Yes, I am a Data Engineer but of course, this does not mean I do not spend time thinking about life or finding myself in it.
I am a person who likes to think about the surrounding world in technical terms. One can argue that this approach means you are not truly enjoying the beauty of life because as my dad once said for example “love is not math”.
In fact, I believe that I can enjoy life better the more I dig deeper into my own core and truth.
I have understood that we came to this world with built-in software. The day one will understand it, is the day one can discover freedom. The freedom to override default features and configurations.
You can take what’s in it for you. Build extensions, make necessary updates to make sure that your Operating System is up and running how you would like it to run.
There is plenty of default features in our brain, for example, the will to survive, which is not necessarily bad. There are also ones that are created by society, beliefs, etc. you could pay closer attention to. I am not a psychologist so I don’t feel educated enough to dig really deep into that but what I can do is to give an insight into my own story.
Above mentioned “software” programmed by society is something that I like to call a filter. One of the filters that I like to push my thoughts through was to buy. Yes, you have to constantly buy and buy new and buy more and never stop doing that!
Once you are kind enough for yourself to create a space to understand who you are you can ask yourself a question “Is this me?”, “Is this filter what I need?”.
In short, this is how I stopped buying things.
I became a happier person since I no longer have to think about what else I need to buy. I created extra space in my brain that I can dedicate to something else like for example going outside and enjoy the simple things we normally ignore like the number of beautiful colors around us.
Try it! The very next time you go out, just pay attention to different colors everywhere.
A few words about the pain.. and not only.
Everything is neutral. We are the ones who assign values to each cell in our database tables. Feel free to update rows where the data is corrupted.
Take inspiration from Marcus Aurelius:
“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”
Yes, I am happy to inform you that you are the one deciding that your colleague is annoying or that the weather is ugly today. Is it? Can’t we just agree that everything is neutral and be happy about experiencing the gray weather and thank nature to give us these gray days to be even happier when it shines after all?
Besides, I love to read what people that lived so long time ago had to say as they lived with a smaller number of filters than we do (take social media as an example).
I encourage every person to rethink their life. You may be doing things you are totally not happy with. You are the programmer of your own life. Take responsibility for CPU utilization. Dedicate processing time to the people or actions you should dedicate time to. Choose applications running on your core. You are in power to control your happiness. Never loose connection with your own, private, unique WIFI router :-).
Discovering yourself is cool!
Good luck!