Sometimes, truth runs deeper in one vague question than a thousand analytic
components. When asked to name the features that define a successful life, people
would readily tell you that it concerns freedom, intelligence, or the achievement
of financial abundance, high reputation, and happy relationship. They are all great
answers, of course, but a critical question remains:
What if someone, who has all these elements in life, still feels something’s missing
and wishes to have lived differently? What if he is not proud of what he has become,
especially to his younger self, and realizes too late that he’s lived by not his own
values and desires but by other people’s expectations, opinions, and preferences?
For this reason, I believe there’s one fundamental condition that should precede
all the other specific components for a successful life. I’d like to name it as the true
friendship between our heads and hearts. And let me explain why this is important
in the way I understand it.
As we grow old, we are constantly trained to trample down our inner voices in the
name of appropriate behaviors. For example, we learn to obey people in authority
from the first day of school. We learn to act in a certain way and project a certain
image to better fit in with people around us. And later on we learn to sacrifice
ourselves in the name of providing high-quality customer service.
In this socialization process, we let our world centre around other people’s opinions
and preferences. We unconsciously make a religion of worshipping them. And we
gradually lose ourselves and eventually follow the crowd. As a result, we estrange
our heads from our hearts. This becomes problematic when we spend years and years
at schools learning what other people think is good, in order to do what they believe
to be good for us for the rest of our lives. This becomes problematic when we,
when we form relationships based on the dogmatic criteria of social status and
wealth instead of sincere connections and feelings. And this becomes especially
problematic when we wake up one day, recognize something is wrong, but can’t
do anything about it as we have come far too long down the road we didn’t want,
for the things we don’t need, to live the life we don’t appreciate in the end. Because
such a life we have to live has everything except one precious element: myself.
And that’s precisely why nobody dreams of following the footsteps of Jay Gatsby
from the novel “The Great Gatsby”. For your information, he’s got nearly everything
a man could dream of: a stately mansion in New York, a degree from Oxford, and
a handsome physicality of a soldier. They are achievements Gatsby made only to
please the girl he loves, and because his entire life revolves around proving himself
to her, his life becomes empty and meaningless when she is gone. And perhaps it’s
a good idea to think about what she here represents in our modern conditions in which
people blindly chase after money, power, and fame. So, what’s the solution instead?
We can start by listening to our own hearts. Instead of seeking answers from outside,
we can begin to rely on the wisdom from within. Let the philosophers in the minds
and sages in the hearts gather round the common table for negotiations. Let the
cooperative relationships between our heads and hearts always discuss where in life
we should be headed, what we truly find meaningful, and how we want to create the
masterpiece called our own life.
That’s what I believe to be the rule and condition that should precede all the other
specific answers for a successful life. Constant trials and errors based on the
self-reflection and self-reliance made possible through a happy relationship between
the heart and the mind. That’s the way I’d live my life, and I suggest you’d give it a
try as well. Because the arc of the friendship may be long, but it bends towards
success in life. Thank you.