I've been taking The Art of Self-Coaching course offered by Stanford in the last 2 months - it's a self-paced online course with YouTube videos and readings that anyone can take, so feel free to check it out if you're interested.
I learned some new topics that were interesting for me on self-awareness, coaching and attention, while other topics were familiar to me as I previously took a Coursera class on positive psychology and resilience. This week, I took time off work and am trying to finish the self-coaching class (I'm on lesson 8 out of 9!). Today, I read these 2 readings and they really resonated with me:
1. Victor Frankl on Love, Suffering and Meaning of Life
I've read Victor Frankl's book on Man's Search for Meaning before, and I was really touched by it. It's a great book about how he survived the Nazi concentration camps, his experiences around finding meaning in the midst of suffering, and his thinking on logotherapy. It resonates well with me, as I've always struggled with the question of what's our purpose in life, what's the point of living? I still don't know the answer, and perhaps will never know, but he's given me one that I can live with: "Perhaps this search for meaning is in fact the purpose of life."
2. Stop Trying to Be "Good Enough" by "Getting Better"
The second reading really resonated with me and the way I think as well - and it made me feel vindicated. Once, someone told me that I should always be improving and getting better in life, as though that should be my main goal and philosophy in living. However, that ran counter to my belief that we should appreciate and focus on what we have, at how far we've come. In fact, I felt offended - what's wrong with being contented with what we've got?
This reading gave me a good compromise - it's not one or the other. You can be striving towards getting better while being contented with what you have, cultivating gratitude and appreciation for what you have. While I'd weigh the latter part as a lot more important than the former, this fits much better with my idea of success and happiness. After all, it's the journey that matters more than the goal itself.
"The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom."
This, I suggest, is how we ultimately come to be "good enough," even as we're continually striving to improve, and let go of the need to "get better."
This is the way I want to live.
