and with it needless negative tensions yields more positive results. As though in proof of my hypothesis Djokovic just won the Australian Open, despite losing the first set. He kept his cool though and didn’t beat himself up, and it ended up earning him a fancy trophy. I imagine professional sportsmen must have to have be psychologically strong to, else they could not win. The minute a sportsmen starts blaming himself for what he did wrong, it all goes down hill.

So I feel that we as a society or as a species perhaps, must learn to reduce our susceptibility to unneeded guilt. For the third or so time I will stress that taking responsibility is not what I have a problem with, it is doing this by psychologically crippling yourself which I have a problem with. Worrying about all the bad things you have done in life won’t help fix them, only truly accepting responsibility for your actions and by trying to work to improve on how you act can. Guilt is useless, its role is destructive not constructive and as such it should be avoided.

The Middle Way:

Recently I have begun to learn about Buddhism, purely out of self interest. I personally am atheist, but Buddhism definitely has some interesting ideas to offer. One idea it offers in the notion of living ““In the Now:”” which I have already written an article on. The other great idea that Buddhism promotes is the ideal of “the middle way”.

Essentially “the middle way” is a theory of moderation and balance. It is also known as the Buddhist practice of non-extremism. It preaches that one can have too much or to little of something and that happiness and a good life is always found somewhere between the extremes. From the limited lectures I have heard on Buddhism I understand that the great Buddha himself starved himself for some time when he wanted to reach enlightenment. Thus there are pictures of him deathly thin during this stage that survive in artworks today. Needless to say the Buddha realised that starvation was one extreme and was therefore something that in actual fact, due to its extreme nature, inhibited him from reaching nirvana and all the connotations of happiness that go with it. “The middle way” thus became seen as a path taken by the Buddha to avoid the extremes of rigour on one side and sensual indulgence on the other. Thus the notion of “the middle way’, stressing the importance of balance in all things, came into being.

However the idea of “the middle way” is not complex and need not necessarily involve any true appreciation of the Buddhist religion. As I have said I myself am atheist but the idea of leading a balanced life makes perfect sense to me. I think most people would agree that balance is important in all things. I mean, I can not think of one single thing were balance is not required. Even take something as seemingly harmless as water, if you don’t get enough you die of dehydration, yet if you get too much, you drown!

The question should not really be whether balance is appropriate or not, but rather how one finds this balance and where on a spectrum it should be. Still, the importance of balance it seems, still needs to be advocated as it seems that many people still haven’t really gotten the idea into their heads. Its important to realise that this notion of “the middle way” is not confined to the material and what is done, but also how things are done and how people think.

The idea of balance as conveyed in “the middle way” has also been known as the Buddhist practice of non-extremism, and this I think, conveys its origins very well. Extremes are never good, they are unhealthy, they are damaging. Obsessions, addictions and other extremist tendencies ruin peoples lives, hence they should be avoided. The principles behind “the middle way” are simple yet effective, as balance seems to be the one key to life.

Where exactly balance lies, is not an easy question and in many ways I suppose it could be subjective and hence depend on the individual. The problem here is that many individuals stuck with some obsession are often in denial. This fact makes it rather hard for them to really have an understanding of balance and their lack of it.

Allow me to use some examples from an interesting nutritional perspective that support this principle of balance. Nutrition seems to be an area I know a fair bit more about that I really probably need to, probably as I got obsessively interested in it in a rather “unbalanced” sort of way during my last year of school. Needless to say the obsession has caused some nasty habits, but thankfully I’m at least no longer in denial about it and that’s the first step to reaching moderation! Now, onto the information:

A few years ago I essentially came across the simple facts that for example, non-alcohol drinkers live longer than alcohol drinkers and that vegetarians live longer than meat eaters. At first this all made sense as it saw an obvious link between meat and alcohol with various health risks which decreased average lifespan. However, later results revealed something interesting. While for example non-alcohol drinkers lived longer than alcohol drinkers at large, the group that lived the longest were in fact those that drank small amounts. Amounts which could be described as “balanced”, and “in moderation”. As http://www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/HealthIssues/1106591095.html states:

“Research extending back as far as 1926 has demonstrated that drinking in moderation is associated with greater longevity than is either abstaining or abusing alcohol. The medical research evidence is now unquestionable and demonstrates that the effect is not the result of health-compromised alcoholics who abstain. When studies restrict abstainers to lifelong teetotalers the result is the same. Nor is it the result of moderate drinkers having better overall health habits. When lifestyle factors are taken into consideration, the result remains. And the effect occurs not only for red wine but also for white wine, beer, and liquor or distilled spirits.”

Similarly it was found that while vegetarians lived longer than meat-eaters, it was those people who ate meat only infrequently in moderated amounts that lived the longest of all. The obvious conclusion I have come to from this evidence is that it is not so much exactly what they are doing, but what it represents that is important here. Those who eat no-meat for example are most likely extreme to some degree, as are those who pig out on hamburgers all day. In contrast, those that live a happy, balanced life and as such one which isn’t extreme, don’t deny themselves things which may be a little bad for them (in this case seen as alcohol and meat) but simply make sure to enjoy small amounts of it in moderation. Thus they live a happy unrestrictive lifestyle in which they get enjoyment and through moderation good healthy, both physically and psychologically.

So I personally believe it is the fact that those who can moderate what they eat and drink and do etc, live longer as they are probably happier with who they are and more content in there day to day lives than the others who either over-indulge, or refuse to indulge at all. So here we come full-circle to Buddha’s personal experiences which led him to, as I said earlier, “avoid the extremes of rigour on one side and sensual indulgence on the other.”

The importance of balance in life cannot be understated, and it is important to remember that all things are ultimately in balance. Extremes are primitive, try your hardest to avoid them. Remember too that the state of mind is greatly important here to. If you forced yourself to only eat limited amounts of meat and drink limited amounts of alcohol you’d probably find that you wouldn’t live as long as those who do it without being forced, simply because again you are being extreme by forcing yourself to do something constantly. What you need is a combination of discipline and desire.

So go find balance in life. Find “the middle path”. I hope you do, and that it brings you contentment ““In the Now:”” and a happier, less stressful life. Happiness seems to come with moderation and balance, at least, that’s certainly what I’ve found to be the case.

The Philosophy of Happiness – Accepting Yourself

If you don’t like who you are you’re not going to be happy now are you? There is a fundamental need to accept oneself before one can be happy. Most of us who are in some way unhappy dislike something about ourselves and hence envision our happier counterpart as someone with very different characteristics. This subconsciously drills into our mind the notion that we cannot be happy simply as we are and therefore puts a condition upon happiness. If this condition is reached all well and good, but if its not (which most often it isn’t) then if you do not change your thinking you are doomed to a life of unhappiness. Not a pretty thing really. What I’m suggesting is that there is some link between being content with who and what you are and being happy. Indeed the words happy and contented are synonyms.

Who cares if your fat, short and poor, why does that mean you can’t be happy? Why do we let the media do this to us? We’ll we don’t really, at least I know that I too am affected by the same stereotypes and I certainly don’t give them my consent to tap into my subconscious as they do, particularly in such a negative way. The irony is that consciously we know that the media’s ideal is bollocks, rubbish, fake and unrealistic, we're not stupid, yet subconsciously we still absorb and believe the ideas we are feed. This is simply because the mindless repetition of the media's ideals become ingrained in our very thought processes. This is essentially how the subconscious mind operates.

The Subconscious mind stores far more than the conscious mind yet the conscious mind’s information is more direct and controlling. The idea of affirmations are that we should affirm things we wish to be the case, as it will in turn allow us to accept them and allow our subconscious mind to act upon them. It’s a rather strange idea which if you haven’t heard before might confuse you for a while. What’s more the whole thing is mood controlled.

Allow me to use a simple demonstration. If you need to do something difficult and you think “I can’t do it”, its quite likely you won’t manage to do it, for one reason or another. If on the other hand the same difficult situation had been approached with a more positive “I can do it” sort of attitude, then suddenly your chances of succeeding are much higher. It’s funny how the subconscious mind works. Having faith in yourself is unfortunately not an easy thing to do.

Unfortunately we live in a rather negatively tuned environment. I’ve already noted that the media tend to not only be unrealistic and so forth but tend to focus on negative qualities and events. See “The Philosophy of Happiness – The Media & Unrealistic Expectations:” for further details. By focusing on negative qualities it becomes far to easy for us to blame ourselves and to beat ourselves up internally. We don’t accept or like who we are and thus we think negatively. Thus we wish to change to be something we do like and in doing so place a condition upon happiness in assuming that one must become or do that thing to be happy. A fantastic example is of course the media’s emphasise on people being thin. So many of us strive for this ideal yet the whole time you aren’t at the stage you want to be and are still unhappy and as such are highly unlikely to get to the stage you want to, in turn making you unhappier. This leads to a negative cycle of blame, guilt and unhappiness. Life is spent striving for an ideal to make you happy and in doing so you are not content "in the now" and remain unhappy. (The idea of being happy "in the now" is discussed further in:“Living in the Now –The Philosophy of Happiness with a Twist of Zen:”)

What we should of course do is simply enjoy and love ourselves simply for being what and who we are. To view life through a realistic yet positive lens and be content with where we are. That way if we never get anywhere at least we can be happy. The true irony however, is that often being content with who you are makes it easier for you to follow your own desire to do something. The example of losing body fat is again pertinent here. If we are happy with where we were we’ll paradoxically be more able to follow through on our own wishes and change ourselves, funny that. At the very worst you accept yourself for being fatter and simply live life happy and not worrying and stressing yourself over your weight.

Think about it, you may never lose the weight but at least you can be happy. Only you know how hard you may have tried to lose weight and how it failed each time. Indeed it’s statistically proven and has been said by the famous Tom Venuto in his Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle, that 95% of conventional diets fail. Why is this? More often than not it’s a psychological issue as I commented in “Why Diets Don’t Work”.

America has been dieting for years, and with it the average weight has gone up. As the ideal media weight goes further and further down so too does the average weight rise. Why you ask? A large part is no doubt environmental. There is a problem with America and food being so cheap and plentiful. However there is also another side to the problem and that is simply that people are never happy with how they are, so they try drastic things to change like going on ridiculous diets. They are unhappy the whole time, as they are not happy with themselves. They see little progress as goals and expectations are far to high and they ultimately fail. Then they get depressed and eat. This leads them to get more upset, often angry and frustrated and creates a negative cycle that endlessly fulfils itself all while spiralling further downwards. The evidence seems obvious in how fat countries are getting with the same rise in dieting.

Now as I said, don’t get me wrong, environmental issues clearly play a large role, but psychologically there is something here too. People just aren’t happy with how they are, they just aren’t accepting of their own selfs. I want you to look into the mirror and see that what stares back at you however fat, however tall, however lopsided and ugly is the vessel that you find yourself in. That thing gives you life, it gives you experience, it gives you both pleasure and pain. It is god in a sense. Get rid of it and you get rid of yourself. That’s not to say you can’t alter its exterior, but remember, its simply an exterior. The real you is more so what’s inside it, what makes the vessel do what it does.

To be healthy and well requires not only physically doing the right thing but psychologically feeling that you are doing the right thing. Accepting yourself is an important piece in the vast jigsaw puzzle of total-wellbeing that will help to make life a more enjoyable ride and probably bring greater results as a paradoxical added bonus. Indeed Studies have shown that people who are happier live longer:
http://www.health-and-happiness.info/happiness/happiness-increases-longevitywhere-do-we-find-this-gift-of-life.html, so there’s got to be something to it.

Essentially being happy will make life worth living and quite possibly make it not only of better quality, but of longer duration. Happier people are also more likely to create positive change, help the world and generally get more done. So whats the secret to being happy? Well there is no one clear cut simple answer, but the first step to anyone being truly happy involves accepting yourself. You cannot truly love others and the world you find yourself in and thus be happy, until you love yourself. You have to come to terms with yourself, its always the way. So how can you go about it? My suggestion would be to go and do something nice and simple, not something hedonistic, but rather something seemingly spiritual. Go and sit in a nice garden and simply sit and watch the plants, and give yourself time to relax and accept yourself. Never force yourself against your will, work with yourself, cooperation can yield even greater benefits than competition, particularly when it is of an internal nature.

So go now, and be at one with yourself. I mean why the hell not? We only live once, we deserve to love ourselves, at very least. So even if all you’ve got time for is a quick sit down on your floor and a gentle five minute pause where you simply focus on how wonderfully intricate life is, than so be it. But trust me, do at least this, the dividends you will reap by accepting and coming to terms with yourself are worth far more than anything else we can fathom.

Discipline Vs. Desire – Is Discipline Really Such an Omnipotent Virtue?

Most things in our life require balance. It’s a strange fact that is seemingly always the case. Even something often viewed as a virtue such as self-discipline can be overdosed on. You may well know some people who suffer this, they are typically crazily controlled, or if not they wish and strive to be, they live life in an extreme manner and grant themselves little emotional outlet. Typically these controlled people are also very rational in how they act and think, they almost always tend to deny their emotions. Thus it comes as no surprise that these people also have bad-habits which they probably wish they could curb, as a result of their emotions trying to vent themselves.

My now deceased Polish grandfather comes first to mind for me. He was a scientist, an engineer and a rather accomplished one at that. There’s even a nice photo of him and the queen which I have somewhere. The point is that the man was no idiot in terms of rational intelligence. He was the chief engineer of the snowy mountains hydro scheme and did a whole array of other projects. He managed to live through the great depression and then through WWII despite being captured by the Nazi’s on two separate occasions. He led…an interesting life. However he did like his alcohol, and he always seemed to be rather uptight and angry. Maybe it was just that he was old, but I don’t think this really explains it. He was a man of rigid habits and never really changed his attitudes. He was also notoriously stubborn and would always argue with my mother whenever she tried to help him. In a nutshell he tried mostly to think rationally and as such led a controlled life, one in which his emotions were all pent up in a corner. Needless to say I don’t think he ever really enjoyed life quite as much as he could have.

My grandfather was however a man of great self-discipline in that he would do things even though he didn’t want to, he forced himself to do certain things. His stubborn nature is undoubtedly connected to this fact. However the act of self-discipline is actually very repressive and tends to only bring short-term results. Over disciplining oneself leads to an unhappy controlled life, which typically leads peoples shunned emotions to try and express themselves, hence my grandfather's fondness of alcohol. Theodor Adorno said of self-discipline: “Work while you work, play while you play - this is a basic rule of repressive self-discipline.” But why can’t we enjoy work and be productive when we play?

What I’m getting at is despite what some think we are not purely rational beings, we are not machines, nor were we meant to be. Despite the fact that working for 12 hours everyday 356 days a year would make a lot more money than only working 8 five times a week, its just simply not easy to sustain that sort of activity, we sort of emotionally overheat. Let's say you wanted to get good at tennis and you were a machines, you could easily see the benefit in playing tennis literally almost all your waking hours, short of basic things such as resting, refuelling and maybe watching some tennis games to learn from opponents. However as humans we are not machines. Even notice that the process of eating was referred to as “refuelling” rather than having an enjoyable meal. Even something as nice as food loses its enjoyment and becomes instead a way of furthering the mechanical tennis player’s ability to play good tennis.

Unfortunately we as a species seem to think largely in rational terms. Emotions have been seen as unwanted, undesirable and simply an obstacle to being able to rationally accomplish things. However while rationality may allow us to find out that X does Y and generally speaking make sense of many of life’s mysterious phenomena it is emotion that gives us the curiosity and drive to discover that in the first place! A purely rational being would, in my opinion, have absolutely no desire to do anything, and therefore would not. Phew, I’m certainly glad I’ve got emotions now. Emotions need not be bad, as they are so often viewed. They can be extremely helpful as well, as if you simply enjoy playing tennis all day then its hardly a chore for you at all is it?

This is where the article starts to attack the question, is self-discipline ultimate? Let me firstly define discipline as the ability to make yourself do things. The fact that you need to make yourself do something typically means you don’t really have a drive to do it, but your make yourself anyway. An example would be that discipline is partly what makes us get up and go to work to pay the rent, even if we don’t want to (although you could say necessity is involved, but that in turn is then operated upon by discipline). Admittedly some discipline is needed as there is no way we can enjoy every thing we do in life, but surely we can make some activities more enjoyable, in turn making them easier to commit to and thus making them require less discipline!

I think you see were I’m going with this right? Take the example of Bob, John and Tim:

Bob goes through life forcing himself to do things (i.e.being disciplined) and even if he does end up being successful leads a rather unhappy life. Most likely Bob won’t even be successful because he’ll become depressed and run out of steam, as even the most disciplined person in the world is still only human. This doesn’t seem like the way to be now does it?

In contrast Tim has absolutely no discipline and never gets things done. He is unable to do things other than those things he really enjoys, and while he may do these well as discipline never factors in when doing them, the simple fact is that he hasn’t showered for three years because he can’t bring himself to. Hmm, Tim really doesn’t seem much better off that Bob, although he may be a little happier, but even that is dubious given that he is so out of tune with reality.

John is our middleman, so to speak. John has found a balance between discipline and desire. John gets up and goes to work, which he enjoys and seldom feels he needs to force himself to do it. Occasionally there are bad days however, but he has enough sense to employ discipline in some cases such as those bad days and manages to convince himself to go to work. He also manages to unstack the dishwasher despite it not being the most exciting thing to do in the world, as he realises that it is simply something that needs doing, and he disciplines himself to do it. However as much as possible John tries not to view things in terms of “must”, but rather in terms of “would like to”. He replaces the imperative of doing a task, with a desire to do the task regardless of whether it needs be done or not. Take John’s job for example. He doesn’t like to think of needing to go to work to earn money to survive, rather he thinks of wanting to go to work to get money to survive. This tiny change in the choice of how life is formulated makes a world full of difference and as such John enjoys most of life, and as such has little need for strict discipline. Instead he does largely what he desires, and gets by fine like that.

So, have you gotten the general gist of things yet? Essentially I will admit that discipline is necessary, indeed useful, particularly for certain things that just have to be done, whether we want to or not. However the secret to not needing discipline to any great deal, while also simply enjoying life more is simply to do what you love, and love what you do. Of course there is always some difficulty here. If you work in a really bad job maybe it will be impossible to learn to enjoy it, maybe therefore you should change jobs. However often a simple change of perspective can change your mood for you! Looking at things as things you choose to do and wish to do, over things you are forced to do is a great start.

The ideal life is of course to live as the hypothetical John does. Some discipline for the days and occasions you require it and for when the going gets tough, but otherwise doing things not out of necessity and self-discipline but rather a desire to do whatever it is that needs doing. As our example showed the theory of balance triumphs again! Those Buddhists and their theory of ““The Middle Way:”” are certainly onto something, I will no doubt have to investigate it further myself. But take it from me, I will enjoy researching into it, indeed I will go so far as to say I desire to do just that, in turn it won’t really require much in the way of self-discipline to do!

The Meaning of life (and other trivial concerns!)– An Existentialist Approach:

Probably man’s most asked questions would have to be something along the lines of “why are we here”, in essence “what is our purpose” or as it is often phrased “what is the meaning of life”. This question is of course closely rivalled by “where do all my socks go and why is it that despite how many socks I buy I never have a matching pair?” which is yet another of life’s many great mysteries. Personally I always liked Douglas Adams’ simple answer to the meaning of life in his: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The answer was of course the now rather infamous number “Forty-Two”. In many ways his comical answer to one of life’s greatest problems highlights how insufficient any clear cut answer would be. How can you go about answering a question as mind boggling as what is the meaning of life?

The meaning of life certainly does seem to be a rather subjective question, and thus one which embraces relativism. Yet this doesn’t really help us much and we now start to wonder if there is no concrete answer. Existentialist theory addresses the issue of not knowing a concrete answer to this ultimate question in stating that it leads to anxiety. If on the other hand there were a clear-cut and set answer to life such as “To eat spaghetti”, then everyone could take comfort in knowing that they fulfil life’s purpose by regularly eat spaghetti and so on. But while the answer remains unknown so to remains a feeling of insecurity in not knowing whether we are in fact doing the right thing. This uncertainty is seen to lead to the aforementioned anxiety.

However fear not, for existentialists and Buddhists alike argue that we need not live a life of anxiety. They admit that there are no fixed values in the world, no things which are simply right or wrong but therefore argue that this places the moral onus on us to create our own values and build society upon these values. They argue that this provides humanity with a fresh slate on which to carve its own values, as shaped by its individuals. Instead of feeling anxious at the lack of values this optimistic way of looking at life stresses felling empowered by our ability to create our own values and to support what we believe in. Thus, while the existentialist view is sometimes associated with a period of angst in which people don’t know what exactly they should be doing, it is seen as able to be overcome when people take on responsibility by defining their own morals, thus empowering themselves. Hence, existential theory is not really nihilistic at all, but rather positive in how it expresses that we are in a position of creative freedom. This creative freedom provides us with a means to mould the pillars of society as we see fit.

Typically existentialism by its nature denounces God as it denounces pure objective truth, yet there is also a stream known as Christian existentialism which still accepts Gods existence. Christian existentialism however must settle be content with the idea that god exists but in no way interferes with human development and hence leaves values open to us to decide upon. The atheist view obviously thinks the same thing, but without there ever being a god. So whether you are religious or not must not necessarily stop you from accepting the primary ideas behind existentialist theory.

I suppose the hard part comes in accepting that life has no true meaning before we create one. While it seems easy to accept I think subconsciously this scares us greatly. I think instinctively we want values to exist of their own accord, much as a physical object would? We want to think that certain virtues, such as helping old ladies to cross the street, exist independently of our minds. Otherwise those virtues become nothing but tentative beliefs. When I say unfounded I mean that they don’t have something concrete to back them up.

Here’s a good example to illustrate what I’m trying to get at. I recently mentioned that I got Terry Pratchett's lattest book Making Money (Discworld). Fear not for it is not a self-help book about making money, rather it is a brilliantly entertaining and comical masterpiece as most of his works are (in my humble opinion of course – but then I always had a taste for the bizarre and humourous). In not giving the plot line away I will simply say that the protagonist who is trying to help the bank out of financial difficulty wants to implement paper money as a currency and in turn get rid of all the gold in the bank’s vaults. The people of the city Ankh-Morpork of course enquire as to what exactly the paper money is other than just paper if there is no gold being held by the bank to give concrete worth to the currency. The protagonist argues that the money is given value by us anyway, and that the whole notion of the city (Ankh-Morpork) itself and all within it should give the paper value as a currency, and therefore that the gold is not required to give it its value.

Okay, if you’re still with me, the equivalence to my article on the meaning of life is that it is simply the way that our minds work that we think better in concrete terms. We can more easily accept and understand values being “right”, “true” or “worthy” if they are concretely supported. That is to say if some figure who can’t be wrong like god says hitting old ladies is bad, then hitting old laddies is bad. We take comfort in knowing that we don’t really have to understand why these things are, or take any responsibility for why they are, they just are. However existentliasts argue that nothing gives value to a concept like “hitting old ladies is bad” other than us ourselves supporting such values.

Essentially the difficulty here is in the individual taking responsibility for being a bastion of human values, or values that he would see as being of best use to humanity. Accepting this does require some open-mindedness, and open-mindedness typically leaves people open, funny that. The thing is when people are open they are also vulnerable. An analogy would be accepting someone else’s blood into your own veins, certainly it might help, but equally if that blood is somehow tainted it could hinder, such are the uncertainties anyone faces when they let their guard down. This quote from Tool sums the idea up nicely:
“To think for yourself you must question authority and learn to put yourself in a state of vulnerable, open mindedness, chaotic, confused vulnerability, to inform yourself.”
- Intro speech to “Third Eye Live” by Tool

It seems that all this theorising has lead us to conclude that the meaning of life is only given meaning by living, which seems rather self-evident, as how could we have any meaning without conscious life? What we do through living and what we support and believe gives life meaning. Meaning doesn’t give life, rather life gives meaning!

Excuse me if that was rather a leap of faith, I don’ think I made that journey of understanding as pleasant as I probably could have, but the words sort of just typed themselves out. So it seems that those who run around life looking for meaning are like the people who run around looking for their glasses when they are in fact wearing them on their head. No, they’re not stupid, or blind, that wasn’t the point I was trying to make. Rather, meaning is always there, it is not something which can be sought in a physical sense, rather it is found through doing. In the odd analogy of the person with glasses on their head the glasses are found when the person instinctively pulls them down to read something. So too does man instinctively reach out and use meaning, when he requires it to see life with clearer vision.

Therefore to find meaning in life we must take full responsibility for our own lives and thus through living life we create meaning. If you believe in stopping poverty then take responsibility. Firstly you must realise that the problem exists and the you must take action. Donate to a charity. Volunteer to do charity work, raise money for a worthy cause. Why not? Why not you? Why wait for someone else to do it? You are the one who holds the values you believe in, therefore you should be the one to try and spread the sense behind those values and to in turn place the foundation for meaning through life.

Living In the Now – The Philosophy of Happiness with a Twist of Zen

There are certain ideas within the Buddhist tradition which are of great interest to me. One of these is the idea of living “in the now”. So how does this concept work? Well, it’s not easy to explain but I’ll try. I want you to think about this next point carefully. What is life? What is life comprised of? A simplified answer could be that we are born, we go and do a whole bunch of things in the middle and then to end it off we die. Maybe a better question would then be to ask: But how is it that we actually experience life? By life I of course mean that bit in between being conceived and passing on.

So far as I see it and as the Buddhist notion of “living in the now” seems to dictate that Life is really just made up of whatever is happening right now. That’s right, right now, this very instance. Ultimately, life’s entirety is really just a compilation of all the little bits of “now” you experience. Think about it, even memories are distorted by how you feel “now”. Therefore how you live life and whether you feel you have enjoyed it or not (which of course is completely subjective) is dictated by what is happening “now”.

Life is now. As you read this page, you live, you are “living in the now”. I suppose a nice way to look at it would be to say that we cannot change the past, nor can we foresee the future, therefore it is not worth troubling over what we can’t control and simply take joy in what we can do “in the now”. You choose “now” whether you wish to be happy at this point in time or otherwise if you want to be sad. Thus what you do at least have control over (that is to say what happens in slots of “now”) is I suppose the perspective you choose to take on life. If you wish to be optimistic you can be, alternatively if you wish to be pessimistic the choice is equally yours. That is all done right “now”.

I see the theory of “living in the now” as closely related to how contentedly we live life. For if life is made up of little bits of now, then its sum (whether you lead a happy life or not) is simply determined by how you choose to feel during the many “nows”. Unfortunately I think many people interpret this wrongly. Still, it is not at first a simple concept to grasp. Many people’s instinct would probably be to say “but what does this mean Sam? Does it mean we should always do things that we enjoy and therefore become hedonistic?

Simply put, no. We should not by this theory become hedonistic in a material sense and indeed the Buddhists also have a theory of balance known as ““The Middle Way:”” which also suggests one avoid extremes. Its important to realise that hedonism (as we know it) is almost always a symptom of various psychological feelings which somehow make the individual feel inadequate, unfulfilled or somehow in need of a emotional support. These emotional problems encourage the sufferer to find solace in some sort of substance, whether it be food, alcohol or whatever. In comparison, “living in the now” encourages accepting yourself NOW, for who you are, not what you were or what you might be. Through accepting yourself now you are also coming to terms with who you are, you avoid a life of denial and you fulfil your own emotional needs as best you can from within your own mind.

The true power of “living in the now” is that it is not progress driven, thus it is anti-materialistic and does not place constraints on happiness. If you can’t love yourself now then you have placed some sort of limitation on your happiness by subconsciously believing something like: “I will be happy when I am X” or “I will be happy when I have X”.

This sort of thinking places a constraint upon happiness. Thus an external demand inhibits your own ability to be happy. But why do this? Why not love yourself for who you are at this very instance in life? As a person with perfectionistic tendencies I also found this concept very useful, as it allowed me simply to enjoy life and stop feeling as though everything had to be done as perfectly as possible for it to be a success. We all deserve to enjoy life, but unless we love our own being this cannot be accomplished. Hence the need for the whole philosophy of “living in the now”

Some other sources also stressed the importance of the “now” nicely, so here are a couple of quotes:
“http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/new_age_perspectives/59787”
“Most of us are so intent on looking either forward or backward at life that we go through much of it as if in a dream, with a limited awareness of present reality.”

“http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/05/the-power-of-now/”
“The past and the future are illusions. They only exist to the degree we focus our attention on them right now. We create the past and the future by imagining them in the present. But we don’t even exist outside the Now.”

Many people will falsely assume that they will never accomplish anything if I they are content as they are, and that something to strive for is needed. However having goals and striving towards things is compatible with living in the now. True, when living “in the now” you will feel more fulfilled regardless of the external situation, but the fact is that if you are happy and content you are in fact more likely to succeed at what you do, because you approach it with an innately positive attitude. You will also feel more inclined to do what it is you enjoy, and not waste life going in the wrong direction after a false hope like earning large sums of money in an attempt to gain happiness.

“Living in the now” is an interesting and complex concept, one that I shall hopefully investigate further. But for now we must realise that we only live once, and inevitably each of us will eventually die, but is this not all the more reason to cherish our time alive and love ourselves? Why go through life hating yourself or not being content with who you are? The simple fact is you don’t have to. Learn to love yourself, change your ways if you wish it, but it is often not even so much what you do that matters but rather how you see yourself. So embrace yourself, smile and go and enjoy the little bits of now which are the sum of our lives.