Just be yourselves...

I realised a couple of days ago that I've been having an argument in my own head recently about the right approach to life. Whether to be idealistic or pragmatic?

On one side it feels like their isn't enough idealism in the world today. Politics is motivated by winning the next election and doing whatever it takes to get so. Business is all about selling as much as possible to maximise shareholder value regardless of the costs. Thinking is short-term, guided by immediate gains and not long-term vision.

On the other hand, that's the world we're living in. You may have the most high-minded ideals but what good are they if you can't win an election or make a living. We all want to get ahead in the world.

I came across this interesting piece on George Monbiot's blog (a true idealist if ever there was one!) about how extrinsic values have come to dominate our age. And what he says feels right. And it does feel like we should be trying to redress the balance and shift our society towards one that places a greater value on intrinsic values.

But on a personal level it's much more difficult to abstract. Part of me is shit-scared that if we don't then there won't be much of a future for any of us. But another part of me just wants to live my life and not have to worry about the bigger picture.

Being idealistic is hard in a society that has short shrift with ideals.

Another theme of our time could be the maxim to 'just be yourself'. I heard this parroted out over and over again as I was growing up. In pop songs, on TV, in the media. And it always instilled a deep sense of insecurity in me, a worry that 'myself' wasn't good enough. Or even more worrying, that I didn't know who myself was.

But I now realise that this is just trite pop psychology. Buddhist thought has always denied the existence of a self, insisting that we're just a bundle of competing drives and desires, a view now backed up by modern-neuroscience (like so much of Buddhist thinking and practice).

Much better advice might be to 'just be yourselves, or at least try to navigate a path through life with an understanding of your competing needs and desires'.

Not quite as catchy and certainly not as as simple but, for me at least, a more accurate description of the human condition and what I intend to do.

So with that thought it's no longer an argument I'm having in my head but a good-natured debate and one that I intend to carry on having.