Live without aim. Accept your life as an adventurous educational journey

"Happiness means feeling you are on the right path every moment"

(Thich Nhat Hanh)

Since half of July 2017 my daughter is living in Perth, Australia. Within one day after her graduation in Maastricht (The Netherlands) she left her 'home country'. Actually not feeling 'home' already for a long time any more. 
No goal, just longing for the adventure of life. And, I, as her dad, am so proud she has the guts to do this. Many people cannot understand my support to her. 

The whole system we live in drains us with all kind of wonderful basic and standard ideas. You need to go to school, you need to marry, you need to have a career, you need to get children, you need to have a nice house, you need to behave, you need to show you live happy, you need to be better, you need to 'be something'. 

The more I live and work here and the more I contemplate about this system, I discover we are pushed in a kind of general pattern. I kind of (financial) control.  
And we think a lot about what other people and society possibly think of us. All together we spend lots of times, days and nights, on thinking. Trying to find creative ways to not be different. We do not want to be judged and so harmed by what other people think of us or tell about us. And without being aware we leave and lose our self. Showing a happy non-self. We thrive... And the system is happy with that. 

What about the only goal in life? LIVING, being yourself! 
If you can be yourself, that is already action. You only think you need to be in the system and if not something terrible will happen to you. No food, no love, no roof above your head, no care, etc.. Thinking this, only is a trick of your mind joking with you, supported by your environment and the system. Action is based on non-action; action is being. 

You don't need to arrive at the end of the path, as Thich Nhat Hanh mentioned, in order to be happy. If you do not have a fixed destination..., every day you reach an adventurous destination. The right path refers to the very concrete ways you live your life in every moment. Striving for reaching goals disturbs you from being aware of the many beautiful opportunities and invitations life can show you if you take the time to reach you. And if you reach your goal, the aim, most of the time you are not even happy because your are already running to the next goal.

There are people who do a lot, but who also cause a lot of trouble. The more they try to help, the more trouble they create even if they have the best intentions. They're not peaceful, they're not happy. It's better not to try so hard but just to 'be' and live. Then peace and compassion are possible in every moment. 

Happiness is possible only when you stop running and cherish the here and now and who you really are. 

As a proud father I have never seen my daughter so bright shining, full of tremendous energy, living and accepting life day by day. If and how this goes on...? I don't know. One thing for me is sure. Nobody never ever will take this life experience away from her. What an aim to open up to live life the fullest. 

Have the guts to enjoy the adventurous educational journey of life. You are already someone; you do not need to become someone else. You are already a wonder of life. 

Frans Captijn

Host / Catalyst / Talenteer at Captijn Insight

Captijn Insight: “Catalyst in your process to new sustainable flow in life, love, family, business, career and work. Whether you are an individual, couple, team or organization.” 

www.captijninsight.com

captijninsight@gmail.com

Isn’t it great to have an ego? Use it well.

I sometimes get a bit tired about all the negativity expressed in relation to having an ego. In the culture I live in, it's most common that your make use of your ego to serve yourself and to serve the world around. Without ego you cannot even live. It’s a natural thing to interact with other people and changing situations. So to connect.

In short, that cultural (Buddhist) background learns that we all have 8 so-called states of consciousness. One of them has everything to do with our ego.

And of course I understand where the regularly negative commotion over ego comes from. An ego that can sometimes even drift into a form of ‘rooster behaviour’ (haunting behaviour) or narcissism (a form of behavior characterized by an obsession with its own personality, with selfishness, domination, ambition and lack of empathy. Often with a background of personal fear).

If you do not know yourself, never met yourself, do not know who you really are, why you are here, what’s the purpose of your life, you're definitely do not know or understand how to deal with that amazing instrument, "Ego consciousness". The way you can, no actually must, use it.

You do not have that ego for nothing or for the fun. Because you usually do not know what and how to do or deal with it, you are used to try and get what you can get. To "conquer" status and position. At least, that’s what you think and that’s what the world around shows you.

Have you ever thought about the idea that you got that ego to give form and matter to your uniqueness, your authenticity and your specific life-purpose. Your ego is precious. It is the basis for our adaptability to bring that uniqueness into the best possible way in the world. To be yourself, and thus not somebody else, because they are already taken and better in being their selves than you ever can be. To share what there is to share from that uniqueness you are. And with process to personally grow and develop yourself further on the path called life.

In fact, it has nothing to do with hard working but stimulates things and situations to come as they get along (to accept and learn). That's exactly how you give flow to your life.

By hiking against that (life)stream, you are going to work hard, do not accept the meaning of your life, but you make the choice to fight life. A form of inner battle to (only show the outside world) you are 'better'. To be different. To concur the expectations, you usually only think, others have of you. By not listening to yourself.

Just release this use of your ego, release this inner and outer fight. Allow your ego to freely support sharing your uniqueness, to be and to stay yourself. To interact out of harmony with yourself and your environment and to surrender to the path that is called life. Great to use your fantastic ego in the only right way. It's all about knowing yourself and finding the right way to give water (your rareness) to the roots of others out of empathy. The tree then takes care of the distribution of that water to all the parts, trunk, branches and leafs, that needs this food, this vitamin, this mineral, this energy or maybe even this treatment to make further steps forward as well.

Use your ego well and do not overwork yourself. Sharing your life flow of who you are not only is much easier, more supportive and healthier for yourself as well as for the world around you.

Frans Captijn

Host / Catalyst / Talenteer at Captijn Insight

Captijn Insight: “Catalyst in your process to new sustainable flow in life and work. Whether you are an individual, couple, team or an organization.” 

www.captijninsight.com

captijninsight@gmail.com

What do you want to be when you've grown up? What a strange question.

What do you want to become? A question that often cause parents, and for sure children / adolescents a lot of thinking and possibly even suffering.

Looking deeper in relation to this question you can find it often puts a form of pressure on the development of your uniqueness. Often you do not know at all what you want to become, and if you know, there are only a few children who follow that path the rest of their live.

When I take myself as an example, I never had a pronounced opinion for the hospitality branch, as a truck driver, in men's fashion, as an architect / constructional engineer, as an officer in the fire brigade and emergency services, and as a master in crisis and disaster management. And yet… I did it all and still use only some tiny little parts of it. I've got lots of degrees and certificates on my pocket and I am now in the world of personal development and transition processes and talent coaching in and for people and organizations. Surprisingly, sometimes I say that it still has a lot to do with crises and disaster management but in peoples personal lives.

Once my main interest was in photography and in animals. And yes, that's still a bit of hobby but has never become something in the direction of a career. Although, with photography as a 16-year-old boy, I still earned a lot of money by making pictures of traffic accidents I heard off, listening to the scanner / of the Haarlem (my birth place and place I grew up in The Netherlands) control room of the police, in my bed/study room.

Actually, thanks to my parents who offered me the opportunities, my life consisted of things that attracted and attract me and in which I can live freely my creativity.

At the moment, I call it the Street University of learning by doing. A fantastic experience of soul engagement, living my mission, my calling, and to make myself and other people and organizations happy and believe it or not… it also helps me, earning money with it, to keep myself so far in finest health.

What a weird question actually; "What do you want to be when you've grown up?" I basically followed mathematics and science because I felt more attracted by them. During all kind of testing and during following studies I was told to take time to think careful about my future directions because there was no way back. Step by step I should come closer to that goal and leave behind all kind of other possibilities and career chances.

What I discovered during time... This is all nonsense! Follow your calling and your mission and isn’t it very normal that you do not know that calling or mission when you are in your teenage years. In fact, dealing with this question of what you should be later on in society for many young people create big limitations and even anxiety to fail. The idea that you close doors behind yourself because you might not be able to do what you might want to do in and out of your heart when you grow older.

The first answer that may be given from childhood is that you want to become nothing at all but want to stay your unique self forever. As if you're not good enough.

Do not focus too much on a goal that's 10 or 15 years or maybe even more away. Do something you really like and discover during walking your life path what's your purpose in life (always live life first). Nice on and in a playful way. Get rid of the idea that you close doors behind you with any choice. After all, isn’t it first and for all not first all about YOUR happiness and YOUR pleasure to do (or not to do) with your uniqueness what YOU want?

If you live your uniqueness and go on living that uniqueness, to be and stay yourself and thus not to accept the (soft) pressure of the outside world, the system, parents or anything else, you will experience that it brings you enough money to live a life that suits you.

Follow YOUR uniqueness, be and stay yourself (everybody else is already taken). Only that brings you and the world around you the most happiness.

Frans Captijn

Host / Catalyst / Talenteer at Captijn Insight

Captijn Insight: “Catalyst in your process to new sustainable flow in life and work. Whether you are an individual, couple, team or an organization.” 

www.captijninsight.com

captijninsight@gmail.com

Adults need to learn to un-learn and free their inner child again.

Last week, by co-incident, two times I stood face to face with playing children. While they were in their carefree and creative world, parents where connected in and with their mobile devices.

A child still is a free soul. Parents need to empower their soul to exercise its own will. Taking some time to watch this pictures you can see it as children who are really exploring, creative creating, learning by doing, connecting. Learning at the ‘street university’ to improvise more and more in a professional way. They (still) have a free and open mind.

How different their parents. The picture of the two playing children I took of them playing in a stream of a wonderful waterfall nearby the place where I live. Two couples and all together three children. The parents payed the entrance fee and watching them I think they did not even see the magnificent waterfall. Only connected in their mobile phones. Not supporting the children, not teaching the children, not empowering the children, not inspiring their children at all.

They were in their world of suffering and worrying. Discussing, a bit furious, things that showed up on their devices and showing the screens with comments to each other. What a difference. Trapped in their own created prison of desires, without space in their mind. Their mind, as a garden, full of a chaos of impressions. Not able to guard or to garden their mind. To create some space to be at ease and at peace with themselves. Running away from their selves. Trying to avoid a kind of inner war, afraid to come home to themselves. Not listening to their inner child that still is available but tired of calling…

There is so much to learn from children. A young child is not afraid to shine, to show what it is capable of, to hug itself and to say it’s great. Creative, at peace, space in mind, joyful. The older the child becomes, the more its listening to the environment, the more it gets different desires, the more it is toxified by marketing, by money. Telling him/her there is a better way to live life and to be more happy.

Actually parents empower children, - not to be available for them because they are busy with their own suffering and worrying life -, to follow the same idea. To become an actor in their own life.

Un-learn and learn from children. They can be the teachers of and in your life to love yourself more. Not to be disturbed by what the world wants from you or what you think other people are thinking of you. Being and developing yourself more in interaction with your inner self instead of only with the outside world.

If we are able to free our child inside again and love ourselves more, we give room to Self-esteem, Self-respect and Self-expression. We become fuller, more compassionate people who are able to enjoy life intensely and connect to others on a deep level.

We create space in our mind. Are more playful, creative and at peace with ourselves. We start to breathe again and discover that only we are responsible for our anger and the war within ourselves. 

We become, as a child, a free minded, connected an more free and happy adult!

Learn to un-learn. 

Frans Captijn

Host / Catalyst / Talenteer at Captijn Insight

Captijn Insight: “Catalyst in your process to new sustainable flow in life and work. Whether you are an individual, couple, team or an organization.” 

www.captijninsight.com

captijninsight@gmail.com