S5 Ep1: What Does The Meaning of Life Have to Do with Self-Awareness?
What if the meaning of life is staring us right in the face?
If, as I postulate, the meaning of life is To Live, education and learning are a cornerstone of that.
One of the failings of many of our leaders is their desire to keep us ignorant. It’s a matter of their retention of control to keep us reliant on them to understand certain matters. Rather than empower, they prefer to disempower us by slashing education and maintaining the false control that they think they have.
Coupled with this, we are not taught in any formal way how to recognize and know ourselves. At least, not beneath the surface. We’re hyper-focused on appearance and other elements of the body, often to the exclusion of the rest of what we are. Hence, we neglect to account for mental, emotional, and spiritual health, wellness, and wellbeing in favor of the physical.
Education is empowering
Learning builds up our ability to not only acquire new information, but to better understand the world around us.
Life is all about learning. The more we learn, the more we grow. The more we grow, the more we become able to consciously create our realities and manifest an incredible world.
As we educate ourselves, we can create something greater, something better than the collective reality we find ourselves in. We can empower ourselves, and from there empower one another to make the world a better place and change the narrative away from fear to reason.
True education cannot be forced
Formal schooling tends to be more about learning how to learn than gaining knowledge and understanding. Unfortunately, many people consider their education done when formal schooling ends.
Knowledge is power. True power is the empowerment of the self. When we’re empowered, we can build incredible things to better ourselves. By bettering ourselves and living our lives as fully as we can, we better the world around us.
What’s the Meaning of Life ultimately got to do with self-awareness?
If the meaning of life is to live, then you must be self-aware to do that.
That means not just recognizing the world outside, but the world within you. To do so, you must question your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions, here and now. Only in the now can you be truly present as the now is the only time that’s truly real.
You have the power to understand the meaning of life by experiencing all it has to offer. To do that, you need to live, That begins via self-awareness, and self-awareness is for everyone.
This week’s Applied Guidance for Mindfulness Tool:
This is an exercise for living life.
Start by setting aside 5 minutes where you can be completely by yourself. Get a pen and paper/notebook, tablet, or some other means to write or type.
Set a timer for 5 minutes.
For the first 2 minutes, just breathe deeply. Breathe in as deep as you can, let it out fully. Repeat until those 2 minutes are up.
Now, ask and answer this question:
What experiences do I desire to have to feel the most alive that I can?
There are no wrong answers. This can be taking regular walks in nature, sex, naps, travel, read a book, watch a funny video, or what-have-you. It’s less about the actual experience and more about how that will make you feel.
Stop at the end of the 5 minutes and look at what you’ve got. How can you apply it? If it’s a financial issue, are there alternatives that will also make you feel alive?
Repeat this whenever you question the meaning of life and your place in the Universe, or anytime you have uncertainty or just feel like doing this analysis of your life and desires.
Blogs: titaniumdon.com and mjblehart.medium.com
Original cover art artist Fe Mahoney: https://www.etsy.com/shop/TaliasInspirations