Recently I've been thinking a lot about what I've been doing in the last couple of months and what I'm going to do in the nearby future. I feel it's time to define my path somehow because it gives me the focus to do the things I love and find important. It sharpens my sense of direction. It cuts away the things I don't need (anymore) and gives more time and energy to the things that deserve attention.
I've found it easiest to work with certain structures when doing this. These structures aren't made to be strictly followed and can be changed. They are guidelines to make life easier. Below is one of these structures that I regularly use. It consists of thinking in three levels: The experience level, the socio-ecological level and the passion level. I think of these three levels as circles, the experience level enclosing the socio-ecological level and the latter enclosing the passion level.
Experience level
This is the most important level in my opinion. It is the way you experience the world. It's the way you see things. On this level there are often things involved like spirituality and psychology.
For me this means seeing myself as a part of the bigger whole. The fact that we are connected to each other and our environment. It makes me think about the things I do and what effect they would have on the world.
Neglecting this would mean either seeing yourself as the main priority or your environment/the others. It would mean a disunity and the creation of an hierarchy where you either place yourself above the rest or the rest above yourself. I believe equality and unity are important, which can only be manifested in thinking and doing when you experience the world as a whole.
Socio-ecological level
This level gives you the borders in which you can act. Outside these borders you would have a negative impact socially and/or ecologically. After you start perceiving yourself and the world as connected to each other, you automatically start to become conscious about your actions. At least that's how I experience it. It is a continuous challenge to see how your actions have an impact on the world and to adjust them accordingly.
For me personally this means reducing my socio-ecological impact mostly on the levels of food, shelter and transportation, because these have the largest impact on the rest of the world.
Lately I'm becoming really interested in cooking, so this will become one of my priorities as soon as possible. I mean, people in our society eat at least three times a day, so it has an enormous impact on the environment when we constantly eat things that need a lot of resources to be made.
Passion level
This is the level where your passion or passions come into the world. These are the things you love to do and give you energy. These are the things that make you jump out of bed first thing in the morning because you can't wait to get started.
For me, as much as I'm involved in several ecological projects, these projects aren't my passion, which might surprise some people reading this right now. I find it very important to work on these projects however, because they give me the borders in which I can perform my passion. If I wouldn't be involved into such projects, chances are I wouldn't have the knowledge to perform my passions in a way that they wouldn't have a negative impact socially and/or ecologically.
No, when it comes to passions, I consider myself an artist in the first place. I have an urge to be creative. I have to be honest here and say that I've neglected this level too much for quite some time now and I'm starting to feel the side-effects. I'm starting to feel a lack of energy. It's time to give the artist in me the attention he deserves. It's time to give life to a world inside me that's been waiting there for too long.
To summarize: My main priorities for the near future are cooking and being creative.
No comments:
Post a Comment