Nowadays a high material standard with a colorful mosaic of surrogates of authentic and meaningful values is absolutely common. By the way, what is well-being personally for you? In society, it’s already known what. But according to your inner indicators? We are always busy, don’t notice some vital needs. Even if not, we are Homo Sapiens, we are able to mind up. Rat races VS awareness; blind frustration VS taking a risk for a dream; overconsumption VS minimalism; screaming with empty or hurt mind VS quiet serenity of being grateful and learning to learn. Some of us, nobody or all of us like naming. It makes us feel an illusion of coping, to fill in our existential vacuum. But what do you need for happiness?
The notions about well-being were a bit different with the passage of time.
- From the first believes that happiness is the destiny that we are not able to control;
- ancient hedonistic and eudemonic confidence that it’s the fleeting pleasure that originated because of the realization of inner personal needs;
- philosophy of stoicism that proclaims the freedom from external circumstances through the perfect performance of social roles, self-control of affects;
- the shifts to uncanny God, faith and intellect in the medieval period;
- the anthropocentric value of unique sensual personal pleasure, which must be counted with social morality during the Renaissance;
- to the modern understanding of the importance of self-actualization in order to be with harmony with yourself and the Universe in general.
According to one of the theories, there is an exceptional functional system of our psycho that provides mobilization of our internal resources in order to express all of often hidden true personal ambitions, talents and an authentic core of Self. To find out enough courage and energy to reach the goals which we really want, we should understand the basic psychological mechanisms, a structure of this self-regulative system.
So in our psycho, there are three such a bit contradictive parts as Essential Self, Infernal Self and Ego. The first one is a power of personal growth, which mobilizes energy to get what we really need, saying with inner voice «I can do it». At the same token, we might feel some doubts because the disintegrative internal “devil Mephistopheles” brings uncertain identity, forces us to quit, kind of whispering «I am NOT good enough. Stop it!» Consequently, a person hears two voices of auto communication, and it is, nice to realize and accept, absolutely normal. An indicator of the personal core that listens to all of the inner voices, lets it be and makes a final decision, analyzing these two messages, is Ego.
In a nutshell, to reach our true aims it’s important to listen to and accept those contrast voices, to be thankful and attentive to the life experience that might teach a lot, to reflect from time to time in order to realize when we went not our path, betraying ourselves and replacing an active joy with available pleasure and anticipation of happiness.
The only crucial thing that I’d like to show is condensed in a short well-known parable.
An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life:
“A fight is going on inside me,” he told the boy.
“It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.”
He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you–and inside every other person, too.”
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: “Which wolf will win?”
The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”
Ancient wisdom.