Times When We Have It All, Needing Nothing Else

There are wonderful moments when we have it all, where every aspect is held in an almost prodigious balance. However, soon this magic dissipates, or simply ends. It is then when we realize that in the end what is important in this life is to be well with ourselves, to have tranquility, to have peace.

Zygmunt Bauman, Polish sociologist and philosopher, points out that we currently live in a consumer society that invites us to desire what others say we lack, to discard what we already have and make fleeting use of what they offer us. They are somehow transforming us into dissatisfied creatures, into people who value immediacy over tranquility, who crave what they don’t have instead of appreciating what they already have.

This culture often makes us despair when we realize that happiness never comes, and if it does, it is as fleeting as a wink, like the dewdrop that disappears with the midday sun. It is then that we blame property, the political spheres, our bosses, our families, and the people who perhaps promised us eternal love without knowing that their concept of eternity was no more than a quarter.

We become orphans of self-esteem, emotional bums who will take a while to understand that sometimes having everything is accepting what already surrounds us : ourselves, our families, friends and our own ability to create, not to to be molded.

Moments when we allow ourselves to flow

Many of the languages ​​present in our world have the peculiarity of limiting in a single word ideas that in other languages ​​need many terms to be defined. In Japan, for example, there is a curious expression called Yūgen” (), which can be translated as the deep, mysterious and intense emotion that a person experiences when observing the universe.

It is, above all, the ability to look at the world from the heart or feelings to gain a deeper wisdom about our surroundings. Something like this can only be acquired from a relaxed, centered and quiet mind that has learned to prioritize, to make the instants eternities loaded with meaning. This is also what Reinhold Messner thinks, who so far is considered the best climber in the world.

He was the first person to reach the highest peaks in the world without oxygen, and most of the time in solitude. A lover of nature, of extreme experiences, often criticized for his personality. Someone who learned early on that true happiness is moments, that the most intense, full and true well-being is not getting and accumulating things: but doing what we love and observing the wonders around us.

Reinhold Messner

This state of mind in which we feel that we have everything and that happiness embraces us like an invisible but comforting veil is what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi defined in 1990 as a state of fluidity. Being immersed in an activity, the positive feedback itself in achieving a grateful sense of well-being and self-efficacy, is what defines this basic joy of being to which we should all aspire.

Moments when we have everything, moments when nothing is missing

For today’s human being, something is always missing. Buying a state-of-the-art phone implies that another one with better features will soon come out. Getting a job makes us happy, but that happiness disappears when the task becomes routine and we don’t feel fulfilled. We start passionate relationships, but little by little the emptiness appears where, once again, we feel that something is missing, that this love is incomplete.

We could almost ironically say that these emptiness, these indescribable, eternal, and sometimes even distressing needs, are like a “trojan” hidden in our brain that will always invite us to look for something more. Because dissatisfaction invites a search, and a search for a new discovery. However, before turning into eternal Ulysses, on a journey of no return, it is worth stopping and simply enjoying what we already have.

These moments, when we finally realize we have everything we need, come when we discover our passion and pursue it. Reinhold Messner found it in the mountains, we can find it in another hobby, in our own work, in our family, in sport, in art… Because happiness is, above all, a purpose and an activity, it is making decisions, it is balancing the present moment with a mind that feels focused, satisfied, competent.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls this the “sweet spot”. It is a state that is reached when we let go of the pressures and anxieties, where the mental noise disappears and resistances, limiting attitudes drop… An entire adventure in our personal growth in which it is worth investing every day, every moment.

Images courtesy Andrea Marsh, Art Mesmer-K.