I walked alone for hundreds of hours on many different beaches over the last few years. I didn’t listen to music or talk to anyone; I just walked in silence, watching nature and meditating.
There was a rhythm that I tuned into, a flow of life that was unmistakeable. We are part of that rhythm but we are so busy all of the time that we fail to notice it.
Birth, life, death. It’s pretty simple really. We come into the physical world, we have all of our hopes and dreams and expectations, we participate in life, and then we are gone.
Walking in cemeteries is another thing I like to do. When you live in a big city it can be the only truly quiet place that is available. It’s also a great place to reflect. Who were these people when they were alive? What were their stories? Did they have wonderful lives, or difficult ones?
We aren’t taught the joy of living when we are young. There are too many important things to learn, like fitting in, how to read and write, learning what your place is in life. The pursuit of joy is not a consideration for most of us.
But if not a life of joy, then what are your expectations? And with a finite amount of time here, what is the point of not living a joyful existence?
Right now the goal of many is to accumulate stuff. Money, houses, cars, friends, followers – anything that makes them feel more than what they were when they didn’t have it.
I have more than you so I am obviously better than you. It’s such a ridiculous way to look at life.
If we are defined by our material possessions, then if we lose them we will feel like less than who we were. Still the same person in reality, but when stripped of the trappings of material wealth somehow we no longer feel the same.
Retirees who have left their careers often feel alone, forgotten and purposeless. The stats show that many people pass on within the first few years after leaving the workforce.
Serious illnesses can change what you feel is your identity. A diagnosis of something that is going to alter your ability to function as you always have can strip you of your feeling of security, throwing you into a tailspin where nothing makes sense anymore.
The ability to overcome these obstacles will be determined by the attitude that you have about life. If you know that you are still you no matter what happens on the outside, then that sense of identity can carry you to new levels of discovery about what life is and what is truly important.
It is wise to allow your sense of self to come from within. Relying on the external world to tell you who you are and where you belong is giving away what makes you special in the first place.
The children of today are under the influence of social media. For the most part this isn’t healthy. They are indoctrinated to find validation from outside of themselves, and when this disappears they will not be equipped to deal with it.
It is creating a division within a group that is too young to be able to discern what is important from what isn’t. The ones with the most clout do whatever it takes to maintain their status. Those who aren’t popular are made to feel bad about themselves.
What’s happening now is not really that different from what older generations grew up with, but it is magnified a thousand times over because our neighbourhoods have expanded to include the entire world.
It’s important to retain the power of self-worth from within. We are all special, we are all here for a short time, and we all deserve to feel good about ourselves.
It shouldn’t take walking alone for hours and hours to figure that out.