Living by Design, Not by Default Nonsense-Free Life in a Beautiful World Full of Crap w wersji do nauki angielskiego ebook

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Copyright © 2023 by Maja Zawierzeniec

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Czy humanist(k)a może odnieść sukces i wieść szczęśliwe życie: a na dodatek głośno o tym mówić? Czy można być szczęśliwym i spełnionym bez codziennego wdzięczenia się w mediach społecznościowych? Czy więcej wart jest glamour czy dobrostan?

Living by Design, Not by Default: Nonsense-Free Life in a Beautiful World Full of Crap to nietypowy poradnik samorozwojowy. Maya Arenas Guerra, polska filolożka i psycholożka, mająca „normalną” pracę i żyjąca zgodnie ze swoimi wartościami, zaprasza do eksplorowania różnych aspektów ludzkiej egzystencji. W jedenastu dynamicznych rozdziałach zachęca do refleksji nad takimi zagadnieniami, jak zarządzanie czasem i energią, wyznaczanie celów życiowych, relacje, a także kreowanie własnej filozofii życia. Książka została zainspirowana dziesiątkami książek filozoficznych i psychologicznych, a także osobistymi doświadczeniami autorki.

Living by Design, Not by Default to poradnik, którego nie napisał żaden „wszechwiedzący” coach, który nie został napisany w USA ani z tamtejszej perspektywy i który nie jest przeznaczony tylko dla startupowców.

W książce Czytelnik znajdzie dużo humoru, dużo konkretów, a także dużo otwartości i zachęty do radosnego eksplorowania własnej ścieżki życiowej.

Czytając Living by Design, Not by Default: Nonsense-Free Life in a Beautiful World Full of Crap w wersji do nauki angielskiego, doskonalisz angielski, a jednocześnie we własnym rytmie zastanawiasz się nad poruszanymi zagadnieniami, takimi jak życiowe wybory, samodoskonalenie, dobrostan, relacje, finanse.

Jak korzystać z tej książki?

CZYTAJ: dzięki oryginalnemu angielskiemu tekstowi Living by Design, Not by Default przyswoisz nowe słówka i nauczysz się ich zastosowania w zdaniach. Angażująca tematyka sprawi, że trudno Ci będzie oderwać się od lektury, co zapewni regularność nauki.

SŁUCHAJ: pobierz bezpłatne nagranie oryginalnego tekstu książki, dostępne na stronie Wydawnictwa. Czytaj, jednocześnie słuchając nagrania, i utrwalaj wymowę.

Uwaga! Książkę możesz czytać: (1) „po kolei”, (2) zacząć od tematów, które interesują cię najbardziej bądź (3) od rozdziałów oznaczonych gwiazdką – są to rozdziały, które autorka uważa za kluczowe. Koniecznie zacznij jednak od słowa wstępu oraz zapoznaj się ze strukturą książki!

Nie bój się robić notatek na marginesach oraz zapisywać swoich inspiracji! Zachęcamy, byś robił/a to w języku angielskim :).

“Ideally, what should be said to every child, repeatedly, throughout his or her school life is something like this: You are in the process of being indoctrinated. We have not yet evolved a system of education that is not a system of indoctrination. We are sorry, but it is the best we can do. What you are being taught here is an amalgam of currentprejudice and the choices of this particular culture. The slightest look at history will show how impermanent these must be. You are being taught by people who have been able to accommodate themselves to a regime of thought laid down by their predecessors. It is a self-perpetuating system. Those of you who are more robust and individual than others will be encouraged to leave and find ways of educating yourself — educating your own judgements. Those that stay must remember, always, and all the time, that they are being moulded and patterned to fit into the narrow and particular needs of this particular society.” [Doris Lessing]

“We have to create culture, don’t watch TV, don’t read magazines. The nexus of space and time where you are now is the most immediate sector of your universe, and if you’re worrying about Michael Jackson or Bill Clinton or somebody else, then you are disempowered, you’re giving it all away to icons, icons which are maintained by an electronic media, so that you want to dress like X or have lips like Y. This is shit-brained, this kind of thinking. That is all cultural diversion, and what is real is you and your friends and your associations, your highs, your orgasms, your hopes, your plans, your fears. And we are told ‘no’, we’re unimportant, we’re peripheral. ‘Get a degree, get a job, get a this, get a that.’ And then you’re a player, you don’t want to even play in that game. You want to reclaim your mind and get it out of the hands of the cultural engineers who want to turn you into a half-bakedmoron consuming all this trash that’s being manufactured out of the bones of a dying world.” [Terence McKenna]

“Among other things, you’ll find that you’re not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You’re by no means alone on that score, you’ll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You’ll learn from them—if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It’s a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn’t education. It’s history. It’s poetry.” [J.D. Salinger]

“This is a world, not a womb.” [Elizabeth Gilbert]

Introduction

About the Author

So, who is Maya Arenas Guerra?

Maya Arenas Guerra (Maja Zawierzeniec), Ph.D., is a Spanish philologist, a trilingual poet and expert on Mexico, a translator, and an academic teacher. She studied at a number of renowned universities (Warsaw University, SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Universidad Veracruzana de Xalapa, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México). A couple of years ago, she completed a psychological trainer’s program at Collegium Bobolanum in Warsaw, Poland. Currently, she is finishing a Psy.M. at SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Warsaw, and a specialized course dedicated to SFBT (Solution-Focused Brief Therapy).

She enjoys as many travels as she can (so far she has visited around 50 countries on 6 continents), but she is based and works in Warsaw.

As a poet, she publishes in Spanish, Polish and English. Her latest, 5th, poetry book, published in the spring of 2023, is “Of(f) course >>> Hana hou”. As a Mexicanist, she specializes in Mexican feminine literature, contemporary Mexican art, Mexican drug cartels and Mexican identity, including cultural relations between Mexico and East Asia. She has published: “La mujer en el mundo latinoamericano. Literatura, historia, sociedad: el caso de México”, “Las voces sordas. El capital creativo del narco México contemporáneo” (1985-2015), and “Glosario esencial del lenguaje del narco en el México contemporáneo”.

She was a speaker at TEDxWarsawWomen 2013 (“Sen na granicy” - “On Dreaming and Borders”), and since 2014 she has been the main organizer and licensee of TEDxMarszalkowska, having organized 11 events (including an event in a prison and a pandemic open-air event). She also is an aspiring youtuber (mostly videos in Polish about Spanish philology and translating, and some in Spanish) and a beginner instagrammer (@speak_spanish_be_happy), with a bilingual Spanish-English account to teach Spanish with occasional private pics.

From time to time, she conducts creative and therapeutic writing workshops. In 2016, she carried out writing workshops based on Latin American literature for the inmates of one of the prisons in Warsaw. In March 2021, she finalized the first edition of a 6-month creative and therapeutic writing workshops Rite2Write (pro bono publico, 12 classes, online, in Polish).

Maya’s original surname, Zawierzeniec, difficult enough to be correctly spelled even for her compatriots, literally means a person that can be trusted – or a person entrusted to (some) god. Because of her passion for Mexico, being Spanish her adoptive language, and due to the importance of the Latin American community and culture all over the globe, she chose a Spanish surname as a pseudonym for her publications on self-growth. Arenas (meaning “sands” in Spanish) relates not only to oceans and beaches she loves, but also to the compelling beauty of deserts and the passing of time in a sandglass. Guerra (originally “war” in Spanish) reflects her rebellious and independent nature. Maya (written “Maja” in Polish) is a name popular in many cultures, and she has always been extremely grateful to her parents for calling her that. In the Christian culture, it is associated with Mary, the mother of Jesus; in Hinduism, it refers to Buddha’s mother and translates roughly as illusion, whereas in Roman mythology, Maia, one of the Pleiades, is the mother of Hermes, described often as a god of transitions.

You can follow Maja Zawierzeniec on: FB, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube and download or read some of her academic work on: Academia or Research Gate. You can also watch her TEDx presentation “Sen na granicy” (“On Dreaming and Borders”, available with English and Spanish subtitles). You can also visit her webpage (in Polish): https://www.maja-zawierzeniec.com/.

Do not hesitate to reach out with comments and observations: [email protected].

Cheesy (and Twisted) Acknowledgements

I’m deeply grateful to all the people who read the first drafts of this book and whose invaluable observations made the final version much clearer and more readable. Your support, kind words and constructive criticism were an extra fuel to this project.

I’m also grateful for all the experiences that have made me who I am. For the thousands of conversations all over the world that have enriched me, many of them with artists, and many of them with strangers. I’m grateful for all the little and big inspirations, hidden in poems, art, travels, mainstream press and unexpected encounters. I’m grateful for having been able to put them in this book (and in my life).

I’m also grateful, in some kind of a twisted way, to all the people who made my “growing” (and thus this book) possible: to all the people who wanted me to see them as “illuminated”, “mature” and “successful” and turned out to be painfully mediocre; all the people who let me down, took advantage of me and who shattered my disneylandish vision of life. All the people who made me question things that at a certain point seemed natural and obvious. If it hadn’t been for you (at least, partly), I would have done much less, would have stayed in my comfort zone and maybe would be a grey cog in the difficult-to-escape machine of the mainstream existence. I cannot thank you enough.

Notice to Readers

1. I have written this book because I would have needed it a few years back, and because I’ve gone through enormous internal change (or, rather, a series of changes) over almost two decades and have decided to summarize these changes and experiences in a more formal way than just my personal notes. From rather an unsure individual (mainly in personal situations, but sometimes also in the professional or educational ones), who would mostly seek advice, I’ve become a person who basically only takes her own advice and whose advice is listened to. This does not mean I have more or better answers; I simply pose different questions than I used to and try to be more sincere with myself about what I have become, what the world is, and how the social expectations and mainstream life shape the existence of masses. One of the reasons this change came to life is because most people who used to be inspiring to me are not inspiring anymore. And because when the only person I’ve considered a real mentor (and a great friend) passed away after a horrid accident, nobody could really fill his place. Taking into account the contents of this book, I think it can prove most useful to people aged 20-45, as perhaps slightly older people, with more life experience, might find it too general or too “compartmentalized”.

Side-note: Some people I meet (women mostly) think that my attitude and way of life is just a pose, that deep inside I’m a vulnerable and lost little girl. While “fake it till you make it” is a strategy that undoubtedly works for many people, many years ago I started to work really consciously on having “a harder ass” (as we say in Polish) and, at the same time, conserving my sensitivity. In other words: being as strong inside as people see me on the outside (of course, to some extent; I am not a heartless robot). I encourage you to try to do the same. And I hope the thoughts included in this book will help you do it. Side note to the side note: being emotionally strong does not mean never being vulnerable, never suffering or being overly optimistic. It means choosing another way to deal with painful or complex situations: in the most constructive way possible and taking care of ourselves.

2. Two basic rules I preach for in this book are the following: (1) you are responsible for the quality of your life, and it requires consciousness, perseverance and good energy to make it what you want it to be. And the courage to make conscious decisions, because basically everything you have or do not have relates directly to your actions or lack of actions. Also, (2) if you want your life to be good, you need to work on it constantly, at 25, 35, 45, 65, etc. “Happiness” or “well-being” are not gifts the world grants us for a lifetime. Moreover, it’s about the “invisible work”, about the iceberg-under-water part of ourselves. Because, and I will keep on repeating it in this book, it’s much, much, more important how we see ourselves, how we feel about ourselves, than how other people see us. On the other hand, I want to reach to passionate individuals who have their dreams and passions, and whose passions form part of their identity. Because this book is not about surviving, it’s about thriving in life. It focuses on being constructive and fighting for what you want, on working on the things we can change and modifying our mindset (in this context, it involves some techniques from what is called positive psychology).

3. There are “quite a few” similar books on the market but mostly written by men, entrepreneurs, Americans from the US. And yes, I have found quite a few of them highly inspiring, but I also thought I needed, and wanted to write, something more related to my context and mindset. To cut a very long story of my professional life short: I am an academic teacher, a translator, a traveler, a poet and a Solution-Focused Brief Therapy practitioner. I’ve always had difficulty in being inspired by other people in the humanist world, the academics, as a whole, being the least inspiring on the list (sorry, guys, I think that deep down you know it). To tell you the truth, at first, I got quite frustrated by it. But then I accepted that, whether I really wanted it or not, I was the inspiration-generator for many people, and I should embrace that, stop whining (yeah, I am a big whiner and candy ass at times), and simply get down to work (although, from time to time, I still get frustrated about that). The ideas, tips, thoughts I have put in this book are the result of around 10 years of a more conscious life and a huge internal change I have gone through, as well as many solo travels, tons of books and “aha moments”. Many ideas I present here are, of course, not mine: most of them are universal, deeply human, shared by many people, present in numerous self-help books, psychological theories, and philosophical essays. However, the ideas I have chosen for this book are the ones that have definitely helped me to navigate through my life and have proven, on many occasions, constructive and useful. This book is not so thick, and it covers a wide variety of topics: its purpose is to gain a general but quite a clear view of the complexity of human life and its more vital issues. There are many books that concentrate on certain aspects of what I personally find important. They form part of the chapters of this book. Nevertheless, my idea was to start with something more ample, maybe a bit more general, but also far more practical. Instead of having you read 200 pages dedicated solely to creativity, I preferred to give you 200 pages on different elements of human life plus a series of exercises.

4. I am aware of the fact that most self-development books are aimed at entrepreneurs, start-uppers, businessmen and similar people, to whom, for example, the humanists can only partly relate because our mindset, values and way of life are quite different in some aspects. But don’t worry, because the content of this book and much of the advice included is universal: no matter what your educational and professional background is, you will not feel excluded in any way. The aim of this book is not solving the humanity’s burning issues nor saving the world (but maybe contributing to making it less shitty). I am just sharing pieces of my very personal map, parts of which you might find useful. Think of this book as my personal diary I have partly, well, “depersonalized”, to make it more universal. This book has also a strong philosophical basis, and it’s rather meant for “maximizers”, people with a growth mindset, i.e. people who want to consciously make the most of their lives in all aspects, while keeping in touch with their inner self. It’s also a book for warriors. For me, a warrior is a hunter looking for power and energy. There is no time for lying nor self-pity here (at least, not much). Also, I feel it’s more for introverts than extroverts: for people that are willing to dig deeper and already know that their choices affect their social circle, so they don’t care if it shrinks to a few people they can really connect to and relate. It’s for people who truly want to change something.

I think I criticize a lot in this book, but I do also praisecertain things. I will not say every second page that life is beautiful, and the humanity is one big loving family (nor that the family you grew up in has always been a paradise on earth and getting married and reproducing will solve your sense-of-life issues). This is my way of seeing things. And I know I am not the only one that shares this point of view. My aim is to learn to see life as it is, and in spite of what it is, make it better and more fulfilling.

You will also find “some” irony on these pages. Firstly, I think I am an ironic gal, it is just my way, I guess (although, truth be told, I am not so good with sarcasm). On the other hand, irony can be a great shield against stupidity, mediocrity, consumerism, and ill politics, which is what we observe a lot in the world and will be observing in saecula seaculorum. Also, I am using a straightforward and sometimes harsh language, but that’s mainly because I am bull-shit aversive. I like calling things how I see them, but of course, readers are welcome to disagree and change these harsh words for nicer ones!

5. Many people’s lives are, sadly, just about survival: social, economic, professional, personal. This book is for people who want to thrive, not just survive in any of these aspects. It basically means that if you already have fairly satisfactory life at the moment of starting to read this book, it will be much easier to incorporate changes. On the other hand, however, if you strongly decide to jump from the survive mode to thrive mode, and you decide to work harder, the change might be dramatic and, frankly, quite difficult to make. But still possible. Also, remember, if you have a serious psychological condition, if you suspect you suffer from depression, if you are in an abusive or toxic relationship, please stop looking for help just in books and get professional counselling available in your country as soon as possible.

6. I don’t think I use the world “happiness” in this book too often because for me it’s not about searching for “happiness” but about having a fulfilling life. Chances are, if you are living a fulfilling life, “happiness” will follow. Also, “happiness” is rather a fugacious and elusive concept. Or maybe, my perspective is a little twisted. For me, the alternative is simply being conscious, enjoying well-being, having a fulfilling life, feeling loved and appreciated. We could also argue that “happiness”, in a way, is a product of the times we live in: we think we know what “is supposed” to make us “happy”. We establish “happiness” around expectancy. Then again, some psychologists argue that it cannot be easily predicted what will make us happy or unhappy in the long run (and this makes going after “happiness”, as such, useless). Also, bear in mind that we might be “unhappy” because we have the incorrect model of a “happy” life (sic!). And finally, people are supposed to adapt more quickly to positive changes and thusunderestimate them, which forms a significant barrier to achieving long-lasting “happiness” (yes, you understood correctly: we underestimate our happy moments). Also, according to psychological investigations, half of our happiness is determined by genetics, only some by circumstances and the rest (a little less than a half) is in our power to control. And here, instead of focusing on fate or circumstances, we will concentrate on what we can do with our lives. Thus, I will rather refer in this book to the Aristotle’s concept of eudaimonia, that is, well-being achieved through knowing your true self and acting in accordance with your virtues and values. Short spoiler: to have a satisfying life in eudaimonia, we should try to use our intellect and skills in a way that would allow us to rise above our instincts and the easiest solutions. To create a life in which we aspire to more than procreation, richness, fame, vanity.

So, basically, what I want to show in this book is the possibility of having a (very) good life. Many people will not know you have it, but you will anyway. And that should be enough. Life free of comparisons, shallowness, having to be nice to jerks. Notice that it’s not money nor glamour. It’s status what moves people. But here we are preaching something more profound. Life free of banalities.

In the process of writing this book, especially with some parts, I realized again and again that many things I am writing about are common knowledge… Well, knowledge that potentially can be accessed relatively easily. It’s a book with inquiries and some intents to answer them. Maybe you have different questions or better answers. This book’s objective is to be your companion in the process. Our personal reality is composed of many threads. In this book, I underline the ones I consider most important, and I invite you to incorporate yours!

7. I am not giving anybody advice or suggestions of what to do in any particular situation or “how to live”; my goal is to share my veryparticular point of view, in my particular Central-European context. Being a rather independent woman, I have based this book on my knowledge, experience, and world-observation. I am positive that many of you will be able to relate to the experiences and thoughts I describe or at least find parts of it useful, or maybe inspiring, or at least positively amusing.

8. The aim of this book is both to be inspiring and practical. I’ve seen many people who go to psychology workshops, read help books, even engage in therapy, but all this is just a smoke screen for not doing anything! They theorize, often endlessly, when they should be reacting actively,responding. They tend to overanalyze, but it does not translate into change or having a better quality of life. It may be intellectually attractive and engaging, yet it doesn’t change a thing. I’d like this book to be an ignition key for change for its readers. Of course, we often prefer to stay in the current situation, in a rotten relationship, having a lousy job, with boring friends. We don’t want the trauma of having to look for another job or deciding that it’s best to leave our current partner to find somebody with whom we can grow. It’s hard to be brave and honest enough to say that spending time with some friends is just not enriching anymore.

On the other hand, if you are still change-resistant, remember that normally it is a bit easier to read a book than to participate actively in psychological workshops. The act of deciding to participate in self-growth workshops is the act of making the decision and obligation to yourself to start the process of change. Deep inside people know it too well, and on too many occasions this step seems simply extremely difficult because of the consequences it would have. So, in a way, this book is meant to be a guide to make the process of change smoother and not that scary to undertake. Or, at least, help you not to feel alone with your thoughts and doubts.

9. Of course, I do not live accordingly to what I preach here every day! That would be far too exhausting! And literally impossible! When I was revising this book (almost twenty versions of the manuscript) I often thought that maybe I shouldn’t be giving all that “good advice” if my life so often is emotional chaos. Moreover, during each revision of the text I realized there were rules I was not following at a given moment. But even though we may not reach the stars, it’s good to look at the stars because this way at least we will not end up in the mud! It’s not about becoming a Buddha, it’s not about suffering to strive for perfection. It’s simply important to stay on track and come back when you branch off. Because paths to enlightenment are (whatever the enlightenment means for us), precisely, paths and not fixed points! Being human is, para bien o para mal, to err and to err again. It’s time to accept it! Just make sure that you don’t keep making the same mistakes. And remember that each question is a way, is a path. The more questions you ask, the more paths you will be able to see.

One more thing at this point: many people have the belief that knowing something is half the battle. If we know our values, if we have read about strategies to make our life more fulfilling, we are, supposedly, half way there. Unfortunately, science proves this to be untrue (Laurie Santos calls this in her famous Yale course on happiness “the G.I. Joe fallacy”, as the protagonist of the famous US cartoon from the 80s would often say: “Now you know. And knowing is half the battle…”). On many occasions, we do know what is correct or good for us, and still we are unable to do it, to put it in practice.

The thing is, knowing something does not automatically make the situation better. If we want to change our behavior (because ultimately, it’s about changing our thoughts and our behavior), we need to do so much more than to know what we should, or want, or know how to change. The real change comes when we apply certain ideas and studies to our everyday life. And, clearly, this is no piece of cake.

10. Last but not least. I am not a coach who wants to teach, or pretends to teach you how to be successful in the way the mainstream understands that. I am “just” a person who has first intuitively, and then, consciously worked hard to have a good life. Look around and you will find some unicorns like that: people happy with their jobs, good at what they’re doing, enjoying their everyday lives, earning decent money, mentally stable, in healthy relationships (not necessarily romantic ones), never ceasing to learn new things, and free to live a life they have consciously chosen for themselves! This is me (well, work in progress) and this is what this book is about: a journey of who you are now and who you can (and want to!) become.

Structure of This Book

This book is divided into 10 chapters (plus chapter 0, which contains some introductory concepts and thoughts).

The introduction (Notice to Readers), the 0 chapter (the introductory chapter) and the first, second and third chapters occupy roughly half of the book. Overall, the first 5 chapters are longer than the last chapters as they are filled with issues that I felt needed deeper explanation (and I felt I somehow had a deeper understanding of them). Some topics pop over and over again in the book in different chapters, in different contexts. The ninth chapter (Everything Is Connected) is particularly short (I basically list there again the most important dots that sum up to a good life), and the chapters nine and ten are basically a summary of the most important topics covered beforehand.

Each of the chapters is divided into 10 subchapters to make it more transparent and more digestive. Some of them are larger, some are relatively short, some are really brief. This depends mostly on how much a given topic resonates with me and how much attention I have decided to give it in this book, whose aim is a general approach to different aspects of human life. There are, however, some concepts and thoughts I see as a baseline and some rules I give are very short (like “Good relationships feel good”, in Chapter 6). Of course, the subchapters are only little sparks of Very Important Topics, but again, this is the idea for this book: a wide view of many vital aspects of human life.

Sometimes the last paragraph of the subchapter might seem “cut” or “unfinished” or with some big idea hanging there. It’s deliberate and it’s an invitation for the readers to keep thinking about the topic and questioning what you already know.

Some “rules”, principles and topics seem relatively easy and maybe for some people they really are. On the other hand, don’t get fooled. Reflecting properly and consciously on each of those subchapters would take months (or even years). And I sincerely hope each of these little chapters can inspire you to keep digging and thinking. And reaching for books that cover more specific topics, once you have detected what your personal needs are. The subchapters finish with questions that should both make the navigation through this book easier and enrich its content. There are short and apparently frivolous questions, but there are also questions that will take you weeks, if not months, to answer… if lucky.

Feel free to use the margins of this book (or a special notebook) to write down your own observations, draw, think, agree, disagree, doubt, have your “aha moments”.

Also, if you don’t want to start with reading the whole book in order right away, I marked with the asterisk the parts and subchapters I consider most important or a good place to start with.

And because our circumstances inevitably affect us, particularly if there are big changes going on a global scale, I have also included two mini-appendices called “Dealing with COVID-19” and “Getting out of the new normal”.

So, let’s get started!