What is the quality of your life as well as its length?
A man went on a quest to find the purpose of life. He thought it would be good to go to a temple and ask the monk about this.
This man went to the monk and started asking questions about life. After these questions, the monk gave him a spoon and put some liquid in it. He said, “Walk around the temple and its surroundings, come and do not lose even a drop.”
The man who made the tour came back without losing any fluid by focusing. The monk’s first question was: What did you see in and around the temple? has happened.
The man said, “I was just trying not to lose fluid, I didn’t see anything.” This time, he went on another tour with the same spoon and focused on all the beauties. When it arrived, there was not a single drop of liquid left in the spoon.
What the story tells is about what kind of balance we establish in our own lives. Can you notice which branches of life outweigh you? Also realize that there is a lot of potential to pile up there.
Working too much or not working at all, eating too much or not eating at all, playing too many games or depriving your life of all games.
Both ends of these lead to the same path, as in the story. What the story wants to tell is to be consistent in your own path, work and service while seeing these beauties created around you.
How to live life is to pray as if you were going to die today, build a life here as if you will never die, and work devotedly. Both are in balance.
Thus, even if a person lives for 100 years, the important thing is how balanced he can progress here. It means being able to provide your own service and see the meaning while enjoying life.
I watched the Netflix documentary about living to 100 years. The basis of this article will be to detail the essence of this documentary and mention that there are methods that are easy to apply to everyone’s life.
We will consider humans from 4 perspectives.
- Aim
- Movement
- Nutrition
- Relationships
Purpose
People have a specific purpose for getting out of bed, although the purpose may differ across geographies. This is like Ikigai in Japan, Plan de screw in Costa Rica.
Questions you can ask to determine your purpose are:
What do you like to do?
What would you like to change in the world?
In what subjects are you talented?
How can you make money?
As you answer these questions over time, your purpose will become clear. I want to give an example from myself.
What do you like to do? I love serving people.
Like a restaurateur, psychologist, trainer, or teacher. It makes me happy to contact people, offer them my service, and interact.
It feels good for me to get instant feedback and the benefits my service brings to them and the happiness it creates in their lives.
What would you like to change in the world? Strengthening the bonds of love and improving people’s ability to connect a little more deeply.
In what subjects are you talented? In terms of physical movements, I can effortlessly perform movements that are difficult and require deep stretching in the field of yoga.
How can you make money? Providing 1-1 yoga training services, training yoga instructors, courses and events, e-book and book writing and consultancy services
Ask yourself these questions and start to see where some doors will open for you.
As I said, you may not be able to answer these questions immediately.
Movement
Yes, we got out of bed. Now is the time to act!
People who live long and healthy start by moving in the first hour of the day. This movement plays a role in waking up their bodies and accelerating their circulation.
The first exercise of the day may consist of picking crops from the garden, a walk, yoga, or stretching. It would be better if our aim is to focus on the legs of our body, which we call the lower extremities.
Muscles create movement. Help them develop and stay vigorous by giving them movement. This is an important factor for you to start the day vigorously and dynamically.
Activities such as dancing that get you moving during the day are an attribute of a long and healthy life.
You may also prefer yoga, which allows us to move and connect with our body and understand ourselves.
I recommend walking or cycling rather than going somewhere by car or vehicle. This will get you moving even when you’re commuting to work, rather than just taking time to exercise or move.
Nutrition
Let’s drink our water within 4 hours of waking up in the morning. It is possible to enrich water with minerals by using liquid natural rock salt.
Instead of focusing on what not to eat in the nutrition section, let’s look at what we have. Healthy foods, our own crops, vegetables, grains, fruits, and herbs.
All of them are a healthier source of nutrition for us compared to other foods. Here you can drink at least two glasses of water and have breakfast after the 4-hour period.
A method used by long-lived people is to eat until your stomach is 80% full and stop.
Instead of consuming snacks or snacks, it is best to have dinner with friends or family by chewing a lot. It’s best to stay away from stress and arguments this dinner.
Because the effect of these words affects the food!
Relationships
When it comes to relationships, the value given to family, spending time, providing services and assistance to other people, and establishing the right environment constitute the lifeblood of our relationships.
Sometimes you may need to isolate yourself from society or be alone. This is quite natural. Every person wants to spend time with themselves and be alone sometimes.
It would be best for us to balance this and stay away from its extremes.
We can visualize relationships and the roles we play in them as a matryoshka.
The order of this matryoshka, from inside to outside, is as follows;
- Ourselves
- Our Nuclear Family
- Our Extended Family
- our friends
- People we know
As we create our own environment, we become more likely to be more like the people we spend time with. If we have little power to influence them, we should be careful about this.
It would be in our best interest to treat those around us as we would like to become and what we expect from them.
That’s why choosing a spouse and friend plays an important role here. We unite in line with the purpose we set with this role. Paying attention to these and establishing the perception of walking the path together will make these choices easier.
Helping and providing service without compensation will be good for us in the first place. You can see it as progressing by forming a tribe and supporting each other.
This is where Moai culture in Japan comes from. In the Okinawa region, this is a circle of support. It is a community where local people show solidarity with each other, help each other, develop friendships, and spend time.
The impact of this is more than you think. Joining or creating a community and the feeling of belonging to this community roots you here. It makes you feel happy and reminds you that you are not alone.
You will see the effects of all these steps taken towards our goal as they begin to reflect on our day.
One Day
Beyond living 100 years, being aware of how to live 1 day will take us there.
Apply these perspectives to your 1 day. Doing it all at once can be challenging. It will be good for you to choose a simple one, apply it and progress step by step with discipline.
As you apply these perspectives sufficiently within 1 day, you will notice the changes.
As you begin to feel and know where you want to go and what you want to be, the path becomes visible.