Advices, opinions, ideas for spending time, gift ideas, business ideas, things to take from a place to the other in the personal and professional life, opinion of the “celebrities” and the extraordinary experiences lived by people around us - we are fed up with everything, but especially when we are fed with the better, more advantageous, more adequate opinion than ours. Others seem to know better which our good version is. Parents that make decisions for us, leaders that struggle to build the best team ever and who want things from us that we don’t necessarily want and haven't even thought about, our life partner who seems to love (us) better and in another way than we can, the friend who is the absolute lecturer when we have an issue. “Look at me to see how good I am!” - a message we receive abundantly in our life.
Each of us filters the experiences and then shows others what we have discovered. I believe it is ok that there is insistence on various popular subjects and, sometimes, show off, and the suggestion is “if you want to be well, do as I do!” Everybody suggests that help would be good for us to leave stupid stuff behind, facilitates their avoidance and ensures our accomplishment. A monk would probably talk about the log in the eye of the father and the insane pride of believing that “I know” and “I point others”.
In the end, it is about all of us expressing ourselves, about how we open up and show our experiences to the outer world, about the filters and colors we experience and with which we paint/draw/botch our own life. And the marathon runner - the true one, not the one from the city (as a “true one” once told me) and the fitness instructor and the vegan and the ground floor neighbor and the driver next to me, who just offloaded on the policeman at the crossroad... Everybody is right and all of them can take the “I know better” position. Because the experience we lived is unique, it comes from us, from our moments in life. Unique and singular. It is the life lived in its entire abundance.
In the end, self-regulation is in my hands. I have the remote control over my life, I am the one that discovers what is best for me in a certain moment. I am the one that can stop in the middle of the rush of the day in order to have the revelry of my own life.
I am the one that has to know my own body better (and I ask myself: what is the minimal knowledge we have about our body and about how it functions).
I am the one that should know my own reactions in certain situations, under the incidence of different stimulus (and I ask myself: for how long did I think about what produced my physical or emotional reaction a few days ago, a few years ago).
I am the one that should be aware of the beliefs and values guiding me in life (and I ask myself: how much do we talk about our values and how much do we live them versus how much do we talk about the values of the company for which we work).
I am the one making the choices in life, the ones I believe to be appropriate for me.
I am the one who has a routine, with discipline and patience for self-understanding, self-loving and self-regulating.
It is my effort, my life built by me, experience with experience and not over night or in a 3-in-1 package, just as everything is sold to us: fast earning, zero effort.
And in conclusion: If you want to be well, do as you do!
If you want to be well, do as I do!