Are you living life or just living in your mind?
I’m a huge fan of self actualization. I define self actualization as mastery of the self, becoming the person you were meant to be and reaching your highest potential. It’s the lifelong process that gets you from the imagined life in the mind to actually living your best life in the real world. I believe this process is necessary, especially if you want to master something and stick with it. It’s the thing I was looking for during my teenage years that I couldn’t find. Instead, I watched TV, movies, read books, socialized mindlessly, etc (No internet at that time). I didn’t realize until much later how deeply I was conditioned by these these things. There’s nothing inherently wrong with any of those things, the problem comes in when they become distractions or an escape. They can condition people to live in illusion, not reality. And I had to go through a process of breaking away from that.
For the longest time I was caught up in how I imagined things should be vs how they actually are. It’s hard to describe, but I was living in the future. Well, an imagined future that would occur at some point. It never actually happens though. It keeps moving forward a bit, always just out of your reach. I was thinking, ‘someday I’ll take action, someday something will happen for me.’ Something else I noticed was that it is impossible to predict how I will feel in any given future situation. How strange is that? I would think I would know. But the wonderful feelings you project onto some future event never actually occur in the way the mind imagines.
Sometime in my early 20s, I started focusing on being present. I realized that it’s the only place joy and contentment can be found. It’s the only reality, here and now. Reality isn’t the thoughts in the mind or what you imagine about other people. It can’t be found in fantasy about a future scenario. Even when the things I wanted came to pass, it was never as I envisioned. So many times I got exactly what I had wanted, but getting what you want doesn’t necessarily make you happy. Because if the mind is conditioned to be in the future, you never actually experience where you are. It’s already on to something else.
I cut out a lot of the distractions I used to have in my life. Whether it’s mindless entertainment or socializing. I like to have space in my days to do what’s important to me, to be truly present. I think about why I’m doing what I’m doing. These questions really helped me, maybe they will help you as well.
Why are you doing what you do daily?
What do you do for survival and what do you do because you want you do it?
What do you get out of the things you are doing?
Why do you want what you want? Are those your goals or someone else’s?
Are you imagining happiness occurs at some future point?
What genuinely makes you feel joy?