One of the chronic problems that many of us suffer from is not being able to complete what we have started. Remember the time when you were super excited to learn guitar, that you bought or borrowed guitar but then you gave up learning after a couple of weeks? Or you joined a gym, just to never visit again? At some point in time, we all have done that. Looking back, we feel bad that we could not do what we were so determined to do. So, what really happened? Nothing. We just quit. Of course, we had our reasons, like there is always a reason for anything and everything. Reasons could be because our time didn’t favour us, or because our priority shifted or because we found a “better” thing to do. Or, we simply lost interest. Whatsoever, the truth is we failed to complete what we started. In between, money is wasted, time is wasted. And for sure, that was not the only time. Again and again, we repeat the same pattern of starting something and never completing it, just to end up in remorse and regret.

This chronic state is something we must overcome if we truly want to succeed in life. After all, success does not come to people who quit. Success is not determined by starting something but rather is determined by crossing the finish line, and only those who don’t quit get to finish the line. Thus, trying is not success. No one calls a person who has tried to climb Mt. Everest but quit without reaching the summit as “climbed the mountain successfully.” Being successful in study means graduating with a certificate; dropping out has never been called “successfully graduated.” Being successful in business means taking the business to the height of self-sustaining and profit-making state. No one calls a business in loss a successful business. Being successful in a relationship means succeeding to maintain the relationship and stick together happily. So yes, success simply means “didn’t quit.”

Irony of life is, everyone loves to succeed, but only few actually succeed. If everyone wants to succeed, why are there less successful people and more unsuccessful people? It’s not like because they were competing against each other and only one could succeed. It’s because there are more people who quit than those who don’t. The beautiful thing about success is it’s not a football match that one must lose for others to win. Success has a simple rule – CROSS THE FINISH LINE. Any one who crosses the finish line is a winner. Some may cross the line in a month or year or decade. Does not matter. As long as crossing the finish line, is a winner. So, to succeed all a person needs is a winner’s mentality of “I won’t quit.” “No matter what, I will not quit. I will keep pushing myself even if my moods say otherwise. I will keep pushing myself even if time does not favour me. I will keep pushing myself even if priorities change.” “rain or snow, I will keep pushing myself to reach the desired state.” “May it take a day or week or month or year or decade, I will keep pushing myself until I don’t cross the finish line.” That’s the kind of determination and perseverance needed to succeed.

Easier said than done. So what is that one magical wand that works for the winner’s mentality? What kind of motivation do they inject to not get tired of trying and trying and trying? How could they keep pushing themselves everyday despite finding 100 reasons to not do so? That magical wand is, they keep reminding themselves why they started in first place.  

There is always a purpose behind whatever we want to do. Be it taking a guitar class or joining a gym or a writing workshop; or be it making new friends or travelling places or even collecting stamps. Yes of course, sometimes we begin something out of whim or some shallow reason like “I want to learn guitar so that I can impress my crush.” That’s not the kind of purpose we are talking about here. We are talking about the purpose that eventually will define us, shape us and carve us. Purpose that gives us the reason to wake up every day and pursue it.

We humans in general are moody and labile animals, and there is constant shuffling of priorities making us floating from one thought to another, one desire to another, on priority to another. Today, your morning schedule may be relatively loose for you to plan something out but in a couple of days or weeks, you may have to get back to your study as the exam is approaching. Today, you may have thought evening is for training, but you don’t know when your evening will be occupied with kitchen work. Our routine never remains the same. It keeps changing per the situation and circumstances. This is when we begin to get distracted, deviated from what you were doing. This happens to everyone and has happened to everyone. It’s not that Bill Gates had no shift in priorities and distraction or deviation. It’s not that Sajjan Raj Joshi had the luxury to stick to his plan to compose a song once a week. Just like you, everyone has some or other variables and factors to distract and deviate but only few succeed to not let them take you away from what they started. For others, day by day, they begin losing interest and motivation and finally they give up. And our brain starts feeding us the self-soothing pill to convince us “it’s okay to quit. Maybe, it is not for you. Hey look! this new thing is more promising and fun.”

Trapped between changed reality and brain’s self-soothing consoling, many find the reason to quit. Whenever you are in such a dilemma, remind yourself why you started in the first place? Ask yourself “did i come this far just to be this far?” Think about all the plans you had, thoughts and desires and expectations you had built, future you had seen. Your brain might have got moody but your heart knows your true want and when you remind yourself why you started, the purpose and plan, you will be rejuvenated with the motivation to not quit, not give up, but keep pushing. Amidst the odds, find a way to still pursue what you started.

This reminder works as a compass for a ship to navigate towards the harbour, without which the ship would be just floating across the sea without any clue.

Someone once asked Sharukh Khan in his initial days of hustling “aren’t you tired of doing the same thing every day? For a person like you, there are so many opportunities out there, which would be more fun and may bring more fortune than this whatever you are doing. What keeps you motivated?” His answer was “I remind myself everyday why I started it in the first place. It gets me moving.”

Myths have remained an integral part of human history. We believe that we are being looked after and that we are loved unconditionally – by a “creator” and a “controller” force.

We believe that there is a meaning to life and that we have a central place in the cosmic existence. We have believed in myths for they have provided easy answers to our questions. We believe we have a duty to fulfill and that we expect others to fulfill theirs’.

We humans have found comfort in religious documents and in romantic literature. But, as we moved on in time, our natural tendency to question things gave rise to realism. Realistic views of the world has made several of us fearful of the huge void that is our existence. We now have varied answers to how and why we exist, we have varied philosophies dealing with human existence.

We do not know for a fact what existence actually means and, now find it harder to give meaning and purpose to life.

As answer-hungry beings, we suffer. We suffer, since we do not know why “we” exist in a rock that hangs on a vast nothingness.

We do not know the beginning and might never know the end.

Does a moral life lead to a smooth after-life? Does an immoral life continue the circle of birth and death? What is a moral life? How do we define a “normal” course of human action? Is life what a group of people (society) define it to be?

These questions are asked by many of us, but, find it hard to put forward because our society has made us to believe that life is in fact beautiful, that success is the ultimate goal, failure devalues life, that love can be easily found, and, that respect is gained through our taste in and choice of class. The “meaning” of life is pre-determined “for us” by those who were born before us.

We fear of being judged – judged of our sanity being questioned, since these are not normal topics for a normal societal person. How dare you rise above the general mass and ask questions that we do not seem to like? Existentialism bores us, do you not understand? Reality is what we have made it to be. This is existence. This right here is the reality.

We would rather believe that human civilization is “certain”.

We are afraid of changes.

And, thus, as we grow older, we slowly begin to “accept” the normality, that is society. We go to functions with the intention of showing our class to people – our class that has been defined by our societies. We have less intellectual discussions and try to stay away from topics that do not suit our liking. We confirm with the norms of the society no matter how hard some are to achieve, or, how meaningless and futile they are to perform.

We build our image as our society wants it to be. We find it extremely tiring to revolt against some of the childish illusions our society wants us to put up with.

But some have indeed started to question myths. They have started questioning the “existence and creation myth” that we are made to believe. From the 129th hymn Nasadiya Sukta to modern thinking and discourses, some of us have started to revolt.

Some of us have started to separate myths and the existence of consciousness.

We have started to question our being. Why are we here? What purpose are we to serve? We have stopped sticking to a singular idea of creation – we have started questioning all of them.

“To some this is a welcome release from the restraints of moral, social, and spiritual dogma. To others it is a dangerous and terrifying breach with reason and sanity, tending to plunge human life into hopeless chaos. To most, perhaps, the immediate sense of release has given a brief exhilaration, to be followed by the deepest anxiety.” (The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety, Alan Watts)

Those of us who have now started revolting the old ideas are but faced with anxiety. We are very desperate to rid ourselves of this angst. We are anxious because we as humans have killed myths and now have no answers.

“For if all is relative, if life is a torrent without form or goal in whose flood absolutely nothing save change itself can last, it seems to be something in which there is “no future” and thus no hope.” (The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety, Alan Watts)

One clearer thing is that we are not promised with an after-life, neither are we promised with God’s love and affection for maintaining our life as per our religious standards. We might have no purpose after all. We will study, work for the rest of our lives, retire and then die – quietly around a group of a few people and, then slowly and gradually be forgotten.

This knowledge, however, creates a dilemma – and the dilemma creates an existential crisis.

Many of us find liberation in being able to question the long known traditions of our family, our social life, of our government, the economy of our nation and of our religious belief. We begin to understand that only few things can be regarded to be true and fixed.

But many of us are anxious because we see these institutions fail and now have no rock to hold on to. We have been accustomed to believe that the pain and suffering of our life has some meaning and that we will be able to grab some surplus in the future. It is hard for some of us to believe that we as humans can however, fail.

We cannot accept that we as humans are insignificant in this cosmic reality because, we have, for much of our history, found comfort in myths – we have believed them to be true. But since myths are debunked, we find it hard to grant them positions in our consciousness.

We have abandoned gods and their mythical stories and have said frequently that our scientifically enlightened mind rejects something that has no basis in reality.

In the course of our scientific development, we forgot that myth while still alive had helped us with our existential questions. “Among the so-called neurotics of our day there are a good many who in other ages would not have been neurotic—that is, divided against themselves. If they had lived in a period… in which man was still linked by myth with the world of the ancestors…. they would have been spared this division within themselves.” (Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections)

Myths provided ready answers to our questions about the unknown, it helped us to construct a meaningful story about the existence of life. Nietzsche and Jung point out that myths and religions in a teleological manner provide meaning to life. “The Pueblo Indians believe that they are the sons of Father Sun, and this belief endows their life with a perspective (and a goal) that goes far beyond their limited existence. It gives them ample space for the unfolding of personality and permits them a full life as complete persons. Their plight is infinitely more satisfactory than that of a man in our own civilization who knows that he is (and will remain) nothing more than an underdog with no inner meaning to his life.” (Carl Jung, Man and His Symbols). “Considered from the standpoint of realism, the symbol is not of course an external truth, but it is psychologically true, for it was and is the bridge to all that is best in humanity.” (Carl Jung, Symbols of Transformation)

We are now enlightened and have “killed” all the existing gods, and cannot go back to a debunked theory that we now know was never true. Carl Gustav Jung in his autobiography explains how we cannot go back now for we have been aware. But, Jung also saw the psychological problems of not having myths around and, how uncomfortable he was after having realized this fact.

“Man today, stripped of myth, stands famished among all his pasts and must dig frantically for roots…” (Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy). Since the death of myths, we are unable to make sense of our existence and are desperately trying to run away from the existential angst. We are frantically looking for distractions, to avoid anxious thoughts of our insignificance in this universe.

Now, we have built a coping mechanism against the death of myths – we have found comfort in entertainment. We are pleasured by television programs, photos and stories in magazines, shiny vehicles, alcohol and pornographies. We want to find good looking partners, easy payments and, less disputes. We find comfort in the lives of celebrities and search for their stories in internet where we spend countless of daily hours without realizing how wasteful our search for pleasure actually is. We would rather scroll downwards to new Facebook and Instagram posts than getting things done that we have been promising ourselves to complete.

We have time and again realized that pleasures are addictive because they are short lived. But they have temporarily ridden us of our existential angst and, have thus become important aspects of our lives. We thus exceed our limits to attain them. We are irritated and angry at ourselves and others when we fail to receive pleasure.

We require distractions so much so that we will sub-consciously jerk our legs or bite our lips frequently to avoid thoughts when we have our eyes off our phone, television and computer screens. Though we have killed our myths, we are still frantically searching for the meaning of our existence and thus are in a dilemma because we do not know how to.

According to Nietzsche and Jung we have replaced myths with other collectivist ideologies like politics. These ideologies have made us believe that they are indeed contributing to something big. We worship certain ideologies like the communism and democracy or whatever form these ideologies take. But they have time and again proven inadequate. Through multiple failed revolutions we have chosen our rulers and we still are in agony.

We have found pleasures and comfort in identity politics, but have lost our individual being. We have forgotten cultural unity by tying them with political theories. We have encountered multiple examples of how political ideologies have failed to provide happiness to people but we still run after them with desperation to find meaning. Jung portrays state as a mere modern pretence, a shield, a make-belief, a concept. Politics fails to provide individual importance. Politics is thus another myth that we have used to replace the original one.

Now, that we realize that these myths are not true and that they have died, can we remain intact with our being? The real question is, do we succumb to a nihilistic attitude after finding out how our existence is meaningless or, that we are not as important as we think? Do we have a rather negative view on life or, our existence as a whole?

Jung and Nietzsche argue that a nihilistic attitude would certainly lead to a wasted life. But what are we to do about the anxieties that follow the existential angst?

Nietzsche points out that we are in dire need of organizing our “own” individual meaning to our individual life. We are not in an age of the death of god but are in an age of the hero. The hero as per Nietzsche is someone who has the strength of his/her willpower to control his/her inner chaos which has been built because of our attachment to myths. The hero takes the challenge and faces up to the existing “individual” chaos and discovers “individual” solutions. The hero does not negate the past myths, but acknowledges them as sources of knowledge to find solutions for existential burdens of our time.

In order to be this “hero”, Nietzsche thought that it is necessary to stop clinging to religious theories or, mass movements and, to start to look within oneself. Every single individual according to him has a seed of unrealized potential, and the purpose of life is to see that potential and work towards actualizing it.

Nietzsche thought that “…we are not humans from the start; we need to become human. Toward this end, we need the insight “that only we are responsible for ourselves, that accusations that we have missed our life’s calling can be directed only at us, not some higher powers”. We are in no need of the delusion of a supernatural world, because the very task of becoming human is the truly colossal achievement.” (Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography: Rudiger Safranski).

Though everyone has an inner desire to become their best self, the path to self-realization and self-improvement is hindered by fear and laziness, which according to Nietzsche are two universal human characteristics which prevent people from realizing their potential. These characteristics stop people from realizing their dreams and for most part of their life, people are disappointed and regret that they have missed several opportunities. A human’s life is thus filled with guilt and anxiety of not being able to achieve.

Nietzsche provided some solutions to these innate characteristics. He thought that humans need an “organizing idea”. He urged people to set an ultimate goal that they desired to achieve. The harder the goal, the greater one has to become to achieve it.

On the path towards the realization of such goals, the individual according to Nietzsche will find plenty of setbacks and pain. Nietzsche also thought that many individuals will run back to the comforts of ordinariness once they are faced with such difficulties and thus, leave their goals midway to their realization. These individuals are thus, ignorant regarding the value of such goals.

People are accustomed to believe that suffering is malevolent. The first reaction of people on suffering is to flee. We will again try and find sources of distractions to be temporarily released from these psychological pain. We do not wish to believe that our life can have sufferings.

Nietzsche on the other hand, saw value in suffering. He explained that “there is as much wisdom in pain as there is in pleasure…that it hurts is no argument against it but its essence.” (The Gay Science, Friedrich Nietzsche). This idea was also explained by Jung, who thought that anxieties and other forms of neuroses were not negative phenomenon. These neuroses may produce suffering, but they also inform us that our current way of living is concerning and that we are in need to improve it.

Nietzsche in his famous “the will to power” says “To those human beings who are of any concern to me, I wish suffering, desolation, sickness, ill-treatment, indignities – I wish that they should not remain unfamiliar with profound self contempt, the torture of self mistrust, the wretchedness of the vanquished: I have no pity for them, because I wish them the only thing that can prove today whether one is worth anything or not – that one endures.” (The Will to Power, Friedrich Nietzsche).

Nietzsche thought that suffering could be the key to liberation, if one learns how to utilize it to his/her advantage. An individual is to acknowledge his/her suffering, willingly face it and see that there is an opportunity to grow and increase his/her wisdom.

Anxieties are an innate human characteristic. We as humans are troubled by everyday existential angst. But we need to understand that, that is the only true reality of life. We will experience births, illnesses and deaths of people around us and ultimately ours’ own. We will not be here forever, we will not see or experience everything since our lives are very short. We need to understand that our existence is nothing more important than a mere dandelion. This realization would lessen our ego and we would start seeing everyone and everything as having an equal existence. This awareness should liberate us from holding on to things that have become problematic.

We need to know and accept that life has no meaning, and that it would be foolish of us to find something that does not exist. We are here to not find meaning but experience our “personal” existence and create our “personal” meaning as we move towards the basic truth – the end.