A Primer for the Rest of Your Life

If you look at the masses, they all lead lives that are generally similar. They do uninspired work, have uninspiring relationships, and spend a great deal of time trying to be somewhere else. They are also generally unhappy. The fortunate ones, at least, don’t recognize their own unhappiness.

It doesn’t have to be this way. There can be more to life. You see, people live like this because they fail to ask the right questions. People live like this because they don’t take it upon themselves to turn their life into the life they want it to be.

Let's begin with a simple question: Is your life perfect? It sounds outrageous, I know. The outrageous questions are the ones most worth asking. And after all, why shouldn’t your life be perfect? Are you just going to console yourself with the notion that it isn’t supposed to be? The only reason it isn’t perfect in the first place is that you’ve let yourself get in the way. Imperfection exists in the mind. We call something perfect when it is exactly as we would like it to be. If you had no desire to change anything, you would realize your life is perfect as it is.

The implications of this are astounding. If everything were perfect, nothing would need to be done. You wouldn’t need to seek anyone’s approval, you wouldn’t need to achieve success, you wouldn’t need to become happy. All of your problems would mysteriously vanish. In the wake of your problems’ disappearance, you would realize you are free to spend your life as you wish. The inner fire that you lost when you stopped pursuing your genuine interests would be rekindled. Your work would become masterful, because it would be the work you love. Your relationships would be beautiful, because they would not arise from a need to be loved and accepted. Happiness would become your default state, because you would stop looking for it.

I don’t write these things to give you hope, or to convince you that there is a better way of life. I simply write them because this is how I see the world. If you were to read this and think that I am giving you something to attain, you would have missed the point. It is not about where you should go, but about where you already are. These descriptions are the natural result of acting from a certain understanding, rather than acting to achieve a certain result. It is the fruit of realization, rather than the fruit of action.

Realize the perfection of things as they already are. Understand that they only appear imperfect because of your opinions about them, and your desire for them to be otherwise. Even your desire to change things is not an imperfection. It is as it is.

The only way to solve an imaginary problem is to unimagine it.