We are sometimes caught in a whirlwind that pushes us to systematically give priority to others and to things, until we end up forgetting ourselves. When that happens, a critical event often occurs to set things right: the physical or emotional crisis it produces forces us to reconsider our way of living.
If you forget yourself, who will think of you?
The world demands your time, your energy, your attention, your love, your intelligence — in short, your whole being. While generosity is a virtue, it becomes a flaw when it turns into prodigality. The line between these two is sometimes very thin; that is why it’s essential to have a system that allows us never to lose ourselves and to avoid always wanting to please others.
A trap that many of us have fallen into is wanting to please others more than ourselves or God. This desire to please often comes from a lack of love felt in childhood. You may not have been loved as you deserved, or perhaps the love you received was conditional. You therefore never felt secure in the love you would or would not receive. This uncertainty created in you the constant need to prove that you were worthy of being loved, and so you began to make endless efforts to gain others’ approval or kindness.
Not taking time for yourself inevitably means neglecting God. Connection with God is an intimate relationship that requires time and attention, like any other relationship. The natural and divine hierarchy implies that we dedicate ourselves first to God, and then to more mundane matters. The problem is that everyday life constantly pulls us toward material things. Our need for transcendence should structure our day in such a way that we remain continuously in a spiritual state of mind.
Crises occur because we have not done things properly for too long. If you live while neglecting an essential aspect of your life, Providence will likely intervene to restore balance. It hurts at first, especially because we believe we had nothing to do with what happens to us. But with a bit of perspective, we usually realize that we could have been more attentive — that this catastrophe might have been avoided if we had focused elsewhere. Every crisis deserves personal reflection; it is a message from the Divine indicating that something must change.
If your attention, time, and energy are constantly directed toward something that distracts you from God, you are living in sin. Being in harmony with God requires giving Him time.
One way to get closer to God is to slow down and reclaim your cognitive resources, your heart, and your soul. A sign that you are doing too much is when you feel that your attention no longer belongs to you. Having control of your attention, time, and energy is essential to reconnect with God.
“Doing nothing” doesn’t really exist when you live an active life — periods of apparent idleness are actually moments of recovery, dreaming, and relaxation, and are therefore essential to a happy life. It is only when idleness becomes your default mode that it becomes harmful.
A performance-driven society creates the need to be strong and beautiful to be loved or desired. This explains why crowds rush to gyms and spend an incredible amount of time there, even though not so long ago — maybe thirty years — physical appearance was far less important in human relationships. There was greater tolerance for those who “didn’t fit the norm” physically, even if human rights were not the same as today.
Work is an illusion. At the end of your life, you will realize that you devoted far too much time to it. Work brings social comfort, but rarely access to legacy. All that you were in your job will generally be forgotten, and you will see that what truly mattered happened outside of it: your family, your creativity, your spirituality.
There are two deaths: the one that coincides with your last breath, and the one that occurs when the last person who remembers you dies. Make sure to delay that second death — and that means dedicating yourself to others and to what truly matters.
Sleep is not superfluous. It is perhaps the most essential activity for a healthy life. Yet today’s ultra-productive era tends to despise rest, as it seems inherently unproductive. What is often forgotten is that the goal of life is not to produce — which would reduce us to machines — but to live happily. Certainly, money is necessary to live well, but one must not confuse means with ends. To regain control of oneself, one must reclaim the right to rest.
If past events still haunt you, it is likely because you have not yet learned their lessons. As the saying goes: you either win or you learn. In truth, you always win. Feeling like you’ve lost only happens when defeat brings no lesson; it is therefore up to you to reflect on your failures, extract their lessons, and turn them into victories.
What matters in life is focusing on what is essential. We often burden ourselves with all kinds of obligations under social pressure, mimicry, or the desire to belong. As we grow older, we realize that many decisions made in youth were actually futile and only distracted us from what truly matters.
The art of abstaining from doing something aligns with the idea of daily elimination. When you consciously decide to do fewer harmful things and possess fewer bad things, you naturally feel better.
What truly matters is antifragility — the ability to improve after every challenge or crisis. This requires humility, wisdom, and determination. Being stronger after hardship shows great intelligence and the ability to draw from many fields — spirituality, philosophy, anthropology, history, etc. All these disciplines provide points of comparison that help you see antifragility where others see defeat.
It is by collecting mental models across different domains that one becomes wiser — synonymous with antifragility.
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