Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.
Oscar Wilde
It’s not what I asked for.
Sometimes life just slips in through a back door
And carves out a person
And makes you believe it’s all true.Now I’ve got you.
You’re not what I asked for
If I‘m honest I know
I would give it all back for
A chance to start over and
Rewrite an ending or two….
Sara Bareilles, She Used to Be Mine
I spent some time last weekend in the presence of a friend who is nearing the end of this incarnation. Witnessing an elder whose state of mind and body is rapidly deteriorating was a stark counterpoint to my visit to the south of Germany the previous week to see my newborn granddaughter, and her one-year-old cousin celebrating his first birthday with their respective parents — my adult children — and friends.
At each end of the incarnation there can be struggles with that universal tandem of powerlessness and helplessness.
In the intervening period, we may be blessed with a clarity of spirit wherein we recognise that, while powerless — in the sense that we cannot dictate how life unfurls — we are far from helpless. We can learn to navigate this great mystery, ride the waves of the storm while availing of resources —new and ancient — and seeking and accepting the help of other people, as needed.
It goes against the grain of any person who carries the burden of untreated trauma to ask for help. Generally, it happens — if at all — only when desperation is at play. When we get sick and tired of being sick and tired, when the Grim Reaper is breathing down our neck, or when the weight of loneliness becomes way too much to bear.
That is when some of us are graced with the ability to directly confront the bankruptcy of our current situation and admit our powerlessness, to then reach out to those already waiting to help us turn things around.
There are such people.
You will find them in every village, town, and city throughout the world. In a network of Twelve Step recovery communities spawned initially by Alcoholics Anonymous just over ninety years ago, there are groups meeting somewhere right now, as I write. The Covid lockdown sent us all online with the resulting bonus that, after reemerging, we can now combine reinvigorated face-to-face meetings with online gatherings as we go through each week.
Over the years, new fellowships have emerged to deal with variations of addictions such as gambling, porn, work, hoarding, and a variety of substances from narcotics to sugar, to prescription drugs.
The template remains the same. First the addictive dynamic must be recognised, accepted, and embraced. This is where I stand in life, like it or not, and I am ready to change and be changed. Then we seek help in reaching the first important milestone, abstinence.
What differentiates the addict from the rest —whatever the manifestation of the addictive dynamic might be — is that regular folks can take it or leave it. Indulge in a cigarette now and again and then forget about smoking, for example. Or — God forbid — drink half a glass of wine at dinner and move on!
We addicts are confronted by a baffling conundrum. „When we start, we can’t stop and when we stop, we can’t stay stopped.“
This is not necessarily true of every interaction with the addictive substance or process. It is the aggregate over time that counts. Once the dynamic has taken root, it is generally downhill from there on in. Things generally get worse, never better.
Dr Gabor Maté suggests that we ask, not „why so much addiction„, but“why so much pain„?
Once „Stage I Recovery“ had been established, i.e., we are not continuously preoccupied with the substance or process (obsession), we can begin to follow the thread provided by Dr Maté, explore the underlying issues that drove us to addiction in the first place, and, hopefully, transcend them. The result is peace of mind, or Emotional Sobriety.
The alternative is not pretty. Imagine reaching the end of your life and realizing that the person you became was not the person you could have been.
Not because you lacked talent, intelligence, or opportunities. Not because life was unfair, but rather because you had spent decades being driven by forces you could not see, chasing goals that were never truly yours in the first place, diligently sitting in the orchestra, following the baton of the conductor, playing a symphony you have never truly comprehended, playing a tune that is not your own.
Many great teachers have pointed out the necessity of carving out our own unique path in life, not following a path that has already been trodden.
„Be yourself; everyone else is already taken,“ as Oscar Wilde pointed out.
„One of the greatest sins is the unlived life,“ wrote John O Donohue in his magnum opus, Anam Cara.
This profound realization captures the core of a widely discussed psychological, philosophical, and spiritual sentiment. The fear of an unlived life — living passively, failing to recover your „True Self“ after taking refuge in a „False Self“ since the adversities of childhood, or constantly deferring our passions — was considered one of our major burdens by the great Swiss psychoanalyst, Carl Gustav Jung.
The dangers of the unlived life also terrified the Austrian psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, even more than suffering itself.
And after surviving several Nazi concentration camps — where everything bar our dignity could be taken from a human being — he came to a conclusion so powerful that it continues to shape modern psychology today: The greatest tragedy is not the pain which comes with being alive. The greatest tragedy is living without meaning.
Understandingly, most people spend their entire lives trying to avoid pain. In this Age of Mass Distraction, there is no shortage of possibilities to do so. We zone out and, in exasperation, sometimes ask what life wants from us. Frankl believed we should be asking a completely different question. What purpose do I intend to give my life?
This is a gamechanger.
Despite unprecedented material wealth, medical advances, and technological breakthroughs, rates of anxiety, depression, loneliness, and existential dissatisfaction continue to rise in our now globalised consumer society.
Something is deeply out of kilter.
Since the spheres of the worldly and the divine were separated into neatly defined silos — ironically referred to as „The Age of Enlightenment“ — most people have identified happiness as the ultimate goal of our existence, arguing that it can be wrested from life if only we did the right things, made the right moves.
Work hard. Go to college. Earn more. Start a family. Acquire more freedom. Reduce discomfort. Stand out in the crowd.
Then happiness will arrive. In PQ (the Positive Intelligence Mental Fitness Programme, an important resource in my coaching toolbox) we refer to this as the „I’ll be happy when…“ game. It is the ultimate loser’s game.
Yet countless people achieve these goals only to remain confronted by an unsettling emptiness, standing on the precipice of a void. Something essential — the essence — is missing. Frankl called this phenomenon the „existential vacuum“.
It is a condition in which people find themselves alive but lacking a reason to live.
Today, neuroscience increasingly supports the idea that meaning is not merely a philosophical luxury but rather a biological necessity.
Research has linked a strong sense of purpose to lower rates of depression, better stress resilience, improved cardiovascular health, healthier aging, and higher degrees of both physical and Mental Fitness.
Meaning doesn’t simply make life feel better. It changes how the brain and body respond to life itself.
Which raises an uncomfortable possibility: What if your exhaustion isn’t coming from simply doing too much but from pursuing goals and outcomes that don’t truly matter to you?
In the concentration camps, Frankl witnessed the apparent anomaly that some prisoners physically stronger than others gave up and died while others who appeared weaker somehow endured unimaginable suffering.
He set out to explore why this was so. The answer clearly wasn’t physical strength, simple optimism, or sheer luck.
The pattern Frankl observed that those most likely to survive often possessed a powerful reason to keep going despite the short odds: A child waiting at home, a spouse they hoped to see again, an unfinished cherished project, a responsibility larger than themselves.
In his famous words, borrowed from his great teacher, Nietzsche, he stated: „Those who have a sufficiently strong „why“ can bear almost any „how“ (Wer ein Warum zum Leben hat, erträgt fast jedes Wie).
This observation would become one of the foundations of the meaning-centred, existential psychology of the 20th century.
Frankl realized that humans are not primarily driven by pleasure, sex, or power. We are propelled forward by meaning.
But the addictive modern culture of the consumer society teaches us to keep repeating an insidious mantra, namely: „What do I want from life?“
Frankl believed the deeper question is: „What is life asking of me?“
I would go a step further and ask: What does the Universe wish to manifest through me?
Frank’s influence on the shaping of the Twelve Steps is vastly underrated. We find it in Step Twelve: „Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these (first eleven) steps, we carried this message to others (who want it) and practice these principles in all our affairs.“
Now there’s a purpose worth having! What was gifted to us in our hour of need we pay forward to the next generations.
Frankl believed people do not find themselves through endless self-analysis. We find ourselves through awareness, compassion, commitment, responsibility, service, contributing to the welfare of humanity.
We become ourselves by first finding ourselves, then transcending this illusion of self.
Modern psychological research finds that people focused exclusively on personal happiness often become less satisfied over time while individuals connected to meaningful goals beyond themselves consistently report higher levels of fulfillment.
The reason is surprisingly simple. The brain adapts quickly to pleasure, a bigger house, a promotion, more money, another joint. We need a greater hit next time, and sooner. This process is known as „hedonic adaptation“.
Meaning operates differently. It continually renews itself because it connects us to something larger than immediate gratification.
Pleasure asks: „What can I get?“ This stance tends to shrink our world.
Meaning asks: „What can I give?“, which expands our heart and our horizons.
Recent clinical research suggests that purpose influences how the brain processes stress and adversity.
Individuals with a strong sense of meaning often demonstrate greater psychological resilience under pressure. Challenges become interpreted differently. The brain perceives hardship less as a threat and more as a mission. We utilise our challenges as we would a Jedi Teacher.
This matters, because pain without meaning feels unbearable. It generally leads to a stance of resistance to the pain. This is the birthplace of suffering. Pain is a given. Suffering is voluntary.
Pain connected to purpose feels transformative. The event may be identical, the interpretation changes everything. Change the way you look at things, and the things you look at change, wrote Wayne Dyer in „The Power of Intention“.
If Frankl were alive today, he might ask you a question that feels deeply uncomfortable: Are you building a life to placate your „Saboteurs“ – to impresses people – or a life that fulfils your responsibility and birthright to become who you could truly be? These are not always the same thing.
One is driven by approval, by the fear-driven coping mechanisms – the „Saboteurs“ we developed as children.
The other is driven by meaning, by the love-infused „Sage“ powers of „Exploration“, „Compassion“, „Innovation“, „Navigation“, and „Activation“.
The Saboteurs may help us achieve temporary satisfaction at the expense of lasting fulfilment and good general health. The Sage powers allow the Love of the Universe to manifest through us.
In one of my favourite passages from „Anam Cara“, John O’ Donohue writes: If you allow yourself to be the person that you are, then everything will come into rhythm. If you live the life you love, you will receive shelter and blessings. Sometimes the great famine of blessing in and around us derives from the fact that we are not living the life we love, rather we are living the life that is expected of us. We have fallen out of rhythm with the secret signature and light of our own nature.
