[Note: This post may be updated as my views change over time]
Why have a philosophy of life?
This is a brief outline of my beliefs and the tools, techniques and structures I use to guide my life. In my mid to late twenties I realised that I didn’t understand the purpose of my life. Now that may seem bleak and at the time it certainly was but it gave me the push I needed to search for a purpose. It is these times that lead us either to oblivion, enlightenment or somewhere in between (hopefully closer to enlightenment). Thankfully, it pulled me out of oblivion and set me on a path I am grateful to be on now.
The first discovery was on the importance of having a Philosophy of Life. Not necessarily a religion per se, but at minimum a set of basic principles which would provide me with a consistent approach to solving the problems I face in life and making decisions that maximise my ability to be joyous and live a good life.
My philosophy of life
This discovery led me to identifying the four tenets of what I am beginning to define as my Philosophy of Life. They are:
- Discover — learning or experiencing something new
- Grow — improving or developing an existing skill or ability
- Delight — creating or experiencing joy for myself or others
- Give — demonstrating gratitude by returning good back to the world
In identifying these tenets, I could interrogate any activity I did and ask if it fell into one or more of these. I soon found that the activities I enjoyed most generally contributed highly to a single tenet (such as playing video games to Delight) or considerably to multiple (such as Reading to Discover, Grow & Delight). The activities which frustrated me or resulted in anguish or sadness did not fall into any of these categories (such as unnecessary usage of Social Media).
They also provided a structure where I could set both short-term and long-term goals. Classifying my goals into these areas allowed me to clearly understand the true purpose a goal.
Aside from this structure, there were daily practices that I also began to incorporate into my life. Namely;
- More structured routine (better sleep, making time for important things, less procrastination)
- Journaling
- Reducing use of electronics before bed
- Reducing use of Social Media overall
- Using ‘Visualisation’ as a technique before sleeping to mentally prepare and equip myself for the upcoming day, especially if there were specific challenges worrying me
On routine:
Let’s start with routine. When I began consciously considering what contributed to happiness and what took away from it I started noticing patterns. One unhealthy habit of mine was snoozing my alarm over and over. Or, laying in bed thinking of an excuse to work for home or call in sick all together. In reflection, 90% of those times I was “unwell” or “needed” to work from home were out of either laziness or anxiety. This resulted in miserable days.
On the contrary, mornings on which I got out of bed immediately and tackled the day ahead turned out to be the happiest days. So I created a simple rule; no decisions until I have gotten out of bed and showered. This way, I would be standing up, fresh and clean before making any decisions about working from home or calling in sick. After 6 weeks of this, there was only 1 day I worked from home. In that same time period earlier in my life there would have been over 5, easily. [Note: this was written pre-Covid when working from home was less part of our normal lives]
From this rule I started realising how productive my mornings could be when they were consistent. I went from waking up begrudgingly at 7am to waking up fresh and ready to go at 6am. This meant I could fill my morning with exercise, a quick meditation, ensure I eat breakfast and a even have some recreational time before even leaving for work.
For this to work through, I also had to change my evening routine. The first was to follow advice I had read numerous times but never implemented, that is, to eliminate screen-time before bed. This meant no computer, tv or phone for an hour before I intended to fall asleep. For a 6am wake-up I was targeting 10pm to be asleep, so no electronics from 9pm. I’ll admit, I was a skeptic of this but I figured there could be no harm in trying it for a week. I was so happy with the results that I have found myself telling everyone about this simple “life-hack”. Since this change, I have been sleeping better than I ever have and am certain it’s because of this that I am so able to wake up consistently at 6am without misery.
These two changes were big for me as I had always been a night person. Traditionally, I would be up until 1am, wake up miserable, sleep on the train and arrive to work grumpy and not have the best of days. Because my days were shit, I would stay up to 1am to make up for it and the cycle continued.
Like with many of my changes I made a 1-week rule. I would implement it for 1-week and decide if it worked or not. Absolutely forced, I simply HAD to do it for 1-week. The benefits of a lot of these were seen in less than a week so it didn’t take much effort to keep it going after. If after a week I felt it wasn’t worth it, I dropped it. Simple as that.
In closing
This post will continue to grow and change as I do. As such, there are no closing remarks as of yet.
Div Prakash 