We are growing, evolving and realizing the awesome responsibility we have, that leads us to experience this symptoms of tension, unsettledness, and unsatisfaction- often diagnosed as depression, anxiety or similar. What exactly are we feeling?

On a deep level, we are aware that we are mortal and there is no other purpose to our existence but the one we create for ourselves. Is that freedom? How do we respond to this understanding of our responsibility/freedom to make a life worth living without any external standard, which can define for us what this worthwhile living should be?

Some find the guidance in the organized system of a religion.  This is comforting until the moment you face the truth that this system is created by people, and used from different people for different purposes.

More and more people realize that this situation of discomfort is a sign of awareness, rather than a symptom. This uneasiness signals that you begin to process and accept responsibility for your life. Here are some wise words from Mr Frankl “What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him”.

Making the choice – what direction you want your life to go, requires increasing self-awareness. Keeping the chosen course asks for established values or discipline. Reaching the destination is possible when you accept that the desired outcome is not a guarantee. So we come to the beginning again – what goal is worth living for, taking the effort and investing your time in, without having the assurance of accomplishing it?

Do we really have a choice? Yes – we do have the choice of happy and fulfilling life. We make it when we understand fear and discover courage. Courage enables us to move toward our actualization, allows us to incorporate/understand fear. If we ignore the tension and try to put fear to sleep, we stop our own growth, impede our potential. So how do we keep blindly and courageously move forward? Faith is our only response to the finiteness nature of life and our awareness of death. Faith, not in any religious sense, but simple trust, knowing that:” This is the way it is. Now I will live my life.”

The alternative? The “modern slavery” – the loss of your individuality, your true identity, your self. In this state, you are influenced by public opinions, by the world outside. You take the values and beliefs of others, becoming absorbed by the every day superficial relationships, your interactions seem ordinary and meaningless. With or without pills the anxiety created by your true self, trying to find the way out and express the true self will produce symptoms, which ignored will lead to a possible disease. At times we want somebody else to heal us or with the help of a special device that will magically take away all our problems. We avoid occasionally looking for our own fault, staying away from seeing our mistakes, which lead us to the illness in the first place. However, you are able to understand and forgive.

There is an ancient saying: If you got sick, change your life style. If this does not help, change the way you eat. If this does not help, then look for a healer and remedies.

It seems like we need a reminder what to do with ourselves. We easily give the responsibility and freedom to make choices for our lives to somebody else. We forget now and then to trust ourselves. The history is full with examples how far human beings can go placing their reliance and life in the hands of one person that has the ambition to lead. It is mesmerizing the size of a crime one man’s ideas can lead to.  Be cautious of leaders that claim to know the secret to life, leaders who tell you they know you better than you know yourself. No one can take your responsibility – to know yourself.

When asked, “What thing about humanity surprises you the most?” Dalai Lama answered:” Man….Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”

………..

“I see and hear, how in the silence, every hour “the heavenly bells” ring, and how everything alive is subject to this rhythm…. How do the roosters and all birds know when to sing? How does the flower know when to wake up and blossom? All is subject to this voice. “

Turn of the TV, and you will hear it too…