Cover Letter

While writing my Capstone project essay, I had a number of ideas that I wanted to convey, and initially I struggled to form an order for explaining my thought process. However, after outlining my information, all of my research from the previous months made filling in the details feel smooth and simple. I believe many people may initially struggle with the argument since it challenges our western materialistic desires, and I also redefine the concept of responsibility (not synonymous with being at fault for something). However, through my explanations, I hope to change the mindsets of my readers to be better suited for any personal or global challenges they face. Ultimately, I believe these values and mindsets that I introduce are powerful enough to change people’s lives (as Maria Popova might have said).

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

A Life of Meaning

​

To be happy, we must obtain more. We need bigger, better, more expensive things, and once we obtain them, we will feel recognized and worthy. Maybe we’ll buy a more expensive car or a bigger house or get the hard-earned job promotion that we’ve always strived towards. Unfortunately, these qualities of life are simply temporary means of satisfaction. The human mind, by nature, overtime feels dissatisfied with the initial rush of dopamine we feel from obtaining more -- this natural dissatisfaction, while seemingly destructive to our mental well-being, has played a crucial role in the advancement of human civilizations. It has incentivized us to continue changing and seeking out new ways to improve our lives. Without this natural dissatisfaction, we would never have upgraded from our hunter and gatherer lifestyles. Why begin farming without the dissatisfaction of potential starvation? Why upgrade to the iphone eleven without the dissatisfaction of taking shitty photos? Simply put, we are programmed to feel dissatisfied, and we’ll continue to feel dissatisfied to continue bettering ourselves. If we understand that overtime we’ll become dissatisfied with our possessions and achievements, then clearly it’s ridiculous to expect our long term happiness to stem from any item or single destination we may come to.

​

I first stumbled upon this idea that our personal possessions wouldn’t bring long term happiness towards the beginning of 2020. Within a matter of days, I indulged myself in the practice of minimalism to see how a lack of personal possessions would affect my life. Minimalism has a multitude of interpretations and practices. Many instinctually view it as a cult of people sitting in an empty, white walled room with nothing but the skin on their backs. To say the least, this was not the minimalism that I experimented with.

​

I took a less extreme approach to the philosophy and discarded everything that neither added any value to my life nor brought me happiness. I inspected every item I owned from my clothes to my furniture, to the bits and bobs I found stuffed in the depths of my drawers and backpack. Within a week, I had finished the emotionally intensive process of disposing of the majority of my possessions. At the end, I wasn’t overwhelmed with a sense of enlightenment, but I was left even more intrigued by the philosophy. What I found was that our personal possessions, in fact, don’t dictate our happiness, but neither did a lack of items. However, with the emotionally bearing presence of my unwanted items now gone, I realized that I could now focus my energy on building values that would guide me towards a more fulfilling livelihood. To live this more fulfilling life, we should not only ditch the western notion of obtaining more to feel happier, but we need to also replace that old, unsustainable mindset with three new, sustainable values of intentional living: learning to say no, understanding what lies within our control, and taking complete responsibility for everything we experience in life.

​

    The most common choice we must make in our day-to-day lives is a yes or no decision -- to do something or not to do something. Saying “no” is commonly described to be negative, however, we must indirectly say no before acting on anything. Because by saying yes to one opportunity, we are choosing to spend our time in that moment not acting on another -- in other words, saying yes to one thing is simply saying no to others. It may seem grim and potentially paralyzing at first, but this concept is intended to help us slow down and think deeply about how we truly want to spend our time. By saying no, we may not actually be closing ourselves off to opportunities, but instead, opening the gates to experience something potentially more valuable. If I commit myself to becoming a school teacher, then I have closed the opportunity to work towards becoming an astronaut. Likewise, if I turn down becoming an astronaut, then I have opened up the opportunity to pursue another career. Of course, it loses its value if I were to say no to every opportunity I stumbled upon, but by understanding the importance of voluntary and active rejection, we will prevent ourselves from simply falling into spending our lives doing things that we were never truly passionate about. It’s okay to reject opportunities -- in fact, sometimes we forget that it can actually benefit us greatly to avoid spending time with the wrong people, pursuing the wrong job, or practicing the wrong values. Ultimately, saying no allows us to actively choose the best opportunities and find control within the decisions we make.

​

This control can grant us mental security, but a lack of understanding of our control will present mental chaos. When broken down, it’s evident that we don’t have control over many things: we don’t choose where we’re born, we don’t choose our parents, our race, ethnicity, or when a global pandemic decides to wreak havoc on social and economic norms. So if we truly have zero control over any of these life defining traits and circumstances, why should we fight them? Why waste our time and energy feeling angry or lashing out on others when our actions cannot affect the very nature of the situation? The first step to feeling more in control of life, ironically, is to accept what lies outside of our control. Once we do that, only then can we begin focusing our energy towards exploiting the one thing that always remains within our control and can grant each and everyone of us power if used correctly: our mind.

​

    Understanding that our mind is the only thing within our control is crucial to obtaining mental security and long term contentment. If we stop stressing over what lies outside of our control, we can use our mind to proactively act to improve our well-being. Let’s take the current social distancing protocols instituted around the world -- it’s beyond our control that these restrictions are in place, but what is within our power is our outlook and attitude. By actively choosing our mindsets, we can alleviate ourselves from the victim mentality that this pandemic is happening to us. Instead, we can choose how to view the situation, how to adapt, and how to act because of it. In other words, we can choose to take responsibility for the situation.

​

    By no means am I suggesting that you (individually or collectively) are responsible for the coronavirus, but in the same way that a judge is responsible for determining the outcome of a crime (one that he/she did not commit), we are responsible for how we respond to situations that lie beyond our control. Because being responsible for a circumstance isn’t to say you are at fault for it. Fault refers strictly to past actions while responsibility refers to future ones. Knowing that we are always in control of our mind, we can choose to have a positive outlook on any situation we may face and then assume responsibility for how we deal with it.

​

Let’s continue using the coronavirus as an example. We are not at fault for the spread of the virus, but we are responsible for choosing how to respond to it. For the people who recognize that they are actively choosing how to respond rather than becoming a victim to the situation, they will overall feel happier since they are taking responsibility for their actions, and thus, finding control within a situation that may otherwise seem impossible to handle. Although it’s not ideal for anyone to lock themselves away in their homes for months at a time, the people who recognize that they are actively choosing to stay at home versus the ones who victimize themselves (“This pandemic is ruining my life!”) will feel more at ease and content with quarantining or social distancing since they were the ones to make the decision. 

​

This applies to any and every situation. Unhappy with a relationship you’re in? Actively choose to deal with toxicity, end the relationship, or find a way to work things out with your partner. The impending doom of climate change is driving you insane? To a large degree, this remains outside of your control, so it’s best to accept the fact that it exists and that it will be a part of your life. But after accepting the very nature of the situation, take responsibility for it! Choose how you want to respond: you can do nothing and let the world burn, you can change your eating habits, clean beaches, or even protest school to raise awareness (I’m looking at you Greta Thunberg). Regardless of the options we choose in any given circumstance, recognizing what lies within our control and taking responsibility for our actions ultimately grants us the confidence and mental security needed to endure anything thrown at us.

 

The problem isn’t that your house isn’t big enough, your spouse isn’t attractive enough, or that your job isn’t prestigious enough. Instead, it’s our values that are flawed. While a bigger house or a shinier diamond ring may be what we desire in the moment, these materialistic cravings will inevitably fall flat from our human instinct to feel dissatisfied. Our values of saying  no, finding control, and taking responsibility, on the other hand, will last a lifetime.

(1553 words)