By EK Wills
Last weekend we attended our son’s scout Christmas party at the beach. Unusual you might say, but this was the sea scouts and it is water based.
We recently moved close to the water but hadn’t had the opportunity to engage in water activities till that day: life has a way of distracting you with work, setting up house and preparing for Christmas.
This was the first chance we had to force ourselves to stop and enjoy what we had moved there for.
We took our contribution plate and walked to the venue with no idea of what to expect and found kayaks, canoes, little catamarans, rubber duck and a tinny on the water. All the kids were in the water and the adults were invited to join in.
It was like being at an American summer camp or an extended family and friends camping trip.
The BBQ was set up with marquees and trestle tables. People were sitting on travel chairs, towels, rugs and logs under trees. Activities went on till everyone was starving. Then we queued for lashings of banquet quality dishes to then settle down to the business of eating a delicious spread.
And yes, there was cake.
This led me to thinking about how incredibly lucky we are to be able to enjoy such a gathering, to have a community within a big city where you can all get together, without a tall building in sight, and play at the water’s edge.
There was time to reflect on how we had been missing the connection with networks such as those at the kids’ schools and friends we met there due of lack of time.
Christmas gives us the opportunity to re-join communities, to reconnect with family and friends. It is the excuse that is hard to make while doing the busy work of the year that ultimately makes us tired by the end of the year.
Eating cake by the ocean gave me the chance to think about how we came to be there and the choices I (and my family) made to get there.
I remembered reading about the four givens of the human condition, put forward by Irving Yalom, an existentialist psychotherapist. He proposed that there are four givens that we are presented with and need to respond to in our lives.
4 “givens” in existentialist psychology:
1. Isolation
2. Meaninglessness
3. Mortality
4. Freedom
According to Yalom, psychological dysfunction, or mental illness, comes from not dealing with the normal anxiety of confronting life’s givens.
Anxiety can be seen as a natural stage of development and maturation.
It starts with the realisation that although we all crave connection and want to have meaning in our lives, we cannot depend on others for validation. Anxiety comes from knowing it must come from within.
I know I personally struggled with the idea of how things “should be” in my life rather than what I could do to direct it the way I wanted it to go. Personal happiness is based on having the freedom to direct your life by making choices that lead to your happiness.
That is not to say that things don’t go horribly wrong but these are part of the givens of the human condition. How we respond to them is what resolves the conflict. If we can accept the feelings of meaninglessness and strive to make choices to create new meanings for ourselves, we can all lead "the good life" by building, loving and creating.
Everyone has the freedom to work towards a greater amount of well-being and meaning in their lives but often does not realise that they can make those choices consciously.
So while we ate cake by the ocean, I could appreciate that long work hours with a goal in sight was my choice so that we could move closer to the water and enjoy days like this Christmas gathering.
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