How to live easier, better, happier? Don't underestimate life.

Debesylian stories

You will surprise me if you say that you do not face difficulties in life. Do you meet? And I face. Everyone is facing. Overcoming those difficulties burns a lot of calories and brain cells.

Although it's nice to overcome them, don't you sometimes dream: "It would be nice if everything was easier"? Debesyla asks this too, and I answer - yes, I know. I will share a thousand-year-old principle that will make everything easier to do.

There are more such principles, but I have chosen one of the strongest. So hang on, you're about to go up in the air (because you'll feel the lightness).

What could be difficult?

Before talking about ease, it is necessary to understand what is the difficulty that we are going to raise here. Difficulties in life are actions that we must take and which require a lot of energy, effort, preparation, determination. So much so that shouts of “Just do it!” just don't work.

Difficulties are of three types - mind, communication and body:

  1. It can be difficult for the mind to make a decision, choose between several alternatives, generate ideas, figure out how to solve one or another task in life.
  2. There were also many difficulties in communication - after all, it can be difficult to apologize, ask for a favor or help, it is difficult to speak in public, to announce unpleasant news, it is difficult to negotiate.
  3. The body experiences difficulties when we force it to do physical exercises, to follow a regime, a diet, it is difficult to stand up and go out, when something chokes, it is also difficult to give something in the mouth. (If you apply the principle, everything will be easier. Both good and bad deeds.)

And why is it difficult?

Because many of these actions become so entangled in a web of reflections and evaluations that you no longer begin to catch yourself: it is good or bad, to do it or not, whether I want it or not. You start to think that others are unimportant, ugly, won't like it, then it becomes irrelevant, then motivation disappears and then you have to force yourself to take action and the action becomes sooooo hard... that you don't want to do anything at all.

It is said that "do it now and don't wait!". Then, you won't have time to get involved in excessive analyses. Maybe so, but we are talking about those cases when "Just do it!" doesn't work.

What to do?

A thousand-year-old principle that no one uses.

Stop judging everything. I mean, don't try to name, classify, rank, compare, describe, define, score, weight, label, or stereotype.

Accept everything as it is at that moment.

When I talk about what you don't need to do, it would seem like it's simple - you don't do it and that's it, but you know, you won't be able to stop evaluating all of a sudden. You will have to constantly remind yourself that you don't need to evaluate, observe, or you haven't started to evaluate, and if you have started, immediately remind yourself again - "I try not to evaluate anything in advance, I accept it as it is at that moment".

The Bible says "Judge not and ye shall not be judged." Understand - if you don't try to squeeze others into the framework of your invented rating scale, you yourself will be free from those frameworks of yours.

Buddhist scriptures speak of shunyata (emptiness) and that every object in the world is shunyata (emptiness). This means that no object has any evaluation by itself, evaluations and descriptions are invented by people.

So what?

Here's what happens when you try to evaluate the task before solving it:

  • First of all, you waste a lot of energy deciding whether it's black or white, green or yellow.
  • Sometimes you get caught up in internal deliberations and can't make up your mind - whether it's green or yellow. Then everything stops altogether and you have to postpone the work for the next day.
  • If you fail to evaluate, frustration sets in and you feel like you don't understand what needs to be done. Although the action itself that needed to be done is clear.
  • If the assessment is successful, then it starts to seem that you already know how everything will be and then either there is a fear that everything will be bad and you no longer want to do anything, or it starts to seem that everything will be fine anyway and you also no longer want to do anything.
  • The worst thing is that the ratings that are so difficult to assign start to seem absolutely correct and indisputable, and that everyone else in the world would give the same ratings. This is where most of the conflicts come from.

If you get rid of the habit of evaluating everything, it will become easier, because only the action itself that needs to be done will remain, unencumbered by meanings, classifications, comparisons, names, descriptions.

When there is only the action left, you can think about how to do it, no longer have to deal with the moral problems that you associate with it quite unnecessarily.

A climber is climbing a mountain, and next to it - unexpectedly - a runner is running up a mountain!

Climber: Wow, it turns out it's possible and easier! Runner: Ugh, how hard.

Here are the benefits that await when you stop judging…

First: When you stop judging, you free up a lot of energy.

Because assigning ratings takes a lot of mental effort. Instead of trying to decide whether the ice cream is red or blue, you just eat it. Do the same with more serious problems - don't try to judge whether an idea is good or bad before sharing it - say it and then let others judge it. Before going to the gym, don't try to assess whether you will be able to lose (or gain - here's how) 2 kg this week or not - just exercise.

Second: When there is no judgment, fear is reduced.

We're back to ice cream again. If you don't try to measure the temperature of the ice cream, you won't be afraid of freezing your tongue. After all, you know that ice cream won't freeze your tongue, but the mystical -5°C can seem ominous. If you don't try to estimate how many people are listening to your message in the audience, you will be more confident. After all, "half-empty hall" sounds bolder than "100 people". If you let go of the common-sense assumption that 50% drivers are road eagles, it will be less scary to drive.

Third: When there is no judgment left, no emotion gets in the way.

If you don't try to estimate how many points the ice cream would score on the "healthy food" scale, it will be easier to eat it because you won't feel guilty. If you don't think of beggars as "alms collectors", you can easily pass them by without anger. If you don't rate lying in bed at one hundred percent on the "bliss scale", lying down will bring less joy and it will be easier to get up.

Fourth: When there is no judgment left, there is no need to fight yourself.

If you label yourself a "vegetarian," you're dooming yourself to struggle with ice cream cravings (if, again, let's say you have one). Homo sapiens is not a vegetarian, this is new age fiction. If you rate the company you work for as "capitalist pigs" or "African child exploiters", you will really have to push yourself to get to work.

Fifth: When there is no judgment, there is no need to struggle with the imagined reaction of those around you.

If you don't think that only gluttons eat ice cream, it will be easier to eat it, because it won't be scary to appear as a glutton. If you don't treat speaking your mind as something that only "sassy people" do, it will be easier to speak your mind without fear of upsetting others. After all, another person will say that ice cream is eaten by "gourmets", and "intelligent people" express their opinion.

Sixth: When there is no judgment left, the mind is freed from habitual thought patterns.

As long as you don't describe ice cream on a stick as "eaten on a stick", then you can eat it however you like. Place in a glass, pour peach juice and hang with a spoon. Mmm... If you don't describe a newspaper as a "readable item", you can use it as toilet paper. If you don't describe the stool as a "sitting thing", you can create it for firewood.

When you assign a description, the description immediately tells you what to do.

"Student" means to learn. "Worker" means to work. And why can't both one and the other create? "Writer" - writes. "Entrepreneur" - makes money. And why can't both dream?

One of the fundamental principles of a brainstorming session is not to evaluate the ideas expressed. He said - you wrote it down. Only when enough ideas have been generated, it is possible to evaluate them and select the best ones.

Underestimating is an old and widely known principle in business, but few use it in everyday life.

I have even received such comments that if you try to do business without evaluation, you will immediately go bankrupt. The truth is that the idea to write this article came to me precisely from observing business people.

They have just perfectly mastered the ability to take action, sometimes without even weighing all the pros and cons, without thinking about the far-reaching consequences for society or employees. They don't follow the rules, they make them.

Towards the ideal!

If you don't mind what is the meaning of life, you will not try to evaluate your life, it will be easier to live. If you don't try to appreciate other people, 1 it will be easier to communicate with them. If you don't try to value yourself, 2 you will free yourself from your own framework and it will be easier.

After all, when a musician creates music, he creates what is on his mind, with the instrument he is good at. Then the appreciators come and say "this is jazz, good jazz".

What if he tried to hit some good jazz right away? Would your favorite style of music have appeared then?

Evaluations close us, lock us in the world of already invented things. If you want to move freely and easily, without bumping into the limitations created by someone else, stop using other people's judgments.

I'm not a writer, I just write. The question is not who you are, but what you do? Don't bother to evaluate yourself, those who will write your biography will do it.

Boatman


  1. This one is like that, that one is different.

  2. And I always do that because that's who I am.

  • Cool article, I enjoyed it. Very nice drawings, I like it. Now I will follow not only Debesyla's blog but also Valtininko's 🙂

  • Say, Mr. Boaters, how to adjust your theory while reading this essay instead of preparing for the exam tomorrow? 😀

    • Sorry I didn't see this comment in time. How to facilitate learning is a separate topic. In order to reduce the evaluations - "difficult, do not like", you can focus on the final result - the grade. That's why it's easier for students to learn - because they're aiming for the grade.
      Or an even more serious way - which not everyone succeeds 🙂 This is to forget the grade or pass. Study only because there is a specific time in the agenda. (Like brushing your teeth in the morning). And until the appointed time has passed, nothing else can be done. You need to plan a little time for this.
      The easiest (and most difficult) is obviously to study all the time and little by little. But everyone already knows that 🙂

    • so I will answer: it's simple - instead of thinking and being afraid or imagining how you will cross or how difficult it is to prepare, just learn. Buddhists say that the "difficulty" itself exists only in the mind...that is, it is not so much difficult to do something, as it is difficult to think how difficult it is to do something. suffering is experienced at the moment of evaluation and imagining, before you have even started to act, that suffering stops you from action, but the action itself is simply action, so less imaginings (evaluations) and more action. Generally speaking, I will repeat the words I have already said here: "less talk, more work!"

      • I agree with Das, but I don't want to condemn the entire essay. I think it is really applicable in practice, but the final model of the "non-evaluator" would look a lot less like a vegetable. In a sense, a person without emotion, with a concrete face. If he doesn't judge, then he doesn't know right from wrong, which is soooo wrong in both cases.

        First, he will never smile.
        Secondly, it will be strange that such a person is not already behind bars.

        Of course, I have in mind the final and complete application of the principle of non-evaluation. In certain moments of life, it can certainly be very useful (when you hesitate) and it was useful for me (I think it was exactly what Valtininkas wrote about here).
        Why is assessment necessary? It is not necessary if you are sure that the values implanted in your subconscious mind are biblical. I inserted the word "subconscious" for a reason. To turn off the evaluation of the environment, I think, is practically equivalent to turning off the consciousness, that whole analytical process that allows us to understand where we are, how we are, for some even why we are. Literally, consciousness is turned off, now the ether belongs to the subconscious. We know that the subconscious is still a false forest for psychologists, etc. Therefore, in summary, such a turning off of the consciousness can end in an anti-social act. The boatman warned that all this is just to make you decide to do something, whether it's good or bad.
        But in any case, when applying such a system, which is based on quotations from holy scriptures, we cannot allow this to be applied to bad deeds as well, otherwise it is blasphemy. In order to avoid this, I think it would be necessary to limit ourselves to a momentary "disconnection" of consciousness before thinking about, processing and weighing in the scale of human, social values.

        Although writing this comment towards the end I hesitated that maybe the point of the whole article is simply to abandon stereotypes and prejudices…. It would be interesting….

        • I will speak briefly. First of all, it is nice to meet as many thinking people as there are here 🙂
          Otherwise, a complete shutdown of consciousness would result in subconscious animal behavior. However, we need to distinguish between when we think about what to do and when we do it. Because it happens that the decision of what to do has already been made, and the consciousness is still raging, pondering, actually getting in the way.
          And yes, it's also easier to do bad things when your mind is turned off. Criminals are like that.

          • and when I turn off my consciousness, I fall asleep 🙂

          • That's why I like reading comments, that it's easier to see both sides. However, I would interpret this essay somewhat differently - I doubt whether it is about absolute non-valuation and indifference. Like the previously mentioned example with infidelity, this is an action whose consequences will affect more than one of you. Because we are social and do not live alone, we must consider our behavior in terms of how it may affect the person involved. As I understand this method is more for personal development. It's no secret that most people are oppressed by society's "norms" and fashions. Doing one thing is cool, interesting, and doing something else seems even strange, which does not always sound positive. I drew attention when he says "kind of" in a slightly different tone. You have probably heard such a case more than once. And thinking about this kind of reaction before starting work does not really encourage you to enjoy what you are doing - rather, it causes pressure to do it perfectly, to please. Personally, when I am engaged in creative activities, such a case ruins my work. It used to be that when I was working, I would panic, because it seemed that I had simply forgotten everything that I had studied. Instead of doing what I like, I think about how I will be evaluated, I think about how to please the person I work for at the time. It goes without saying that I don't know what he will like and what he will like a lot. And we all want to be rated the best, right? :)

            On that note, I just made a comment on a post that isn't directly related to me. (because before I was afraid to write something, even though I wanted to express my opinion on one or another issue)

          • ...And on that occasion you get a personal thank you from Daniel.

            Thanks Mil! Good observations! 😛

        • and it seems to me that the dog wanted to show with the article that you need to think less and do more

  • I think it's something like what other authors call beliefs. We need to let go of beliefs that others have taught us or that we have created ourselves

  • When you read this article, I hope that you will not be surrounded by beautiful words and selected logic. According to this author's logic, it should be applied in other, undescribed scenarios as well, such as if a person insults you and at that moment you (well, I don't know) want to break his legs, and then you do it? Or if the temptation of infidelity comes, with this logic you should take it and not think that you have a family and children and this could mean divorce. This thinking is not new, but it is not good either. The author doesn't even need to waste so much time explaining, because since the world war we have simpler suki from Britain "Keep calm and carry on". If you want to drink more, then drink, if you want to use drugs, then let the government allow it legally, etc.
    I hope that those people who very nicely agreed with this article then do not value what is happening in Ukraine, Gaza, or about the Soviet occupation, about what Hitler did...because I think there is not, there was not, a lot of value for human life or social morality.
    So let's consider such thoughts and possibilities that we face every day, which also waste a lot of energy. But that unconditional or as described assessment and choice is now impossible. Because if you don't value it, then you don't have value 🙂
    PS and if you have no value, I don't know why someone else would waste their energy writing your biography 😛

    • Well, Manta, you don't need to mix everything into one. it's not about the fact that you should never evaluate anything wrongly (including such global things as wars and crimes), you just need to maintain awareness and control the evaluation process, understanding, that is, evaluating whether it is worth evaluating in this case or not (as Donatas mentioned). After all, it is about the difficulties you face, about the little things (of which life and big things consist), about phenomena and events that you can somewhat control and influence with your will, your decision and action, and not about the complete abandonment of analytical thinking in life. Beto's "golden middle path" is the pinnacle of human consciousness. Understanding that rules are necessary, as well as exceptions to them, and when to apply them is the art of living...

  • David, I think this article is intended for those who understand that when taking any method or listening to advice, you will keep your sanity and you don't need to go to extremes, ask yourself when this method is suitable to apply and when it is not, and if you manage not to lie to yourself, everything will be fine 😉

    • In other words: before evaluating, you must evaluate whether in this case it is necessary to evaluate or not to evaluate. Crazy, but that's how it is 😀 😀 😀

      • And if it is more practical, then the obstacle is not the assessment itself, but a violation of the balance to the assessment side (as well as to the opposite). And balance is personal here, "what suits a moose, doesn't suit Vytautas"
        Good luck keeping balance in school! 😉

  • I don't know why, but many of your articles make me smile because there is always something witty about them. I think it shows that you are a fun guy. :))
    You write "If you don't think about the meaning of life, if you don't try to evaluate your life, it will be easier to live. If you don't try to evaluate other people (this one is like this, that one is different), it will be easier to communicate with them. If you don't try to judge yourself (and I always do because that's who I am) you will free yourself from your own framework and it will be easier." But.. But... There is such a thing that you can't take one day and not try to evaluate your actions, others.. It wouldn't work for me to take and not evaluate myself, I just criticize/evaluate myself by nature. I think most do. 🙂

    • I hope you give these compliments to @valtininkas:disqus because he is the author of the article 😀 But hey. I thought it was impossible too. Until I learned little by little. It is learned. 😉

  • Buddhists say that the "difficulty" itself exists only in the mind...that is, it is not so much difficult to do something, as it is difficult to think how difficult it is to do something. suffering is experienced at the moment of evaluation and imagining, before you have even started to act, that suffering stops you from action, but the action itself is simply action, so less imaginings (evaluations) and more action. Generally speaking, I will repeat the words I have already said here: "less talk, more work!" it's not about the fact that you should never evaluate anything wrongly (including such global things as wars and crimes), you just need to maintain awareness and control the evaluation process, understanding, that is, evaluating whether it is worth evaluating in this case or not (as Donatas mentioned). After all, it is about the difficulties you face, about the little things (of which life and big things consist), about phenomena and events that you can somewhat control and influence with your will, your decision and action, and not about the complete abandonment of analytical thinking in life. Beto's "golden mean" is the pinnacle of human consciousness. Understanding that rules are necessary, just as exceptions to them are necessary, and when to apply them is the art of living...

    • Hey Magicflo, you could be one of the best commenters in the Cloud! Good points, thanks! 🙂

  • Great article! Good observations. I think most of the time we really pay too much attention to evaluations and there is no need to waste energy. A very good reminder to overestimate your evaluations and realize that they are not worth evaluation or you have already underestimated them :)

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