#2. The spiritual hamster wheel.
I just had coffee with Avril Lavigne.
No. I’m just kidding.
But I did have coffee next to a girl who looked like a cross between Avril Lavigne and Pink: all-star sneakers, ripped jeans, punk t-shirt, gold earrings, full of tattoos, and half of her hair orange and the other half brown.
As I sipped my coffee, the girl said phrases like,
- “I’m sick of my boyfriend. Well, he’s not my boyfriend; it’s an open relationship. What could go wrong.”
- “I don’t believe in God as such. But I believe in a universal source that connects us to the whole. And I cultivate my spiritual side, practicing sensual dances to connect with my feminine energy.”
- “I don’t get overwhelmed by looking for a job anymore. I visualize things as if they have already happened, and they work for me. Because, unlike others, I detach myself from the desire I want to manifest.”
The girl had a mess in her head that was quite familiar to me.
And I would have liked to interrupt the conversation she was having with a boy, but I didn’t want to be intrusive and intrude when no one was calling me.
But since I have been left with the desire, I decided to write this article, in case someone like her ever reads me, to help people escape from various hamster wheels that have you too entertained to see the dangers ahead on the road.
Let’s get started.
1. The romantic hamster wheel
First, I would have told the girl that there are many more things than a relationship.
And those things have to work first for a couple to work and for you to get out of the romantic hamster wheel.
- Having goals to avoid cannibalizing your partner’s world would be best.
- You have to be financially independent so you don’t have financial stress in the relationship, and you don’t have to be subjugated to your partner’s decisions.
- It would be best to respect yourself and not allow anyone to make you less (no matter how modern your relationship is).
If you don’t (and I didn’t for a long time), your life will turn into a succession of love failures that will hopefully turn you into a serial monogamist with a Tinder profile begging for love.
(I’ve been that person. And you don’t want to be me. Trust me 🙂
2. The spiritual hamster wheel
The girl had a mess about spirituality that reminded me of my early days: traveling to South America to meet shamans, practicing Yoga, becoming a mindfulness teacher, reading all kinds of esoteric material, etc.
I look back now, and although it was not wasted time, knowing two things would have saved me many headaches.
- My faith is not incompatible with studying other spiritualities.
- I don’t have to be ashamed of my roots.
Regarding point two, I want to say that in the West, many of us seek shamanism or other types of spirituality in a certain way because of its exoticism, but it is a mistake.
If I have learned anything in my spiritual journey, we all have a reset button to return to being well when we hit rock bottom.
That reset button is the spirituality we were programmed with as a child: if you are Hindu, the Hinduist one; if you are Nepalese, the Buddhist one; if you are Christian, the Christian, and so on.
Once you accept your spiritual essence and roots, you leave the constant spiritual hamster wheel in which nothing works.
And then you can change your religion if you want. Or mix it with other things.
I, for example, practice Zen, and I am a Christian, and if you look on the internet, many Christian people do the same (even priests).
3. The infantilism hamster wheel
This is the most dangerous wheel of all.
I was listening to the girl in the cafe talking about signing up for Yoga to become a yoga instructor in 3 months and spend the summer teaching in Ibiza. And I saw all the dangers of that plan.
- The academy that promises to train her to become a Yoga instructor in 3 months is scamming her because nobody can be a teacher of anything in 3 months.
- If someone had promised her to work as a Yoga teacher this summer, they were probably cheating on her, and she will most likely end up traveling to Ibiza and working as a Go-Go dancer in a discotheque.
- If she ends up alone in Ibiza this summer (which I hope she doesn’t), she will surely end up surrounded by lousy company and spending all her earnings on partying and drinking.
I hope I’m wrong, but I’ve stumbled on that stone myself (twice I went to Ibiza when I was young, and I returned ruined).
And when you are too childish, you go through life thinking that you know everything, that you are a pioneer, that you will invent Coca-cola and all that jazz, and people take advantage of you.
So don’t be so naive; being a good person is not incompatible with being an adult. To be an adult is to be less selfish every time. And that makes you a good person.
I hope that helps,
Run, my run free, my little hamster.
A virtual hug
AG