Timeless Island of Happiness

I came across a beautiful text that I needed to share with you. It has a headline that is just perfect, reminding me of my in-between days (will share about that later). The author is Markus Schudel. It was in German. So I got in touch with him to get his permission to translate it into English for you. Here it is:

Timeless Island of Happiness

by Markus Schudel Translated by me

Hobbies and the Internet gobble up all our time. Those who have too much time at their hand, on the other hand, live an anachronistic life. And there are many of those people, just that they do not say so: Who likes to admit that they have time in abundance and don’t know how to use it?

24 hrs can be a long time if you get stuck and walls you built around you close in. Seven days of a week are even longer. And it’s better not to look further ahead. It becomes unbearable when the empty endlessness is before your eyes.

For example, think of someone who loses a job, for whom no suitable work is in sight for months, for whom, moreover, no partnership or family provides meaning, or where the children have already fledged, not starving to death, because the unemployment office or social welfare systems gives a basic income, which is enough for physical survival. But the person concerned dies of thirst internally, loses hope and courage. Emptiness and meaninglessness eat you away from within like a cancer and infiltrate your life energy. In addition, the voice in the back of the head torments you: “Why aren’t you working? Why aren’t you earning your money? Why aren’t you being productive?” It is easy to guess that this condition is unhealthy in the long run and makes you sick.

Decision with Intention

If you struggle with these thoughts and inner voices, you feel shut in, because neither TV, Internet, chocolate, sports, psychiatrists or medication is going to help. If you feel it is working, it is at most temporarily and partially. The inner voice continues to gnaw at one’s self-worth. One’s own inner world will make itself heard more and more. The feeling of being a victim, of being powerless, asserts itself.

It takes a clear decision with a clear intention: “I don’t want this anymore. I don’t accept this anymore.” – One must “cross the Rubicon,” as Caesar did when he marched on Rome with his legions. Despite all doubts, he implemented the decision and did not deviate from his plan.

Whoever makes this decision will feel a sense of strength at the same moment, because one has just left a piece of powerlessness behind. It can even trigger a feeling of happiness. And that’s what it’s all about: we need to rekindle, cherish and expand this feeling of happiness again and again.

The power of thought

At the same time this is where the sticking point begins, because you will trip yourself up a hundred or a thousand times before you embark on this new path. Unfortunately, man’s intelligence is not as bright as we might think when looking at technical achievements, philosophical abilities or unchallenged supremacy on the planet, because we do not understand: Whether we carry the notion of “too much time” or “too little time” within us or only look at the material side of things, it definitely shows that we do not have our lives under control. We are guided by unconscious programming that is, determined by the body, not the mind. The mind, on the other hand, has little chance because it is outnumbered 1:20 by our emotional body memory. This is not fate, because we have conditioned ourselves during ten, thirty or fifty years to such an extent that our life always repeats itself to 95 percent: Nothing changes, because if we think like yesterday, we also feel like yesterday and will behave like yesterday in the future. What is there to change?

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My personal invitation to continue reading on my Kulturimpuls blog

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Jutta Jerlich is an Educator, Entrepreneurial Mentor and Collaboration Advocate

Inspiration is the start of Collaboration and Cocreation