Keep Life Simple

When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive - to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.

P.S: Most people loved the entries on How to Deepen Your Friendships, Part I, Part II & Part III. Also check out the entries on How To Deal With Toxic People & How to Prevent and Overcome Burnout. Happy reading!

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Art by Paco Yao

“The fool's life is empty of gratitude and full of fears; its course lies wholly toward the future.” ―Seneca

“When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive - to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.” — Marcus Aurelius

When you’ve spent enough time tending to critical patients in a hospital, you come to a most liberating realization. You get to do this life thing and that's fucking incredible.

You can cry about where you're not — about the success that hasn't come, the money that feels out of reach despite your best effort, or the girl you wanted but didn't get. And in all fairness, you're allowed to feel distraught. You've poured in the hours, sacrificed comfort, beared rejection and kept going when no one around you understood what you were building. No one does their best expecting to lose.

But this way of thinking betrays a sense of entitlement. It blinds us to the simplicity of the blessings in plain sight.

First, you're alive. That alone is astonishing. Your mother might have never met your dad. She might have changed her mind before their date. Pregnancy is quite risky. And a child's immune system, in its early years, is about as secure as a WinRAR license. It's a miracle you're alive and have survived to where you are right now.

Second, you get to practice your craft. Maybe you're lucky enough to create and share art that wakes others to the beauty and harmony of life. Or maybe you've developed a skill that makes you useful to yourself and others - that reminds you you're not powerless.

Can't you see it? You have a real chance. The time, energy, resources and access to hone your gift. To perform at a level so high it leaves others in awe and gratitude. To shape your little corner of the world into a breathtaking experience. People envy your talent, your opportunities, your country, your drive, your intellect - it slips out in their vulnerable moments, their passive-aggressive remarks. You're essentially living someone else's dream.

And yet, in the chase for greatness, for more money, relationships, entrepreneurial growth, thrills and pleasures, we forget what we already have.

We forget we have a home abundant with love. We can always go back to it when the world batters us, and all seems hopeless. Literally — to a space where you're accepted and loved. Or figuratively — to a place within that expects nothing, demands nothing. That welcomes you with a blanket, chai, crêpes and says, "I have enough to be happy and I’m so proud of myself for how far I’ve come." It's from this home that you get to recuperate, re-strategize and face the world again with the lightness you once had, before you took life too serious, where losses don't feel catastrophic anymore because you now remember what matters, just doing this life thing.

This idea, paradoxically, gives you a new kind of freedom — a featherweight of being. One that releases you from the grasp of performance anxiety, from the desperation that poisons effort, from the agony of disappointment. The social psychologist Roy Baumeister wrote,

"Under pressure, a person realizes consciously that it is important to execute the behavior correctly. Consciousness attempts to ensure the correctness of this execution by monitoring the process of performance. But consciousness does not contain the knowledge of these skills, so that it ironically reduces the reliability and success of the performance when it attempts to control it."

Once you decide to keep it simple you start giving your best for the love of the game. You stumble upon surprising connections. You express the rhythms of your soul, uncensored — and you get to feel real nice about it. The cure is therefore to set your standards so high they're impossible to reach. Release your attention from incentives and you'll get great relationships, rewarding work beyond your wildest dreams, or exceptional art and performances, only because you avoided the unnecessary pressure to perform. Because you chose to live and do your thing out of the simplicity of genuine love.

Get to a place where, if death or loss or an insurmountable obstacle outwits you, you're still glad — glad that you got a glimpse of the paradise possible through effort and some luck. Glad you get to feel the warm sun slap your face. The crisp morning air expand your lungs. The yearning of your lover moisten your lips. The drums and delectable hi-hats of your favorite song blast your ears. And if the wins come, let them arrive like a bonus — like having an awesome day and remembering there's still ice cream in the freezer.

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