There is this idea that hell is a bottomless pit and that’s because no matter how bad it is, some stupid son of a bitch like you could figure out a way to make it a lot worse. So what do you do about that? You accept it. That’s what life is like, it is suffering. Life is suffering. So what do you do in the face of suffering? You try and reduce it. You pick up the damn suffering and bury it and try to be a good person so you don’t make it worse. The truth is if you live a bad life, you damage your society and if enough people do that, then its hell. So the pathway forward is to adopt a mode of being that has some nobility so that you can have respect for yourself as someone who is capable of standing up in the face of suffering. In other words you want to have a sense of meaning in life.
Why do you want to do that because doing nothing is easier? The answer is that you’ve discovered that it would be worthwhile first to you and then to the society.
If you want to have a meaningful life, LET EVERYTHING YOU DO MATTER. Yes everything. I mean stop doing the things you know are wrong and that you could stop doing. Look around your sphere of influence and fix the things that announce itself in need of repair. You can start by cleaning up your room. What this teaches you is that you can now distinguish between chaos and order and act in a manner that produces order.
Doing this would make you be more productive, reliable, competent, responsible, trustworthy, and not some deceitful monster. So you want to set goals for yourself.
Why goals? Because you are trying to figure out who it is you are trying to be. How are you going to hit something if you don’t know what it is? The magnitude of the reward you experience as you are moving towards the goal you desire is proportional to the importance of the goal. That is, the more the goal you pick the more possibility there is for the kind of reward that is life affirming. So you want to choose your goals wisely.
For example, you are in the middle of a football game, let’s say the world cup final, then accidentally you broke a finger. Normally it hurts and that’s a problem and you’ve got to stop, but since you are in the middle of the game you will be focused on the reward such that it motivates you to keep going and it stops the pain. So in other words, having a sense of meaning and purpose takes some of the pains and suffering out of your life, the lives of the people around you and the world at large. This is why you need to have one. Though it won’t be easy, but it would be worth it.
I’ll talk about our individual MONSTER next time.
Kema