Yesterday was a disturbing day for me.
An Indian celebrity that I used to look up to for inspiration, committed suicide.
I always believe that he was one of the most spirited person that I follow on social media.
But everyone has their internal conflicts I guess.
I reflect back on my life and notice that I have been through some very bad phases myself.
It will be fair to say that I have been a pessimist for most of my life.
I had a bad habit of looking at the negative side of things.
Always visualising everything in the worst possible way.
A lot of times, I have questioned my life, is there any meaning to live anymore, to keep going?
But however bad the situations was, I always did okay.
I never felt the urge to quit on life, leave everyone behind.
Last year, when I felt pessimistic about life, I picked up a book Man’s search for meaning.
Books have been my saviour for a long time now.
Although Man's search for meaning did not transformed me completely, it did changed my outlook towards my life.
One of the quote from the book shook me up.
Frankl’s philosophy was that a man’s deepest desire is to find meaning in his life. If he can find that meaning, he can survive anything.
While surviving in the concentration camps, instead of choosing to be apathetic, he chose to embrace his suffering.
There are three ways to find meaning in life.
❖ Through work.
❖ Through love.
❖ Through suffering.
My life literally turned around after I started focusing on my work instead of my negative thoughts.
Now, I do a lot of activities daily, hive being one of them.
Though I haven’t build the foundation of love in my life, I am enjoying my suffering.
I enjoy my work and I feel accomplished most of the days.
David Goggins is the best example in the world for enjoying suffering.
He was living an awful life at the age of 26.
Overweight, homeless, under a lot of debt, working as a pest control agent.
He literally turned his life by breaking the limits of hardwork.
Got recruited in Seal.
Achieved a lot accolades and inspired the world to stay hard at times when situation test people.
When I watch his clips, I get motivated for the whole day.
I get back to work and complete it.
According to Viktor, people can and must find meaning in their lives even if all they know is tremendous suffering.
Viktor shared another insightful thing in his book.
In order to survive, you have to be okay with dying at any moment.
Or in other words, if you are living under very hard circumstances, you should live every moment like it’s your last.
Enjoy it.
Devour it.
Live it.
Live in the present, don’t think about the future, even if future looks really bad.
The meaning of your life depends up on your decisions and the situations you are in.
For example, Viktor found meaning in surviving in the Nazi camps by finding bliss in every moment he was alive.
I found meaning in my life by grinding every day.
The more I work, the more I am enjoy.
Though, everything is not rainbows, I feel pretty good about things.
If I look back, when the lockdown started, I was a different person then.
Living a hopeless life, full of regrets.
A couple of months of self reflection can change a lot about a person.
