The way nature makes you thrive

Nature has its rules. But we as humans, who always consider themselves to be the smartest creatures, which is probably true, never stop challenging it and changing its course.

The reason why there was a ‘probably’ in the previous statement was because if you think on a deeper a level it may be false. Our brains evolved over decades and centuries to make things simpler and easier, yet progress in the direction of achieving utter complexity. Why I say progressing for utter complexity is because one of the fundamental rules which nature follows is change. Over a period of time, it never remains the same. And only after it reaches utter complexity, it can start again from beginning, proving another law of nature — cycle.

Coming back to the first paragraph, let’s dig a little and try exploring how good or bad it is to challenge nature. And I am not talking about major challenges here. It’s on those minute levels which we do on a daily basis.

To start with — sleeping habits. Sunrise is nature’s call to every organism to wake up and start the day, and sunset is to indicate end of day.

But that hardly matters to humans, doesn’t it? Even though we might not follow it, we are aware of the infinite health benefits of starting our day early, and but naturally, there are repercussions of not doing so, which are generally seen in the long term basis. This is the most basic example where we defy nature’s rule almost every day, and we may not realize it, but it will have its effects.

In order to make a living, we have to work, and work hard. The same goes with other living organisms, in order to make a living they too have to work. But there is a major difference. They work to fulfil their basic needs like food, sex and survival. In the larger picture we work for the same things, but the way we do it is completely different. The amount of stress involved in our case is tremendous, completely unparalleled? So, is it a good thing?

Of course not.

In terms of emotions, we do what we do only for two reasons — getting satisfied and getting happy. But in that quest we often miss the line and burden ourselves to such levels that there is no coming back.

As the smartest creatures on earth, now it’s not practically possible to leave everything and live like animals. But yes, we can always take a step back. Sometimes it is taking that one step back which takes us forward. And it is about finding those little steps which can be the key to not only living, but thriving.

Originally published at medium.com