Virginie Glaenzerwriting as Silomène — painter · writer · philosopher

“You are on your own” is a powerful little statement that made me feel a brief exhilarating moment of freedom.

Similar to the advice that Seth Godin gave Bryan Elliott when he told him: “Bryan, there is no Prince Charming in this story. There is no rescue boat. No one’s coming. Stop waiting.”

Between the education that teaches us to stay in line and society constantly selling us the idea of happiness through material acquisition and social status, it’s easy to end up living a life of conformity based on other people’ beliefs and desires which can create a feeling of victimization.

It seems to me that one reason that causes this feeling of powerlessness comes from our attachments to things and to others.

In a recent New York Times articles, Elizabeth Grace Saunders describes “The 4 ‘Attachment Styles, and How They Sabotage Your Work-Life Balance”. I highly recommend this 3 minutes read as you might find some personal relevance.

Getting rid of our attachments to become more productive or to feel freer is a long journey and I’m not going to attempt to create a 3 step-process, at least not today.

However, there is one thing that I can share with you to alleviate this feeling of victimization and provide a renewed sense of power: it’s through the simple word of Desire.

I often hear people share their desires to start something new, join a gym, change job, or start a company but months later you find them exactly where you left them.

In our society and in our culture of instant gratifications, Desire is a word misused and more importantly, widely misunderstood.

Desire comes from the Latin and its original sense means “await what the stars will bring,” from Sidus “heavenly body, star, constellation” and De, “Down from”.

We often think that if we want something, it means that we desire it. It couldn’t be further away from the truth. You can’t will a desire and you definitely cannot control it. It’s either there or it’s not. The strongest desires are when you CAN’T find a reason for it. You don’t know why you want to do it, but you can feel how much you want to do it.

In fact, often when we think we desire something and we are not getting any closer to obtaining it, there is a high chance that we don’t truly want it for a number of reasons, such as conflicting desires or fear of the unknown.

A true desire comes from within and is not pushed by your environment to please others or to feed the self-concerned story we have in our mind about who we think we are.

I invite you to write down what you think you desire and then ask yourself: why do I desire it? Is it to please others or is it coming from a deep and true part of my creativity and uniqueness? That distinction is very important as we often set-up goals with the wrong desires and that leads to failure.

So free yourself from others’ desires and focus on the ones that truly improve your life and, by extension, the lives of other living beings and most importantly, don’t wait for any permissions: you’re on your own!

In our confusing and overwhelming world of rapidly advancing technologies, unlimited lifestyle choices and societal changes, I find myself talking with people about the meaning of life.

I’d like to share a story that I’ve been telling my family members and friends to help them with their emotional angst and hopefully find light in the darkness. Perhaps you’ll find this story insightful or at least entertaining.

This story called The Cottage is a play in four scenes.

The story begins in a little house that looks like a cottage on Saint Pierre and Miquelon, a French island off the coast of Canada, south of Newfoundland. The weather there is always cold, windy and grey even during the height of summer.

Out of nowhere, you find yourself inside the main room of the cottage sitting on a brown fabric couch. Next to you is a pile of puzzles on a wooden vintage coffee table.

You don’t know why you’re there.

You don’t know if there are other people with you.

You don’t know what you’re supposed to be doing or even how long you’ll be there.

You look around the room. The house looks clean, old and rustic. From the fishing nets hanging on a ceiling beam, you imagine that the house once belonged to a hard-working fisherman who perhaps built some of the wooden furniture himself. There are old books on a shelf and a glass bottle with something that looks like a small ship inside.

You hear a sound. It’s the tick-tock coming from a tall pendulum clock. The clock is massive and simple made of chestnut wood.

Suddenly, you stand up and you find you’re pulled in the direction of the front door. There’s a sign attached to the door. A message.

You walk five feet to the door, and up close you can read the pinned note. It says “Crossing this door will cause Death. Someone will come knocking for you. Until then, live your life.” Your eyes stay fixated on the note trying to find some other meaning, some other information. But there’s nothing. You read the note again:

You look back at the room and for a second you think it must be a mistake. There must be an explanation.

You walk back to the couch, sit down and feeling distressed, ask yourself: “Why am I here? Am I the only one? What I am supposed to do and how long will I be here?”

You hear the noise. The tick-tock sound. The sound of the pendulum is constant, rhythmic, overwhelming and you start breathing in rhythm with each tick. You are breathing too fast and you feel wretchedness. A slow fear creeps out on you and through your bones.

So without thinking, you reach for one of the puzzles and try to solve it. Opening the box and laying all the pieces on the couch table covers the noise of the pendulum.

As you start assembling the puzzle and looking for pieces one by one, the sound disappears and you start to relax. Solving the puzzle is soothing. Your breathing gets calmer again. You continue working on the puzzle until you shiver and decide to make a nice warm fire in the fireplace with logs you saw in the room.

The room suddenly feels comfortable and the puzzles are interesting and actually quite fun to do. They’re distracting. So you forget why you’re here, if there is anyone else, what you’re supposed to be doing and how long you’ll be here.

Your life starts to feel comfortable. You begin liking where you are and making the best out of it. There’s even a record player with a few records that you enjoy listening to most days.

You don’t remember how it started. You had noticed the other door on the right side of the room before and you remember asking yourself many times why this door doesn’t have a similar note on it, like the one on the front door. You actually thought about it a lot but the puzzles kept you busy.

Until the door unexpectedly opened up. Perhaps when you tripped over the rug your hand pushed the door opened wide. Maybe the door was never closed!

This was very surprising and at first, it made you laugh. However, you have to admit that it took some courage to walk into the hallway.

But then, what a marvelous amazement it was. Like a child in a toy store, you discovered different rooms. Room after room after room was filled with new people and places you’ve never been before. Some rooms were beautiful with unbelievable colors and sounds but some rooms were scary. You remember discovering so many places and so many people. You could choose anything, go anywhere! And I mean ANYWHERE!

Along the way, you’ve met some people who said they had got lost and didn’t remember the small cottage on Saint Pierre and Miquelon or ever sitting on the brown fabric couch.

What a ride!! Some were fun rooms and others not so fun, but eventually, you moved from one room to the other, sometimes barely noticing it and just going with the flow.

But somehow you found your way back, to that small cottage room.You don’t quite remember if you searched for it but you felt a sort of calling inside.

Now you are able to sit on the couch in that small old house looking at the note on the front door and hearing the tick-tock, and it becomes the most unique experience of all.

You can hear the pendulum without freaking out. You look at the puzzles and see them for what they are: puzzles.

Sitting on the couch in that small old cottage house with a note on the front door and a pendulum clock, you become aware of what life is.

Life are short creative moments full of discoveries and uncertainties.

To me, that’s living life at its best when you can play the game fully and with passion, yet be aware of what they really are: games.

I sometimes wonder if others have this same recollection of the small cottage house in Saint Pierre and Miquelon. I wonder how long it took them to open the second door and find the other rooms.

I like to go back and forth between the many rooms and the room with the brown fabric couch. I sit on the couch for a few minutes before I notice the lights and movements coming from the hallway and, like a sailor drawn to the mermaid song, I always go back.

There are other rooms I would like to explore before someone comes knocking on my door.