My last few days of struggle – everything is there, but there’s still something missing.
I’ve been there before, and I’ve always moved on to the next qualitative level. It has always been supported by a sentence someone has said or a thought they have read. In this case, a conversation with a life partner helped.
I complained that I have got everything I want in life. I have a great home, a loving companion, pets, financial security, a circle of like-minded people, family, travel, health, professional fulfilment, etc.
But all these things have one thing in common – they are disappearing. All of this will disappear, if not before, then the moment I die. Perhaps this “everything is there” is not a permanent value. And for this very reason, we sometimes ask ourselves “What is the point of this?”.
To my dismay, my husband said:
“Have you noticed sometimes that if you’re in a dark or cloudy place somewhere in your life and then someone says something that will a little sparkle inside you, then how much it might mean at the time. Vot that’s what you seem to me doing with your different professional roles. You give inspiration. At least niii it seems to me that people in feedback tell you. It’s a lasting value – a person conveys brilliance to the next person so that he can look at life with open eyes and develop his soul here.“
I was then left to think that this what-is-life-means-identity-crisis is a crisis of moving to the next stage of development: from self-actualisation to helping others to self-actualise, or self-transcendence, which Maslow also called the highest need.
The highest is not self-fulfilment, but self-surrender, dealing with enduring values, focusing on giving because there is something to give. It is about developing the values you want to answer the question on the last day of your life: “Who have I been as a person and who have I become?”
I want to respond on this last day: positive, inspiring, benevolent, grateful, loving, honest, empathetic, harmonious, deep, constantly developing myself, humble to realize that I am a part of something bigger than just human life, compassionate. Perhaps that which gives us value in the context of the development of the soul and the self-expression of the soul.
In short, these enduring values seem to be about giving. But giving is when you have something to give, or you have received. For a start, for example, accepting your life events as they are and asking the question “Why did this happen to me?”. into the question “What kind of person will this event help me become?”. Things don’t happen to us, but for us, so that we learn and apply enduring values.
