The purpose of ‘How Should I Live My Life?’ is to offer a commentary on the options that face us all as we journey through our lives. I use the word ‘journey’ deliberately as it is a first-rate metaphor, or symbol, for a lived life. The word represents a path, a route, a progress with many turnings-off that we have chosen to ignore, deliberately or otherwise, in favour of the path we have taken.
We may have exercised stringent decision-making skills in our choice of path. Or not, the path simply opened before us, and we followed it. There is no right answer, my only comment is that it may be better to choose a path consciously rather than subconsciously. At least then we will have an inkling of why we have arrived at where we are!
You, the reader, will probably have certain personality traits or characteristics that may influence your decision-making process. So, although there are no right answers, you will want to feel that you made the correct decision for you at that time, that you were in control. One of the awful attributes of not being in control is a sense of randomness which for most people is a destabiliser.
You may already be aware of how richly textured the discussion in HSILML? will be. Think of the billions of granular choices made subconsciously every day. Supplemented by the millions of high-level decisions that people have given some thought to. And every day, hundreds of people are making life-supporting, death-defying, and deadly choices. I think that ‘awake-when-I-am-making-choices’ is good today, as good as ‘woke’. So you will encounter talk about decisions and choices without any explicit advice, rather an invitation to reflect on them. This way, you will take the responsibility for thinking and acting which is your human right.
This is a paradox at the heart of HSILML? The question mark implies I must give an answer, but practically I will not. I will leave it to you, my reader, to decide what to do. I may indicate my preference, simply as a fellow human being, but I will not be prescriptive.
Please walk alongside me on this journey. We will discuss many aspects of our lives together – structures, behaviours, heroes, choices, what ifs?, systems, characteristics, choices, options and much more. I will invite you to participate in the conversation as people do who are travelling side-by-side. Or you can remain silent, rather reflecting on your experiences and their meaning.