Create the Alter Ego

We've done it all, except learn how to live

“Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.” —Aristotle

We don’t know how to live.

Man went to the moon in 1969 (they say!) — but 55 years later we still don’t know how to live.

It’s as if we get less intelligent with time, even as we build bigger and better things. Have we lost the essence?

Economies are growing but humanity is worse off.

We are stuck in a perpetual hamster wheel of working more to buy more — but in the process we lose more of ourselves.

Modern society glorifies the tangible. But the tangible rarely gives us fulfilment or peace of mind. In fact, the more actual things we want to have — the more intangibles we lose. Quality of life, human relationships, fulfilment!

Ah! Good old fulfilment! Is there a better state of mind than that? We know there isn’t, but we look for it in the wrong places.

Career. Money. Prestige! We become overworked and undernourished. We endure this subhuman state of being because we tell ourselves we’re on our way to somewhere.

We somehow believe that becoming CEO, famous, rich or even POTUS — will make our whole life now make sense. But it doesn’t.

Work is important for a full life, but how we work is more important. Instead of working like lions, we work like marathon runners.

Quality of life gets decimated, self care remains but a distant dream.

It’s about time we slow down and start thinking about how to start living better.

To restructure how I live and work — I started working on my alter ego. I journal on the things I want to change, and then go back to assess my progress.

Along this path I even found new things I wanted to work on. I see the path of the alter ego like a sculptor sees a block of marble.

“The sculpture is already complete within the marble block, before I start my work. It is already there, I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.”

―Michelangelo