The best life

I think we would all like to live the best life possible. Given our present circumstances we strive to the best life possible in the present circumstances.

That's what I'd expect. But, in practice, I'm just an animal. I go around a few well-trodden routines, entrenched habits and familiar desires. It's just like a carrousel. Computer, cookies, kisses, tv, entertainment, sports, some reading and thinking and back to the same routines.

This is on "vacation time" when free time is abundant. When working my time is scheduled, organized to the last bit, it is always far from enough, so that even the time to rest from work is more frequently than not, occupied with work.

We don't want the best life, we don't even think about it. We just go about from one day to the next following the well-trodden paths of before. We are animals of habit, we go round and round, that's how we like it. We behave like machines or instinctive animals in this respect: we don't actually think on what's best for us. On the different alternatives, on their ups and downs. We just live the moment as if the rest did not exist.

I know that many people praise "living the moment". And perhaps they're right if it means that everything we are is put into "now", and so this "now" is the best it can be, because all my aspirations, inspirations, deviations, desires and so on, concur to make me dance this way, talk this way, smile this way or simply walk that way.

But I'm not speaking about that. I'm speaking about the fragmented way of living the moment, a way of living life in which we forget who we are, what we want, what is important to us, and we may be hours shopping, playing video games, watching movies, and, somewhere in the day, when we wake up from all that frantic emotion, we realize, once more, that we are just "wasting" life. That all our dreams are waiting to be fulfilled or, at least, fought for. That we are waiting in the background, to be heard, felt, fulfilled, realized.

All that time, when those hardcore emotions beat our mind and heart, we fell silently in the background. Yes! We are living the moment, but what kind of "living" is that? What is the price we pay for that? A fragmented life, where we are ensnared by pleasures and pains, desires and fears, going from side to side, aching to reach, but nothing being desired from "within".

The problem with the "best life" is that it does not seem easy to achieve (at least to me). Some people, like Rajneesh, emphasize the "trusting" aspect. Be like a fool, learn to trust even in the face of abyss, even falling into the abyss. Certainly there is an element of trust in the best life. But being blind to the outside and hearing only our inner wishes is, it seems to me, close to be closed to the world. We might be living great adventures in our own mind, but the beauty of what is happening outside will not reach us. It will be difficult to grow. Instead we will be more and more convinced of our own greatness, more and more out of contact with everything else. Growing into a tower of illusions, being the king of nothing.

That does not seem the best life.

But, if we follow the opposite direction and try to rationalize everything, dismissing our inner follies as "irrelevant" follies, and living only for "respectable" goals we'll gain respectability loosing authenticity. We'll sell out what we truly are to gain the acceptance of others, not acceptance of our "true self", which will remain hidden from view even from our own eyes, but acceptance of the self we created in accordance with what was expected. It is a life of fakery where all accomplishments and deeds are accomplishments and deeds that do not really interest us, as if we are unwilling participants of a theater, a play that bores us to death. In the end, we may get a big applause, but we'll feel, if anything, nauseous from the wasted time. As if all the grandeur we managed to gain, is nothing but a mask to hide the true failure that our life has became.

Of course, all of this is based on the assumption that there is a "true self" or, at least, a true vocation, desire or intuition. Perhaps this is just another illusion. But I am describing my life, how I see it and live it. I do need to follow my inner instincts. For me, whenever I get lost of them, I really get lost, and no amount of "external" fulfillment is able to make up for that frustration. If I have a dream, no external riches can compensate for its despise.

So, to have a good life I need at least three things: to be attentive to the outside and to let the inside flow and be listened to. The third thing is the active attempt to combine the two. Only in this combination does life starts to make any sense at all.

And this is just a small tip to have a good life. I am nowhere near knowing, even if it's just for me, how on earth one can strive to have a good life.

loose everything that is important in life. We will certainly do much but accomplish little or nothing at all. For our actions will be out of touch with the