What is your philosophy in life?
By: Deepika B
Tags: Life Philosophy, Positivity, Philosophy, Life Lessons

I recently started reading “Hit Refresh”, Satya Nadella’s book on his journey as Microsoft’s CEO. Being the proud owner of an Employee Edition, I get to read little handwritten footnotes in several sections of the book. In one such section, I read the following -

“Try writing down your personal philosophy — what motivates you? What do you stand for?”

I struck a chord deep within, and I’ll tell you why. My uncle, who is more of an elder brother to me, often guides me in times of distress. In my first year of college, I had the good fortune of staying with him and my adorable grandmother. On one day that year, when I was feeling particularly low, my uncle sat me down. We spoke for a while and when I felt a little calmer, he said, “Deepu, you must build a philosophy in life.” I did not understand what he meant.

Years went by. I heard him repeat this line once in a while. I would spend a few seconds wondering what my “philosophy” is and eventually get bored and give up. It is much later that I realized that this one word actually is a combination of self-awareness, confidence to stand by what you believe in, and finally, a support system that cares for you and objectively gives advice based on facts.

In this era of information overdose, it is incredibly easy to Google a problem you’re facing and find some generic article about it. You might even find a personal account that seems so similar to what you’re going through. We call ourselves millennials and go about questioning our superstitions and religious beliefs, yet don’t think twice before placing our unconditional faith in an anonymous article that a search engine threw up. You either question everything, or you don’t question anything. So how do you decide which path to choose?

Self-awareness.

Do you really know what you want? What you really care about and what really makes you happy when no one is watching? Out of the 24 hours I have in a day, I spend 7 sleeping, 10 working, 4 on my daily routine and the remaining 4 is just context switch time, to be honest. I don’t spend any time consciously finding what my body, soul, heart and mind is telling me. They might be screaming at me, for all I know, but I can barely hear them amidst the noise I choose to surround myself with. Note — I said choose. It is definitely easier to throw your hands up and put the onus on circumstances, but I firmly believe that the choice to reduce the clutter in your life and be more self aware is in your hands and you can choose to take a small step in that direction every single day. Since you’re reading my article, I’m confident you’re not an ascetic sitting in the Himalayas because you would’ve read the title and gone, “Psshht, been there, done that”. You’re like me, interacting with different people on a daily basis, listening to their opinions and being influenced by them and influencing them in turn. Eventually, you get so lost in all the external factors that mould and shape you, you stop listening to the one person who knows you best — you. Allowing yourself to believe in what you are telling yourself and then letting yourself to be influenced by it is a completely different game in itself. Ironic isn’t it — you’re probably the only person (other than your parents) who cares about you (Recursion, in your face) and yet you don’t nurture this inner voice at all.

If you did, you’d see that most of the answers that you’re looking for on the internet, are all right within you. Look around to find people dealing with similar situations, learn from them and help them, no harm in it. But when you want a solution that’s perfectly customized for you, there’s no better place than within you. One way to get started is to ask yourself, “If no one is going to watch me, what would I do?” And since we all have this cute little angel-ring and a cunning red-horn side to us, I’d also urge you to recognize what action is for the greater good and give your angel’s call extra brownie points. That side of you receives far too less gratification. If you don’t encourage it, no one else will :P Listen with a patient ear, and you’ll be sure to hear an answer. For me, mental dialogues can be exhausting. So I resort to writing that helps me have tangible conversations with myself, with a nice little stack trace to debug when I hit exceptions :P

Once self-awareness kicks in, it sets something churning in you. You finally feel some harmony because you’ve acknowledged what your inner voice is saying. Muster up the courage at this point to stand by what you believe in. There is a lot of peace in simply being you and having the courage to show that side to the world.

Finally, identify your support system — one person or a group of people who constantly make you a better human being. They will give you the courage to stand by your beliefs and actions when others ridicule you. Even if you are lucky enough to have someone do this for you a couple of times, it is enough to become your own support system at some point in life. When you hit this inflection point, it might be safe to say that you’ve begun to build your own philosophy in life.

One day, you’ll get here. Maybe.

Moreover, eventually, you will be passing on all this hard-earned wisdom to others who go on to make you their guide for finding their philosophy in life. What goes around, comes around :) So what’s stopping you from setting the ball rolling?