WHAT DO WE NEED TO KNOW TO SURVIVE?

Merceline last week asked in our zoom meeting: What can help us survive?

Since we were born this is perhaps what worries us most.

Maybe because parents or teachers always remind us, maybe because the fear it is sensible and real.

For me too, the biggest challenge, when I finished school and afterwards, was to be able to find a job that would allow me to live, and to stay healthy.

The fear of losing our job, or of not finding another one, or of losing our health, I think unites us all.

What skills are useful for this purpose? What can help us survive?

None of us are truly satisfied with just surviving. Life costs effort, and each of us would like this effort to have meaning. A sense that gives us a little happiness.

I think a book wouldn't be enough to talk about it, but let's go in order:

Nothing and no one can ensure our health and success.

One of the rules of life is that there is chance, and therefore good and bad luck. This is something we struggle to control; we cannot totally exclude bad luck, but knowledge of the world and life can help us a lot to reduce bad luck a lot. Because very often bad luck is actually the result of our ignorance.

This also applies to good luck: someone who is wise will seem like a lucky person in the eyes of an ignorant person.

Curiosity, research and study will help us understand the world, reduce prejudices, and improve success in life.

Health.

Health is perhaps what is most important to us.

Keeping our body healthy, both physical and mental, means first of all knowing what we need and what can put us in danger.

It can therefore help us to know how to prepare balanced meals and how to prepare them with economical foods.

It can help us to know which foods are heavier for our body, and therefore it is better to eat them rarely or in small quantities.

It can help us to know what to pay attention to when preparing food, to reduce microbiological or chemical dangers.

We can get sick because we eat little and badly, but we can also damage our health a lot by eating too much.

Maintaining a healthy body also means being able to respond better to diseases, because we are quicker to activate our defenses.

But it's not just the food. There are infectious diseases, or poisoning with dangerous materials. And then there are the accidents. And there are mental illnesses.

There are living or working environments that are more dangerous than others, there are safer companies and others that are more dangerous. There are friendships that are better than others.

True friendships are perhaps what most of all can make the difference in our lives and our happiness.

Let's get to work.

Work is the most interesting challenge in our lives.

On a theoretical level, work must follow what the society around us needs most, or what it values most. 

We get paid because we are useful to someone, the salary is the reward for our commitment and the results of our work.

We can work for food, for building houses, for clothes, to cure diseases or for research. And we can work to heal people's spirits, with beauty, music, entertainment and religion.

Everything can be important, everything can be a job, if we are very good at something useful and appreciated by people.

If you are a child, if you are a boy or a girl, in my opinion what you need to ask yourself is:

What do I feel I'm best at? What am I most appreciated for? What am I most passionate about? What do I want to focus my efforts on? What could the world need me more for? What role would I like to have in the world?

To answer these questions well we must learn to know ourselves, the people around us, and the society in which we live.

The school should also serve this purpose.

In my life I have learned one thing: with the right commitment, little by little you can become very good at a lot of things. But you can't become good at everything. We don't have enough time and energy.

This is why we have to make choices, and these choices are important. What we invest our time and energy in, is important.

We can't become good at everything, but we can have allies and friends to join forces with. With which to make important projects.

Already here in my opinion we can understand some important things:

1) knowing ourselves, what we are good at easier, and what we are most passionate about in life

2) decide what to invest time and energy in

3) cultivate our ability to make friends and collaborate with people

4) understand what the world needs and how we can be useful.

If we know how to commit ourselves to something, if we know how to know the world and understand what it needs, if we are people of value... then we won't have too much difficulty finding a job.

The world will need us, and it will be easier for us to survive.