Life is not a race: why you need to leave the "rat race"

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Spinning like a squirrel in a wheel is a conscious choice of many. When you are always in a hurry, but do not have time for anything, it is difficult to enjoy life. Try to slow down and look at things differently: there may be no race to be won.

My life has been imbued with a competitive spirit and adrenaline: I have been doing extreme kayaking for a long time.

But then I had a dream. I took part in the race and was able to get ahead. I won. But on one of the sections of the road, the marks indicating the direction disappeared. I decided to ask the organizers of the race where to go next. “We don't know,” they replied. Even if they, who organized the race, do not know the road, it means that there is no race - that's what I thought and stopped running. At first I was perplexed. And then there was a deep sense of relief.

“I shouldn't be so worried. You don't have to always be a winner. There is no competition. Stop. It is enough to be who you are,”I thought and woke up.

But the memory of this dream haunted me for weeks. It seemed to contain a message that I must heed. Stop. You are enough yourself. There is no race. What if we really have everything we want? What if our desires are just an illusion?

Recently I was called for diving. Fifteen years ago, I already took a course on it, but I quit because it did not bring any thrills, sports excitement. I took it as a sign that I was invited to swim again, and, of course, agreed.

Adrenaline is a kind of drug, but it "starts the engine" only for a while.

Being a beginner is humiliating. You still don't know what to do. You are failing. You want to say: “I don't know anything. Help me, show me. So I felt helpless and defenseless when I listened to the instructor's explanations about what I knew 15 years ago, but have now forgotten.

Most of my life I was ahead: doing kayaking, participating in competitions in different countries, I set an example for others. How does it feel to be on the other side? You know, it's even great. It seemed to me that I was a beginner again - and not only in diving, but also in life.

The new approach required me to take a breath. Accept myself for who I am. And also - learn to put up with a sense of vulnerability. All of this gave me a sense of liberation.

Two dives in the ocean showed me that I had chosen the right path. The beauty of diving is to slowly swim underwater, look around, enjoy what you see, stay calm, breathe and relax. There is no time for victories and defeats. Whoever knows how to appreciate the magnificence of this experience wins. This is underwater meditation: no need to talk, no need to think. Just enjoy the beauty that you see around, swim in the company of amazing fish, discover a new world for yourself. It cleanses from the inside out. Immediately you forget all the bad things in life “above water”.

A little later, two weeks later, I was called back to the swim. We dived into the ocean four times on the diving coast of Bali and it was amazing. I asked myself, "How did I end up here?"

My life was determined by a new approach to interacting with the world and myself: I let everything go by itself.

So I decided to move from New Zealand, sell everything and give up everything, even kayaking. I said yes to the unknown and went to Bali to start a new life. No extreme, no adrenaline, no competition. The new life consisted in saying "yes" to everything that (as it seemed to me before) was not at all about me.

I slowed down my pace of life. She began to act thoughtfully through yoga, meditation, dancing. She learned to speak Indonesian and continued diving. Now my life is what I thought it would not be even after a million years. I rejoice in little things, I live for today, I rethink values.

There is no race.

The Western collective consciousness teaches us: only at the end, having reached the finish line, will we find happiness and success. When we graduate from school, get married, have children, get a dream job … Only then will life be in full swing. We, like donkeys, are tempted with a carrot on a stick that cannot be reached. When we get to that milestone, which seemed to open the doors to a happy life for us, the feeling of satisfaction from what has been achieved, alas, leaves us very quickly.

“Okay, what I want is in my hands, but it didn't bring me happiness. Perhaps it was just a step towards something more worthwhile. Victory is ahead,”- this is what we think in such situations.

We are chasing something that will never meet our expectations. The only way to emerge victorious from this race is to realize that there really is no race. To win is to stop. Let yourself go with the flow. Only in yourself can you find real happiness. Are we not striving for it? It is enough just to be alone with yourself, to feel harmony and deep connection with your inner “I”. The hustle and bustle only moves us away from these sensations that we all hope to experience someday.

What happens when we get out of the race? We have to learn to accept what life gives us, and this scares many. It is much easier to run further. It drowns out pain and other feelings. At the same time, while we rush forward in this frantic race, we see well what is happening around us, but we do not look at ourselves. The source of the feeling of satisfaction (hardly full) is the conviction that we have achieved a lot.

Why do you need to achieve something in order to be important, valuable, worthy? We seem to be addicted to completing tasks: only checkmarks next to items on the to-do list give meaning to life.

What if our purpose is really just to live and manifest consciousness?

Our thoughts are rarely directed to the present moment. We either think about the past, regretting that we cannot change it, or about the future, making plans that will not meet expectations. These two models of thinking are a kind of insanity, they have nothing to do with the reality of today. The past is in the past. It cannot be changed. The future will never come. Reality is the moment we have now.

Only abandoning the endless race towards an imaginary future will allow you to start living for real. We need to rid ourselves of the illusion that happiness and satisfaction are somewhere beyond our consciousness, and look inside. This is what it really means to take responsibility for yourself and your life. Stop running and find what you have been looking for, here and now.

Where to begin?

• Free up your schedule for a few minutes.
• Stop for a while before leaving the house or opening the car door.
• Don't try to fit as much into your daily schedule as possible. Less is better!
• Don't do several things at the same time. Focus on one thing.
• During lunch, all the attention is on the food: taste it thoroughly, feel the taste and smell.
• Turn off the TV.
• Take meditation courses.
• Be mindful of the little things. And learn to say thank you for them.

One day each of us will come to the finish line - the road of life will end. We need to learn to live so as to be at this trait with a smile, with a kind heart, with a feeling of contentment that permeates our entire being.

And this will be a victory. You don't need anything outside to get it. But one cannot do without working on oneself - from the inside. You don't need to go anywhere, achieve anything, prove anything. One has only to stop at one moment and re-prioritize. Create space for the life of your inner self. To begin to value ourselves as what is given to us, what we have here and now. Learn to listen to yourself. Realize that oneself may be enough to feel the long-awaited satisfaction with life.