We are social animals. We feel anxious and lonely when we're isolated from social relationships, and we always try to find our worth in relationships. What we should remember before the coming new year, however, is that we are worth more than our social value.
The labels attached to us by our social value are all relative. There are times when our profession, money, reputation, comments on social media, and the like bring us joy, but sometimes they also are the cause of our suffering.
To bring balance and joy to our lives, I want to propose that we try to find our personal value, in addition to our social value. I'm talking about our own existential value, the value we discover and choose for ourselves, not the value forced on us by society.
On our journey in search of personal value, we have no better friends than our brains, for our brains strive to find the answers to whatever questions we ask. The work we should do is clearly
teach our brains that there is something more important in life than our social resumes.
To do that, we have to pose a question to our brains that is entirely different from those we've asked so far. We have to ask our brains, truthfully and stubbornly, to find
values for us that bring true inner fulfillment, values that aren't subject to competition or haggling.
When we find those values, we can know who we really are and what we really want. We can live our own, authentic lives, not the lives expected by society or other people.
We'll see a healthier, more beautiful world when we each
live our own authentic life. We can discover the true character of humanity when we each take back our brain.
I'm cheering for you and your brain. May a new, flourishing life unfold for you in 2019.
Ilchi Lee