How to make your life even better
I was recently asked to write an article centered around a quote attributed to Gandhi. It turns out that Gandhi never came up with the words: ‘Be the change you wish to see in the world.’ Poor old Gandhi! Just as Confucius has been linked to having said things he never said, so has Gandhi.
What I can do? I rephrased the challenge of change into a question that has occupied minds for thousands of years. The question is how can I live a life worth living?
If you’ve lived long enough, you probably have your favorite observation about change. After all, people have been commenting on the change since time immemorial. When it comes to switching, the toothpaste is out of the tube and there is no way to get it back.
So what is the most important thing for you? Are you living a life worth living? Are you living a kind of life that others might want to hear about? And does that matter in the long run?
This can be difficult. Socrates considered that an unexamined (‘unexceptional’) life was not worth living. However, even when Hears thought he was living a life worth living, others disagreed. The great South American Oscar Remero probably felt that he was living a life worth living, but his boss at the time, Pope John Paul II, did not seem to agree.
No one can hope to tell another how to live their life. Only you can know what matters most to you and whether or not you are living a life worth living. It is similar to someone claiming to have found the universal meaning of life. Reinhold Niebuhr expressed most of our thoughts when he observed that, ‘Every time I find the meaning of life. They change it.
Help is at hand. For some it is religion and religious beliefs, while others look elsewhere. Whatever your choice, these three tips may help.
- Cicero: a lifestyle involving sound nutrition, exercise, sensual restraint, an active mental life, and reflection.
- Confucius: (I hope he said this) ‘The more a man meditates on good thoughts, the better will be his world and the world in general.’
- Rousseau: ‘Youth is the time to study wisdom; old age is the time to put it into practice’.
Live the change you would like to see, and along your journey you may find that your life is worth living.
