Optimism and Playfulness creates Meaning and Purpose
We find meaning and purpose in different ways, and one of the ways is our optimism and playfulness.
When we engage in our optimism, positivity, playfulness, and hunger for exploration and adventures, we might experience several levels of freedom. I enjoy traveling and engaging in new cultures, conversations, architecture, and food. It’s like my brain restarts with new impressions, and new states, thoughts and ideas occur by themselves.
I have the experience that I am free on different levels. On one level, I am free from the daily obligations that traditional life asks of me. On another level, I am free to go to new places for art, reading, conversations, eating etc. I am also free to engage in conversations and ask questions about the culture I am in and the principles and values of the culture. And because I often travel alone, there is the freedom of building my own daily routine that fits my joy of spending two hours in the morning writing.
Every year I spend a substantial amount of time and money on training and education often outside Denmark, where I live. Learning and embracing new experiences is another kind of freedom, even if I do not at the moment know exactly how I should activate or use my new learnings.
If my health prevents me from traveling, it is a loss of freedom on more than one level. One level is being limited by illness, and that can be frustrating in itself, but even more frustrating is that I experience that my personal growth and development are going in circles, only using the existing knowledge or experience I have and being limited by not being able to have fruitful conversations with teacher and co-students.
When I do not engage in optimism, positivity, playfulness, and hunger for exploration and adventures, I get frustrated, and sometimes I force deep conversation out of the people around me just to get a little sense of freedom.
Everything is about building a healthy balance between opposite energies or forces, where too much hunger for explorations and freedom can be draining to myself and others, and I can forget to integrate the new impressions. Freedom without presence is just a distraction, so there has to be a third force to keep things in balance.
But what is the third force that keeps the balance for you?
Your weekly question
This week’s question is about how you can explore and investigate how to balance your optimism, positivity, playfulness, and hunger for exploration and adventures.
- What do you do to keep your hunger, optimism, and sense of freedom alive on a daily basis?
- How do you balance your hunger, optimism, and sense of freedom so you do not overwhelm others?
- When do you know, sense, or feel that you have overused your hunger, optimism, and sense of freedom?
Your weekly quote
Freedom might be the most overwhelming state of them all and can only be experienced with presence.
Your weekly recommended reading
Listen to Noha Abo Elmagd when she talks about how the Enneagram can bring freedom.
