There is consensus in the sources I studied: there are behaviours that must be trained in order to achieve a meaningful life. This is done by different kinds of schools, but the results are not the same.
See the Obvious
I was attending a lecture about how the latest scientific advances can use stem cells to reduce pain and prolong life. It was a difficult lecture for laypeople, as it was riddled with technical terms. Even so, the audience was unusually attentive. Only later did I learn from the event organiser that a large number of those present were suffering from some incurable disease.
Back at the hotel, I kept asking myself one question. Why does humanity do everything to buy more time to live, only to end up wasting it?
We bought ourselves plenty of time when we mastered fire and agriculture, when we invented the wheel, the car and almost everything that technology provides.
In the past, we had two concerns: survival and preservation of the species. We dedicated our entire time to ensuring those.
In the present, we live three times longer and we work four times less, but our quality of life is several times worse.
I was thinking about this on a certain day when, suddenly, the traffic ground to a halt and the driver got angry. He had another customer to pick up in a few minutes. As I watched his growing restlessness, I drifted back into my thoughts. If this happened 100 years ago, we would have been travelling that route on foot—the trip would have taken us more than two hours.
What about the time when we lived in caves? What was life like? No water, no electricity, no sanitation, no doctors and no painkillers. Can you imagine?
And now we complain about traffic, about the government and about life. We live longer in the hell created by our minds. We see the psychologist, the psychiatrist, we take medication to relax, to sleep, to ease the pain, and we are unable to stop that inner voice of ours from chasing ghosts.
So, where is the solution?
We can refer to the library that we carry in our pockets, where any information can be found in a matter of seconds. Even then, why do we fail to solve our problems?
We seek to know everything—from universe trivia to our neighbours’ lives—but we care little about ourselves.
Learn to see the Obvious
Through our mobile phones, we can reach thousands of teachers to give us lessons. Most of them promise impressive results. They make use of information produced over the last 3,000 years, much of which has already been modified many times over.
What was true in the past is no longer true today.
However, there is another school that has been operating on Earth, for over 4 billion years.
So, where should we learn things?
Why do we fail to get it done?
Why do we refuse to see something which has always worked?
Is it because every time we come across the obvious and see the solution, it is so simple that it insults our ego?
We think, incredulously: “If that were the case, everything would be easy. And it is not!”
“Yes, it actually is!” I can say this in response, with no fear of being incorrect.
For more than 70 years, I have been trained and have trained others in different types of schools. I have dealt with thousands of people in the most diverse scenarios, including a war.
A comparative study of the various training methods can roughly separate them in two groups: those that train behaviour based on action, and those that train action based on information.
- Those of the former group have been used for millions and millions of years, and they have changed little over time.
- Those of the latter group have been used for thousands of years, and are constantly changing.
- Methods of the former group are used in war schools, in training for high-risk professions and the training of top athletes.
- Methods of the latter group are found in academic education and in the training of staff for companies.
- The former group uses the biological toolkit to “kickstart action”.
- The latter group uses reasoning to convince.
- The former group sees the obvious things and does the simple things.
- The latter group studies phenomena and explains them with all the complexity of the scientific method.
- In the former group, people are trained.
- In the latter group, people are given information.
Those who are trained with methods of the first group resort to action, feel the results, build confidence, learn and rarely complain.
Those who are trained with methods of the second group comprehend everything, barely get into action, rarely display confidence and almost always complain.
Seeing the obvious things requires us to “do the simple things”. This is the price that we refuse to pay.
We prefer difficult, complex, intricate paths, because then it is easy to make excuses for not getting things done. There are some commonly used excuses, such as: “I can’t do it. I need to prepare myself. I don’t have time today. Maybe tomorrow”.
For example, we all know that developing habits is essential to changing behaviour.
In the training methods of the first group, you do the simple things immediately, and you can see the results in a matter of days.
In those of the second group, you study step by step and, after a few days of reading, you comprehend all that there is, and you decide you will return to the subject next week.
Understanding why we do not see the obvious illuminates the path and makes choices easier.
The key to life
Everything in life is acquired for a price. You pay in cash or instalments.
There is only one currency: energy.
When you pay in cash, you get a discount. When you pay in instalments, you get interest.
Interest is variable, and it can range from pain to suffering. Pleasure is what reduces the price to be paid.
There are also special discount coupons for customers who buy in cash a few times, and also for regular customers who are always buying, albeit in small quantities. There are prizes with beautiful gold inscriptions that read “victory” or “success”. These give you a feeling of pleasure that can range from joy to happiness.
For humans, learning to acquire things means knowing how to distinguish between allied counsellors and saboteurs. While allies recommend paying in cash, saboteurs recommend paying in instalments.
Animals lack such a developed mind, and so they always pay cash. They went into extinction whenever they failed to do so.
If we embrace certain models of thought that prioritise that which is essential to fulfilling our life goals, i.e., if we move towards minimalist, Epicurean and Stoic behaviours, we will avoid the pains that we can control, in the fields of health, meaning and morality, thus reducing anxiety, anguish and shame.
If we live our achievements with joy, however small they may be, feeling the value of stillness and cultivating wisdom, we will avoid habits that erode the foundations of a good life, and so we will earn significant awards.
Knowing how to make adequate purchases ensures comfort, safety and peace.
We are talking about a store that opened its doors 4 billion years ago. To go shopping there, you need evaluation criteria.
The first criterion—also the oldest one—is to feel.
Knowing how to feel what goes on inside us, when we analyse our inner selves and the things that the outside world awake in us, is something that overrides all that we were taught about the value of knowledge.
The second criterion, much younger than the first one, is made up of feelings and emotions.
Analysing the feelings and emotions triggered in us—and the contexts in which this happens—is essential for living a more peaceful, less stressful, acceptable life.
Finally, the third criterion is thinking. This one is a newborn in comparison to the previous ones. This capacity has seen greater development among humans, and it can surely help us in analysing potential purchases suggested to us by the other evaluation criteria.
Thinking allows us to see if focus is casting its light on valid, unnecessary or non-existent needs.
Thinking can shift the focus towards solutions that can address the current need. This removes the obstacles that prevent us from moving forwards and ensures that the purchases made are indeed useful.
The strategy to be used must take into account the price to be paid in relation to the offered benefits.
This store sells:
Commitment, determination, discipline, breakthroughs, persistence, resilience. All these virtues are sold with a bundled toolkit that builds them or helps to repair them.
These tools are known as habits, focus and the courage to get things done.