Do not disturb yourself by imagining your whole life at once - Markus Aurelius

One step at a time.

If you are about to climb a mountain or walk across USA, one step at a time is good advice. It makes sense when we consider a walk. But this is a very good mindfulness advice too. Here in this article, I am going to show you how we can use this wisdom into our lives.

Let's imagine you are washing the dishes. If we take this as a single task it can feel overwhelming. But unless you are doing with a dish washer, you are only going to do one dish at a time. So really what is important is the dish at your hand.

One step at a time: https://unsplash.com/@lindsayhenwood

How about eating? I am sure you enjoyed a nice meal. But did you enjoy the meal or just swallow it whole. You may find it easier to practice mindfulness if you consider one bite at a time. It is not the one in your hand. Not the one on the plate, but the one in your mouth is the one which tastes. So, if we focus on the other, guess what? You won't even feel the taste.

Do not disturb yourself by imagining your whole life at once Markus Aurelius

When we hear the above quote by Markus Aurelius, that is all what we can think of. To not to disturb yourself by focusing on one specific task at a time not everything else.

But there is more to it. Generally, when we consider life or speak of it, we imagine this as a thing between the birth and the death. The whole spectrum of toddler years childhood youth adulthood and elderly included. And we imagine this and be anxious happy or sad. And we label someone as a successful or a failure depending on this spectrum, looking at it holistically giving it a value.

A book: https://unsplash.com/@longlivehaas

What if life is a novel?

But above wisdom tells us to look at the life in chapters, even pages, even paragraphs, if life is a novel. Then, while you are writing this paragraph called today or the task at hand, it will help us to shape it as perfect as possible without worrying the final outcome.

This wisdom is not a secret. Nowadays everyone talks about it. Mini habits, tiny habits, flow etc. But there is a catch. Only mindfulness enthusiasts will look beyond what is obvious.

Let's look back at our analogy of life compared to writing a novel. Obviously, chapters of this novel appear ending with different outcomes. Childhood chapter ends with a certain outcome when the college chapter begins. Single chapter ends once married. Even paragraphs make sense. Today ends with a certain outcome. You can do certain tasks one step at a time. You can even focus individual sentences and make a meaning out of it. But if you however decided to dissect further and look at the letters individually it doesn't make sense.

Aggregations and combinations.

Combinations: https://unsplash.com/@polarmermaid

Individual letters have no meaning in your novel. Only the aggregation or the combination makes a meaning. Similarly, what you do in each second in your life doesn't make any sense. It is the combination or aggregation of these seconds create a meaning. Now the real question is do life has an inherent meaning to it or is it just an apparent illusion like a novel created by individual letters. Is life an aggregation of meaningless minute steps? How small these steps are and how can anyone make sense out of it. If these small steps are meaningless, who creates the meaning of life? Who gives the values of success and failure to each aggregation of meaningless seconds of the day?

I am not sure about you, but I am perplexed by these thoughts. I can ignore and jump into the ocean of pleasures those aggregated chapters provide. That's what I do for most of the day. Yet as an evolving part of the human consciousness, I also try to push the boundary towards the unknown.

If Marcus Aurelius was here, or Socrates did exist as an AI I can ask these questions and try to make another aggregation of meaning. Yet I cannot do that. So, I ask you the question. The commoners like me, does life make any sense to you? If so, how? Did you dissect these meanings into individual syllables or just believe as it is just an aggregation?