The reason... blog - iqew

...behind it all?

After listening to some of my favorite tracks and looking at some great work of other artists, I felt inspired to write another blog entry. Listening to my favorite music always gets me to a special place that I really like. A mixture of enthusiasm and a great feeling of admiration overcomes me and it just feels very positive and again, peaceful.

The title of this blog is "The reason behind it all?" and I think that's a question that I can fully identify with at the moment. A question that not only has been sleeping inside me for many years already, but a question that seems to be a bigger part of my life with each and every day I live. It describes my personality quite well, as curiosity about everything in life is getting more and more dominant. I feel like the more time I spend soul searching and learning to understand human (inter-)action, the younger I get.

Children are blowing my mind away and I'm asking myself why we have developed into such creatures as we call "adults". When I've been dealing with my own personal development, I heard about that great fact that being happy is the default state of human beings. That's something that struck my mind, as it's something very easy and yet I didn't see it, because I was distracted too much.

Simply imagine a young kid (maybe even yourself) who has just learned to walk and is now going on that great adventure to discover the world. Of course, we even do that a lot before we learn to walk, but being able to go on our own feet gives us a lot of freedom and independence, therefor own choice. In that phase of life we are eager to learn new things and suck up every information around us with all our given senses. It is the most amount of curiosity you can probably find in any state of a person's life.

Now, many people seem to lose this quality over time and they get somewhat lazy. Not looking for new skills to learn, not going to travel around the world, not learning new languages and just getting into that state of minimalism. We set a certain standard for ourselves and look for ways to do the least amount of work and time to keep up that standard. Pretty much the most obvious sign that a behaviour like that isn't what we are supposed to do is boredom. Even the most exciting thing in the world gets boring after time, because our brain wants to evolve.

Boredom actually leads to unhappiness, which then leads to depression. People who are bored of their current life live like being hypnotized or in a coma. When listening to seminars or people who are living life to the fullest, I always hear them talking about being awake. It's the feeling we have when we do something really exciting, for example riding a rollercoaster, climbing a mountain or being on a first date with the person w always had a crush on. All these have a thing in common: adrenaline, which literally wakes us up. Living life to the fullest or in happiness doesn't mean that you should pump up your body with adrenaline every day, though. Those extreme situations that make our body kick in that drug called adrenaline are just a little part of what it actually means to be awake.

Like I mentioned earlier, happiness is the default state of ourselves, which basically means that we are always happy. Now, why am I sad sometimes then you may ask. The answer is because something happened that made you sad. Of course we aren't happy all day long on a daily basis, but what's important here is, once we solved the situation that made us unhappy, we are happy again. It's something I call the unseen obvious when I talk to people who are constantly looking for things to push themselves into that happy state. People turn up the volume on the way to the club, drink alcohol or even do drugs and when I ask them why they're doing it, they look at me, as if I was the next super moron and tell me they are doing it to have fun.

I'm not judging them for doing that and I can understand their situation. They have to create a certain atmosphere to have fun in and enjoy themselves. Now, I ask myself "What's the reason behind it all?" and the answer is distraction. Does this mean that people who are happy in life don't turn up the volume and drink alcohol or do drugs? Most likely not or at least they're not going over the edge with it. Listening to loud music, drinking a lot of alcohol or even doing drugs is unhealthy and why would a happy person want to shorten their life or lose life quality on purpose?

Smoking is another great example, I think. When I was young my dad promised me to give me a big amount of money, if I never smoke before turning 25 years old. I thought that's really cool, because it's easy money. I've been in the situation where there were some cool kids and they got some smokes and it was passed around, but I denied. Even my best friend tried it and I definitely felt the pressure on me. What made me decline wasn't the money my dad promised me, but smoking literally stinks.
The reason why I think that smoking is a great example for what I've said previously acutally isn't to start smoking, but to stop smoking.

I think, everyone knows someone who smokes or has heard stories about it. The majority of the smokers do know it's unhealthy to smoke and many even want to stop. What's so interesting about it is that some people fight their whole life, but can't manage to stop smoking and some people just stop from one day to another, even if they've been smoking for decades and enjoyed it. I personally believe that emotional addictions are a lot stronger than physical addictions, so I am going to leave out the aspect of the body being addicted to the ingredients of cigarettes and rather concentrate on the emotional side.

There can be many reasons why people are able to stop smoking from one day to another, the main reasons most likely are extreme situations that triggered a very strong emotion like being in life threatening situations because of cancer. However, it is possible to stop any bad behaviour right away whenever you want to, if you're a happy person. I can already see people doubting that and waiting for the catch of it. Yes, there actually is a catch and the catch is that happy people have stopped bad behaviour patterns in order to become a happy person. On the other hand, someone who has always been a happy person wouldn't have started such a bad behaviour.

We stop bad behaviour patterns, if they're no longer necessary for ourselves. I give you an example and stay with the theme of smoking. Imagine I started smoking that day when I was that young kid. The main reason for it would have been to be accepted in the group and be part of the cool guys. Whenever those cool guys would have lid up a cigarette it would also have been my turn to smoke. I simply would have created a mask that covers my real self, so I could be one of them. One day I would have finished school and everyone would have moved to a new town to study and I would find a job somewhere. I would be happy with my colleagues and my work. After some time, I might have been emerging as a leading person and would have been offered a higher position with my own employees. Since my collegues would have respected me for my qualities, the need to put on that mask would have no longer been needed, as the real self is the one that my colleagues would have been interested in.

To see through such things is crucial for those people who don't find the road to happiness themselves. I think that whoever is able to see the reasons behind their own problems and solve those problems, can't get off that road no more. Of course, new problems are going to arrive, but if you really understand the core of what I am saying and believe in it with no doubt, you cannot fail.

cheers.