What does it mean to be human?

Jaime Collins
Jan 23
4 min read

Are we supposed to be happy?

Find our purpose?

Achieve something monumental?

What if being human was just about living? Living YOUR way.

No end goal.

No ultimate GRAND meaning.

No mistakes.

Just a bunch of us figuring out how to be ourselves and get along as best we can while we're at it! With the pressure off, let’s dive into life.

As an eternal optimist, I believe humans are inherently good. No one believes they are a villain, they believe that their way of knowing and being in the world is meaningful. We are all motivated by love, whether that is desiring it, or love of oneself, one’s ideals, or one’s family. It’s only when we judge another's actions or beliefs as right or wrong that we begin to see the divide. Right and wrong are human labels, subjective to personal experience.

Take the example of Deeyah Khan, a muslim director, who grew up in Norway and chose to live with the ‘enemy’ in the United States to create the documentary, White Right: Meeting the Enemy. As she states, the majority of people are looking for a sense of belonging, something to give to the world. It would have been too easy to film the violence, hold them in contempt and dehumanize them. However, she chose to see the human inside them, why and how they feel victimized and thus mobilized with their perceived call to action.

Understanding how human nature and human experiences shape us can bring us together. We can see how we are similar and we can find the connections that weave their way through life. It can bring us together as we can love the human, or the soul, without sympathizing with the actions. We can’t change another person, no matter how hard we try. We have to find our way. We can choose to live in fear and confusion. Or, we can choose love and understanding.

Consequently, we turn the same behaviour onto ourselves. Currently, we just put so much pressure and expectations on ourselves, on others and on the world. When we fail, when we hurt ourselves/others, when we fall from grace, when we watch the news, we can attempt to love ourselves through the process of learning and being human. We can attempt to understand our true desires and what we need moving forward, without taking on the weight of the world, or the way things ‘should’ be. Lingering shame, guilt, anger, contempt, isn’t going to save us. In fact, we feel those things in the absence or search for… love.

No mistakes --> Learning.

Most of us keep striving to be a better version of ourselves. Although, even when we strive towards the promotion, the trophy, the success, the enlightenment, we also realize in the end it really didn’t matter. What mattered was the process, how we lived, how we felt, and who we spent it with.

Others have given in to hopelessness. If we can’t be successful outwardly, if the world is going to end, we suffer longer than necessary. Failure is also an important part of finding our way back to our desires, to our sense of self, to love.

Ultimately, it isn’t always easy, this unlearning. But you can do hard things with love in your heart.

I can do hard things, I can say sorry and ask how I can be supportive.

I can do hard things, and work towards better habits that make me feel good.

I can relax knowing I can handle this.

Essentially part of being human is about experiencing and creating from a place of love. It isn’t about perfection, of getting it right or doing it all the same way. We’re not here alone, the connection with others and the ability to establish meaningful relationships in the world promoted our evolution. This creative will can balance with entering the flow of experiencing our humanness. That is what makes us unique - choice.

No end goal --> journey.

If you like protocol or need clarity, it can help to change your habits and change your identity (neuroplasticity, you are always changing) with skill development. If you want to be happier, healthier, less afraid, more accepting, more confident, it starts with creating habits as that new version of yourself. Start small.

Identity:

I am happy, spiritual, a writer, an athlete, a healthy eater …

I love my job, my body, my home, my spouse …

B) Then it helps to reinforce a new habit loop! You are only going to do something new if it’s attainable and rewarding.

We often give in to old habits because the neural pathways have been strengthened over time, it’s easy and it’s more unconscious. It’s time to make those old habits unsatisfying and limit our exposure to give room for a new habit to form.

1) Identity: I am a writer and I am happy.

2) Old habit: reach for the phone when waking up.

Limit: place phone on dresser with a note on top reinforcing goal: It doesn’t make me feel happy (unsatisfying) so I check my email after journaling.

3) New habit: journaling

Attainable: 5 minute timer
Rewarding: You get to check your phone after; you get to have your coffee at the same time; you get to put your heating pad on; you get to play your favourite music etc.

4) Failure, Patience & Forgiveness: allow it all, habits take time, you are not a robot, you are a human.

So what if being human was about letting go of the expectations and balancing the art of allowing with the art of creating? Ultimately, you have the choice to do something or nothing in the name of love and learning!

However you see being human, remember to allow others to do the same - and see the human in them too. Maybe the ripple of your love will reverberate exponentially;)