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Perhaps you feel like your days are a bit of a blur, a forced march through to-do lists, filled with routines and obligations that leave little time for your partner, family, or yourself. Actually, you’re running on autopilot most of the time, and your life, to put it mildly, is a bit out of balance.
If it’s any comfort, you’re not alone. Philosophers and psychologists have been grappling with these issues for millennia. Here are four key concepts from their wisdom:
1. Take full responsibility for your choices
This simple statement contains two important ideas: choice and responsibility. Choice: Sartre and the existentialists remind us that we cannot not choose; even not choosing is a choice. Buddhists say that this power of choice is what separates us from other living animals and plants; it’s what makes us human.
But in everyday life, this sense of choice is easily swept away—by the running on autopilot, or the do-what-we-do-because-we-do-it. Realizing we have a choice opens the door to freedom rather than to feeling trapped. And acknowledging that we are, like it or not, making choices gives us power and, with it, responsibility.
Responsibility is where things get blurry. Instead of thinking we are making a choice, we talk about not having any other choices, about having to do it, or about someone making us, and all of it being about feeling like victims of others or events. Not so, Sartre would say. You do what you do because you choose to do it; stop being the victim.
2. Follow your passions
Passions are the antidote to stale, stifling routines and autopilot. While the word passion connotes being swept up in something—a cause, a relationship—other writers tone it down to an everyday version by talking about wants or preferences. Regardless of the terms, the point is to shift from rules, shoulds, and routines that keep you on the narrow, forced-march path to stepping off it by focusing on what’s missing in your life and using excitement as a guide.
Nietzsche talks about not following the herd but defining your own values. Maslow talks about the challenge of choosing growth over safety if you want to become truly yourself. Carl Rogers was about congruence, having your outer world reflect your inner. Do you quit your job to join the circus? No, because it doesn’t align with your values. But is there a way to bring into your everyday life what it is about the circus that intrigues you—absolutely!
3. Be assertive
Now we’re getting into relationships and another two-part concept. Assertiveness is the happy middle ground between being a controlling bully and being a limp, passive, accommodating person. The bully has a me-against-you mentality, while the passive one thinks “I’m happy if you’re happy.” The bully causes damage and ends up isolated, while the passive one internalizes and lives others’ lives.
Assertiveness is about speaking up without being a martyr or a bully. The Stoics talk about the courage to tell others what you need, rather than assuming they will read your mind and reward you by somehow knowing what you want or collapsing to your will.
4. Be proactive
The harried life is about reacting. Events, problems, and obligations are always pushing against you. Taking charge of your life means realizing that you are the driver in the car that is your life, rather than the passenger. Your happiness ultimately is in your hands. You cannot change what has happened to you, but you can change how you respond, and you can choose your response. Define your life and actively shape it. This is the power of choices; this is your freedom; this is what makes you human. Go on the offense, rather than on the defense.
5. Have no expectations
Buddhists say that if a person acts without expectation, they are happy. Stoics say you need to realize what you can and can’t control. You can’t control others, only your response to them. You can’t control the future, only the present moment. Shape the moment and let the rest go. What happens next is a new adventure, a new problem to solve, and a new opportunity to shape the now and what may happen next. That’s the best you can do.
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The themes here are clear: take responsibility for your choices and be aware of them, even if you feel you don’t have any. Follow your passions because they tell you who you truly are and can be. Be assertive so others know what you need. Let go of results and outcomes you can’t control, because life is really about the process—what you do rather than the accomplishments. Control what you can, including your desires, dreams, and how you treat others.
This is your life. Own it, shape it, be active, and take responsibility for it.
If not now, when?
