How To Be A Decent Human, Part 2 of 2

In the first part, I have written about the basics of what makes each of us human. In this continuation, I focus in greater depth on those dimensions of our humanity – as individuals and as a collective – which might help us continue to overcome historical upheavals and, at some point, move outwards towards the stars and new worlds in the immensity of space.

1. Freedom and responsibility are fully intertwined.

Freedom is a fundamental human need: we all want to be free. In all religions and mythologies, monotheist or polytheist, God or gods enjoy absolute freedom – and these cosmologies have been crafted, naturally, through human projections into immortality. The problem arises due to the fact that few people understand – and even fewer accept – that authentic freedom cannot exist without (authentic) responsibility and the greater the freedom, the greater the responsibility. The good part is that the reverse theorem is equally true: the greater the responsibility, the greater the freedom.

2. Explore your dark side aka “the shadow”.

Until Carl Gustav Jung, who coined the concept of “shadow” (der Schatten in German) as that which we had to reject and abhor in the course of our socialization in the world in order to fit in and become accepted by others, only socioeconomic elites lived lives long enough (that is, over the average life expectancy of 20-25) to start becoming aware of the world and their own position within it. Nowadays, we all face those parts of ourselves which we had to bury deep within – the good, the bad, the ugly, the creative, the cheerful, the sad, the beautiful. Mostly, we keep on rejecting it out of guilt and shame and spend tremendous amounts of energy and unhealthy coping strategies so that we keep the shadow out of sight and out of reality. The , the uncomfortable truth is that the more we try to repress it, the stronger the shadow grows and it is a matter of time until it will fully overpower us. The healthy, though equally uncomfortable, solution is: see it, embrace it, love it.

3. Understand and accept that you cannot change the past.

Friedrich Nietzsche called this amor fati or “love your fate”: you can build an amazing future while living in the present. The past holds lessons, not damnation certificates.

4. Know and accept yourself.

Related to number 2, it is indeed easier to look deep within oneself and to embrace the things floating around down there than to deny and fight their existence. There is nothing to feel ashamed and/guilty about who we are – we can deal with anything as long as we become aware of that “anything”.

5. You matter.

Many, too many of us, carry within ourselves deeply seated messages of unworthiness and suffering which have led, in time, to a desire of invisibility ad of sinking into nothingness, forever, unbeknownst to anyone. But to yourself, to those around you and to those who will come after you, you matter, so act accordingly and take radical responsibility both for your life and for those your life is impacting.

6. Turn envy into admiration and motivation.

What would the world be without envy? I allow myself to argue that, like pride, envy is at the root of all evils and it is tackled as such in all religions of the world. A highly toxic emotion, envy has ruined more lives than any other human emotion and unfortunately we all fall prey to it, repeatedly, tragically, inevitably. Becoming aware of it when you start feeling it is just the first part; as Robert Greene advises in his monumental The Laws of Human Nature, turning it into fuel for admiration and motivation helps accept envy instead of repressing it and, thus, allowing it to take control sooner or later of our souls.

7. Failure is inevitable and a necessary part of life.

Do everything you can; when you fail, learn the lesson with compassion and move on. Way more destructive would be to allow fear of failure to hinder progress and to wallow in stagnant comfort; sooner or later, stagnation turns into decline, slow at first but then increasingly unstoppably accelerating.

8. When you hurt others, apologize sincerely and propose ways to amend for your mistakes.

It is the strategy of the coward to dilute apologies with explanations, pretexts, distractions. Conversely, when others hurt you and apologize, forgive quickly and move on. Nonetheless, depending on transgression and person, it might be a good idea to be extremely careful with second-chances: the bigger the transgression, the higher caution with further chances.

9. Remember that everything is temporary.

The stoics called this “memento mori”: remember that everyone dies, one day. The New Age followers express this as “we are cosmic beings having a temporary bodily experience”. Regardless how we put it into words, nothing is eternal and everything is transient which makes life, like love, friendship, money, aso. all the more precious. Science fiction authors have long dealt with immortal humans or humans with huge life-spans: stagnation followed by declined and eventually by extinction is in all scenarios the only possible – and probable outcome.

10. Happiness is a choice, as is love.

Advertisements and marketing strategies push us to chase happiness – but a sense of contentment is far easier to attain and to keep in the long run. If we were happy by default, then happiness would in fact not exist. The same goes for love: it is not something to be achieved and then museumified. Love is an action to be continued every day, towards oneself and towards the others, concretized in gestures of kindness and care, self-awareness and self-reflection, long-term vision and short-term consistent progress.

We are often confused by the events of world but forget that in historical terms, our present is really, solely a tiny slice. Myself, when I feel down or scared, I remember this indelible truth and, after allowing for a period of mourning, I decide to move forward in life with grace and determination. I hope you find some solace in these lines. Know you are not alone – in fact, we all share the same trajectory towards the final destination on this beautiful planet. Namaste!