ματαιότης (Mataiótes) – A Breath of Wind: Dwelling Deeper Instead of Becoming Better

Life as a permanent construction site: We measure our sleep, count our steps, track our pulse. We work on our resilience, our communication, our relationship patterns. Even personal development has become a project!

Behind it lies a quiet equation: If I just work on myself hard enough, my life will turn out well. And if it doesn't? My own fault, then?

There were greater and wiser people before us who asked themselves these questions. And what they found is astonishing. For once, I don't want to write about the Greeks and modern happiness psychology – because right now I'm finding something quite remarkable in a rather well-known book that knows a lot about the hard trials of human life: constant war, displacement, living in a foreign land, loneliness – and all kinds of blows of fate on top.

As long as fortune smiles on you: no problem. The pursuit of happiness and all that work on yourself function just fine. But an uncomfortable question remains: What if I do all of that – and my life still turns out differently than planned? Not successful, no fame and honour, no family … all rather un-instagrammable? What if we realize: meaning, and the feeling of being held by life, cannot simply be manufactured.

Regular readers of my blog know Viktor Frankl. The Viennese psychiatrist and survivor of several concentration camps has an answer that still holds today: Meaning is not produced, it is found. In what we create. In what and whom we love. And – hardest of all – in the stance we take toward what we cannot change.

Frankl liked to quote Nietzsche: “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”

And he turned the question around: It is not I who ask life what it still owes me – life asks me what my answer is. Happiness cannot be chased. It arrives as a side effect of devotion to something greater than our own ego.

Because – you are not in control. A brutally sobering insight in an age obsessed with feasibility. The Stoics already knew it: Some things are within our power – our judgment, our attitude, our actions. Most things are not. Life is a breath of wind: Kohelet – the author of Ecclesiastes – tries everything: knowledge, success, possessions, pleasure. And more than 2,000 years ago he concludes that none of it can be held on to. His conclusion, though, is astonishingly life-affirming: Eat, drink, work, love. Enjoy what is good today.

For life is not meritocratic. You can live healthily and still fall ill. You can work on your relationship and still be left. You can do everything right and still fail. Acknowledging this is not pessimism. It is the beginning of serenity.

So let go of the stress: not everything has to become growth

Not every unpleasant feeling needs to be regulated, reframed or turned into personal growth. Some things simply need to be mourned. There is such a thing as justified discontent – it is not a sign of a bad mindset, but of being awake.

And the reverse is just as important: pleasure needs no purpose. An evening with friends doesn't have to optimize anything. Not every walk has to raise your step count. Some things are simply beautiful. That is enough.

No one saves themselves alone

The longest-running study on the good life has been under way at Harvard University since 1938. After more than 80 years, its result is almost embarrassingly simple: Good relationships are the strongest factor for health and happiness. Not success, not fitness, not self-discipline.

Some crises we survive not because we finally became resilient enough. But because someone sits beside us and does not leave.

Dwelling deeper instead of becoming better

Perhaps maturity is, at some point, no longer about becoming an ever better version of ourselves. But about inhabiting this imperfect life ever more deeply. With what succeeds. With what fails. With the people we love. With losses that cannot be turned into growth. With moments we enjoy even though we know they will pass.

Kohelet adds: Despite the seemingly pessimistic finding that everything is fleeting and can no more be held than the wind, this radical insight into transience leaves room for a surprisingly cheerful, almost radically present-focused joy in life:

“So I realized that there is nothing better than to be joyful and to enjoy the good things of life. For everyone who eats and drinks and finds contentment in all their toil – this is a gift of God.” (Ecclesiastes 3:12–13)

Aristotle would say: Become who you want to be. Positive psychology: Flourish. Frankl: Don't just ask what you expect from life – ask what life expects from you.

Perhaps we need a little of all of it. But certainly not yet another project to finally turn ourselves into perfect human beings. So I'm skipping my workout now and going out for a relaxed dinner with my son. Carpe diem!