Relax, man! Three approaches to life – but which one?

[Edelweiss]

Being mid life now and my life basically not satisfactory I have been doing a lot of reading and pondering in recent years. Call me a seeker or not, most of us want something that feels better, right? And the more I read I am coming across this what I might call an approach to life that involves letting-go and trusting that “all will work out fine in the end and then you'll finally be happy”. Now this may be a simplified summary for now and especially for a very methodical person as myself it appears very much like a new-age or hippie-like concept - but I am starting to wonder if I ought to take it more seriously or if I am not even on to something with it.

What I want to know if there are some people here who have made some real life experience with it and can feed back credible info instead of what some well known happiness and success sales gurus (yet they may be correct) promulgate.

 

Now let me postulate, just for the sake of this article, that there are three approaches to life, all of them essentially go through a stage which I call the “social scripting stage” (where one is subjected to parents and the schooling system, then programmed to fit into society, get a good job with benefits etc, iow. you become one of the crowd, and what is being taught is a very ego-centric life paradigm. (see MJ deMarco Scripted, recommendable reading)). The end result is normally pre-programmed mediocrity with average results in addition to a mid- or end-life crisis.

Now the resulting paths from the scripting events are what I want to call here A, B or C.

“A” is eventually living the victim-mentality where life did not deliver the promises that you expected and everything and everybody else is to blame for your unhappiness, you get pushed around and are re-active only, carry the baggage of past and future worries and life sucks badly. You resist life and become a total neurotic with all the consequences.

Alternatively you may manage to go for route B, the more ambitious approach - perhaps or after failing with A and a resulting insight (but also ego-centric), that is more pro-active (Covey Habit 1 - you are the programmer). E.g. you have goals and vision scenarios that you focus on and carry out decisions in order to meet them, aspire to a particular career, etc. The focus is on DO and eventually HAVE. You think you know what you want and you go for it (in the extreme publicised by Dan Pena). And if you achieve something this way (your HAVEs), the result may be that the ladder you climbed will be leaning against the wrong wall as you finally reach the top (Covey). Happened for many. Also Route B seems to be connected with lots of struggle, effort and willpower. Also it will most likely leave you unsatisfied as the ego just can't get enough - ever!

I have experienced A, thought the solution was in B (as society wants to make you believe) but I read more and more about C which I find most intriguing and hard to get my mind around. But maybe, just maybe it is the best way to approach it after all... (late insight?) and everything else is just simply human arrogance arising from a big societal construct that we have built up over history.

Now route C has been publicised by many spiritual people and sages, it is almost is the opposite to route B. It reminds me to “The Secret” or “Law of Attraction” -business that was so popular because it promised you something for next to nothing and the “effortless success” stuff what J.Canfield wants to make you believe can happen. Yes, I have a hunch that there could truly be effortless success, the key is struggle vs. joy. Effort then just becomes enjoyable and thus “effortless”. And this is what we should aspire to – not the willpower struggles of route B.

This “letting go” approach focuses on letting the “rules of nature work for you” - whatever they really are, let me not go into this now. Now “going C” is hard for most A and B people to comprehend, especially since many of us are control freaks or we are the rational people who do not believe in any “spiritual” or whatever intelligent external guidance from (lets call it) the universe or perhaps intuition. C has been made very public by e.g. Michael Singer with the “Surrender Experiment”, also by e.g. Robin Sharma in the Saint, the Surfer and the CEO and many others. Now as route B doesn't seem to work well either I want to throw a question into the room, could it really be possible that route C works somewhat or that it worked for you? Key for route C is the tiny but powerful word “trust” and the non-resistance approach to life. Now to trust is really hard for us, as most of us have been screwed or even used some time in our lives, so we have become very cautious. Also we want immediate feedback. But thankfully trust is is having some revival (Covey Jr.). Now, I have progressed quite well psychologically and have eliminated lots of internal and external drama by reducing my neuroses and accepting more and more the world as it is and life as it goes on. I am excited about this progress and life is clearly better. The next stage would be to really trust that things will move and change into the “right” direction. I feel that I might be able to do that but am wary that I am just kidding myself with this believing and trusting and wasting more time on some “fad”. Gimme evidence, right (rationalism)? Because trust implies there's a belief. If you believe and trust while knowing it is a belief, is that high awareness or still low awareness? Is it still trust? It can become almost a religious question here... One important thing to note about route C is the claim that you ought to be humble and admit that “you don't really know what is best for you”. This is interesting but hard to swallow if you were deep in B, and that essentially nature knows best and will guide you assuming you will only allow it to happen. Consequently you will be able to fulfil your potential and your natural mission will open up in life and happiness is the obvious consequence... Instead of the control-approach to life (B) this is the total release-approach to life, especially the release from the ego-centric approach e.g. that you need to have it your way only and to serve primarily your own agenda, and also to follow what society has prescribed you to do to (followerhip). Now I agree this route is hard for all of us who still have our egos intact or parts of it and yes we all went through the conditioning of society. A lot of unlearning and relaxed trusting needs to happen. This route is really so out of the ordinary that it will be hard to implement without being ridiculed by society. Singer's book and experiences are therefore intriguing and entertaining to most but is it really credible or even copyable? He seems a nice enough guy, so is Sharma and I am tempted to give it a try. The only action one should engage in is to react wisely or with intuition to whatever life then offers you... I am wondering if I should I give up (my few) goals or even hopes and give it a try and just see where it will take me or is it just wishful thinking / new-age hocus pocus? What is then Actualized promoting? Is SA not really a version of route B? Self Actualising by name follows a self agenda and is ego focused, right? Although the results may be of some service to the greater community. I am not yet a student of Spiral Dynamics but for those who know, isn't route C a “higher” way?

Also, is Route C truly compatible with what you have built so far, e.g. you have family etc. relationships... I am a little concerned that you will have to be prepared to abandon all. Will not life throw you into odd directions that are then totally incompatible with your previous life? I have a suspicion that this artificial life we have created for ourselves is totally out of what with what might have been planned for us. Could it perhaps be phased in gradually? In some books it seems to be sold like this. Am I afraid of possible Change? E.g. in Sharma's book there was the mention of that “relationships are transitory” and they teach you what you need to know at the right time. I agree partly with this as sometimes they are difficult to sustain after a while or you sustain them forever with total ignorance just because of society's expectations of you. Consequently you have pain in your life. What I don't get is that many Self Help Books e.g. Sharma's in this example preach a mixture of B and C. Now are they really compatible? That's a lot for now.

Let me hear your thoughts and opinions....

 

M

[hyruga]

Self help books always tell you to relax while the authors earn all the money selling books or asking you to attend their seminars.

Edited May 9, 2019 by hyruga

[LastThursday]

I'll give you my simple and pragmatic view, other members may give you different views.

We are all racing towards a fixed point in life: death. Once death occurs everything you did in life and how you did it becomes irrelevant. So, in a sense how you chose to live life is arbitrary and meaningless.  

In fact, you don't need to die for this to be true: it's not possible to dip back into the past and change things; what was done, was done. The 'old' you already died and became the 'new' you.

Equally for future events and goals. They haven't happened yet, and may not even happen. 

So what does that leave? 

It just leaves you living forever in the present moment, unable to re-experience the past, unable to experience the future until it happens.  So whether you choose to live A, B or C, you can't escape this fact. You are forced to live life trusting the present moment, but at least with C you are less deluded about this. C has less baggage.

 

[bejapuskas]

Hey bro, I see you are pretty confused. 

There are no „3 ways“ to live life, there are infinite possible ways and you don't have to only choose one, but you can change your path throughout your life. 

Actually, as you grow, your thinking will change, your attitude towards life will change and your path will change also, therefore growth is not linear, but exponential.

But even if everything goes as you expected it to go, your ego will not be satisfied. When you watch a move and you can preditct how it ends, it kinda sucks, right?

I am not saying, that you should just ignore everything and let go of everything, this alone will only create more problems. You have to investigate, what works for you. (maybe this is part of the path)

If you put a selfish person, a person with lots of beliefs and prejudice about how life should be, into heaven, they wouldn't be satisfied, even if it was literally the best place.

[Ponder]

I didn't read the whole post, but I get the gist. You gotta understand that the fruits of this path are astronomically amazing if you follow it all the way to the end. My life is a never-ending chillfest and joyfest. So, get into it brother. And, also, don't worry about the fact that you're a bit older. Everyone finds their path regardless of what happens. So just try to chill out and stop trying to analyze everything. Your mind can be your best friend but it can also be your worst enemy 

[RichardY]

@Edelweiss

A) is Nihilism.
B) A Utilitarian Solution.
C) A Dominance Solution. 

[Forestluv]

@Edelweiss To me your mind seems to be deeply immersed within a complex story. Personally, I would step outside that story and observe the nature and dynamics of this story (and other stories) themselves. Rather than getting deeper immersed into a single storyline. My mind-body feels a lot of relaxation and freedom with that.