Do you drive a nice car? Are your accomplishments on par for your current age? Have you seen enough of the world?
Is your life good?
These are all questions with no objective answer. All of them are up to your own interpretation.
We as a society have adopted arbitrary rules to what is good and what is not:
You know a Louis Vuitton bag shows that you’ve made it.
You’re well aware that to be respected, you should have a certain type of family, with kids in a prestigious school and with whom you travel at least twice per year to accepted locations.
Needless to say that you shouldn’t settle for driving anything less than a Mercedes.
Lastly, the most detrimental rule of them all:
The above is the Good Life™, so keep grinding for it. Even if it means completely sacrificing your mental health, because anything else means failure. Maybe you’ll get your inner peace back when you achieve everything on your list…
It sounds ridiculous when examined this way, but it’s exactly how most of us live. There are cultural differences and changes in trends, so you can replace the brands with something else, but the principle doesn’t change.
In reality, of course, human nature does not require a luxury handbag, certain types of family activities, a particular car, or anything else the materialistic society has taught us is needed, to feel fulfilled. This is 100% programmed and learned behavior.
We have surrendered the power of our perception to blindly follow arbitrary rules that have been laid out to us.
We dedicate our everything to assemble a life according to these rules, when we could simply allow our perception of a good life to be something more attainable. In the end, it’s the feeling that matters.
To change our perception into something more positive and accepting, our natural needs have to be fulfilled. They affect our outlook in a fundamental way. We need physical and mental rest. We need relationships and a sense of contribution. We need natural exercise and nutrition.
If we don’t fulfill these natural needs, then no type of life feels good.
But when we truly do fulfill them, then any life feels good. And that’s when simplicity becomes instinctual. The desire for upgrading our life ends, because we’re already content.
This is exactly what the idea of living like we are meant to is all about. It’s all you need for a happy, content life. Your perception about everything around you will naturally change.
P.S. I have built a tool to accurately assess which life area deserves your attention first. Access it here.