Beyond the Narrow Life

Some values can be treated like impossibly high standards against which to judge ourselves and our behavior. Values are ideals, directions to move towards, not attainable destinations.

“Every transformation demands as its precondition ‘the ending of a world’—the collapse of an old philosophy of life.”

Idealizing some ‘optimized’ personality and chasing flow states gives us something to judge ourselves (and others) against. Becoming either too self-conscious or too self-centered are, in fact, big barriers to entering flow; an overconcern with oneself redirects energy away from present experiences and tasks.

As Maslow described as well, “We fear our highest possibilities (as well as our lowest ones). We are generally afraid to become that which we can glimpse in our most perfect moments, under the most perfect conditions, under conditions of greatest courage. We enjoy and even thrill to godlike possibilities we see in ourselves in such peak moments. An

Flexibility means adapting to changing circumstances, needs, and information. It requires embracing our agency and freedom—radical freedom even—to make choices more aligned with our authentic needs and values, undeterred by false constraints.

The critical task is choosing the ‘new’ life you want to live, one governed by your personal values, not your previously existing habits of mind and behavior that do not serve your greater sense of purpose.

How do we return home and make dinner, do the dishes, and brush our teeth after staring into the depths of the cosmos, ourselves, and our fellow living beings?

“We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were. I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be…” —Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem1

You don’t need to be extraordinary. If the world is to be healed through human efforts, I am convinced it will be by ordinary people, people whose love for this life is even greater than their fear.