3's a Crowd

"They say life comes in 3s". A quote we are all familiar with. There are references to this all around us; in religion there is the Holy Trinity, we have the good, the bad and the ugly and the mind, body and soul, to name a few. In this instance I'd like to focus on the latter. Individually, these parts of ourselves shape our identity, collectively, they shape our purpose.

I believe that ultimately we are all searching for love, happiness and a sense of belonging in this world, so what we tend to do is aim to better and in some cases maintain our identity to please the eyes of on lookers. In regards to the mind, whether it be through an establishment or the environment, we tend to educate ourselves to an expectant level which pleases our families, friends, employers or status equivalents.

Certainly when I was growing up it had been drilled into my mind that in order to be taken seriously in this world, I needed to get a good education and showcase a good level of understanding on a variety of topics. For me this was my only focus right up until I stopped being a teenager and started to become a young man. Now I am drawing on personal experiences at this stage, however I do not want this to distract you from the point that our focus lies on the individual elements rather than the collective (Mind, Body & Soul).

It is interesting how healthy eating and taking care of our bodies is only taken seriously when we do reach our 20s. Try browsing the internet for healthy lifestyle bloggers and youtube channels and you will find that a large proportion of account holders are indeed in their 20s and early 30s. The focus at this point is about taking care of the body as we are made to believe that once university is finished, the development of the mind is no longer of importance. One of the main topic of discussions I seem to find myself engrossed in with peers and colleagues is dieting and work out progression as opposed to maths and cultural studies.

Moreover, what we tend to not discuss is something which is deeper than the humanly functions of the brain and body, our spirituality. I cannot speak for everyone and will never try to, but in my rights to be observant I do believe we have come to an age where the focus on being at peace with our souls, whether that may be through religion or mystic encounters. These passages of life tend to occur in the later development of our lives, when the mind and the body has reached a satisfactory level, but for me, this is a concern.

I pose the question for those of you reading this, why do we limit our life span to identity? I feel as though the focus is to be an adequate version of ourselves. To be good at what we do but not great. As formerly mentioned, we are ultimately searching for love, happiness and a sense of belonging.. but why stop there? Why not go beyond adequate and be a greater you! Time is man-made, we must always remember this, what we do in our life span can determine many things, importantly, self fulfilment.

If you can honestly say to yourself that you are at a level where you are in a good sync with your mind, body and soul, then I truly applaud you. I do appreciate that there are individuals that are comfortable with approaching each phase of life bit by bit, but for those who have taken the time out to read this and feel there is room in their life to put all the pieces together, I highly encourage you to give it a go. Challenge yourselves, break boundaries you feel are yet to be discovered. Please do not just limit yourselves to focusing on singular parts of your life.

Embrace life. Love life. Live life.