Life’s Template

Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional or a trained psychologist and hold no medical credentials. My passion involves mental health and the content of this article is sourced from the internet from real medical professionals and organizations. If you suffer from addiction or any other mental health problem or physical pain, please seek out the assistance of a medical professional or your local physician.

It was on a Saturday evening at hosted Chinese food takeout dinner, when the discussion broke loose and we ended up talking about life. The topic was inspired by a colleague of one of my guests, and whilst the colleague was a little bit scrutinized from the outside, I felt the need to defend this unknown person’s honor.

It just so happens that in my pursuit to defend this person’s honor, I myself have spent a bit of time doing a bit of introspection earlier in the week. Thank goodness I had as it helped to corroborate my defense.

My introspection

Not to lose track, I will first go back to my introspection, before the “Great Defense”

It was weeks before the Chinese food dinner, after a lovely home BBQ I had with my flatmate, to introduce him to South African Boerewors and the South African version of a Hotdog, which we call “A Boerewors Roll”. After a successful BBQ and having my Italian flatmate ravage whatever “boerewors” he could find, I found myself sitting on the sitting room couch while my flatmate was doing the dishing, as payment for my cooking, and I found myself in a state of absolute bliss. I recall telling my flatmate, who is also my friend, “I am so happy, I can die now because I’ve lived”. And then the deeper questions started surfacing. If this is my configuration of “happiness” in my “life’s template”, how did I get to this? Was it always like that? What configurations do other people have? and are they even aware of those configurations?

What is “Life’s Template”?

How did I land this title or term? To give some background, I am an IT Operations Engineer and what that entails is learning how to configure applications. You see most applications that we “IT people” call a Config file, and inside this file are all the paraments, to which the application must adhere. That’s in a nutshell.

So I sort of used this framework to picture what we call life.

Currently, in my life’s template, I have parameters like:

· Working Monday to Friday, 8 to 5

· Monday nights are Comedy movie nights with my friend and flatmate

· Friday mornings are Croissants Fridays which entails having freshly home-baked croissants with cream cheese and ham

· Friday nights are “Action movie” night

· Saturday mornings are for Parkrun with a host of Pre-Parkrun breakfast with a great fellow friend and park runner.

· Sunday mornings are breakfast at a local pub and restaurant

· And then finish the week with Sunday roast

· And in between we host the odd BBQ and occasional Game night

Now to some, this might sound fantastic, to some, it sounds dreadful. But the real question behind this template configuration, is “Was it always like this?”

The answer is NO. I’ve grown up in a house where life’s template configuration consisted of:

· A regular dose of domestic abuse

· Weekends spent with other family members, if not abandoned

· Never knowing what drama will be in store for the night

· A weekly school day dose of bullying for being gay, and so on.

Looking at now and then, one can derive many comments and observations. When I look at myself, I sometimes ask myself, “How did I end up so lucky to have this new configuration of Life’s Template?”. The answer was hard to realize for many years but in front of my face all the time. I realized that as an adult, I got to be in control of my life template’s configuration. Becoming aware that I had control, was the saving grace, along with many other things, yet to be mentioned.

You have control over your configuration settings

This title is both contradictory and conditional. Why? Because as children in our parent’s home, we don’t really have control over life’s configuration, and we only get handed over this control, when we become adults and we earn our own money and start to fend for ourselves, hence it is conditional.

The thing is, for those who grew up in homes where life’s configuration settings are beyond comprehensible darkness to some, its almost convincing and inherent to start believing, that you don’t have control and though you might NOT have control at that point, control will be handed over eventually.

But then there is the time in the waiting period for that control, that can seem unbearable and like an eternity to some, I can surely recall, and to some waiting inevitably becomes giving up and in that despair, forgetting that control will one day come.

This article isn’t really for the ones with rosy lives and “handed over” life templates that people can only dream about. Why the need to change what already works?

“Handed over” life templates

Needing to branch out on this term, my saving grace as mentioned was becoming aware, but imagine I didn’t become aware. Where would that leave me? Where would that leave others who aren’t aware? The alternative is living life with “Handed over” life templates. Again, to some the handover is seamless and absolute bliss, to some, it’s a burden crossed with a curse at most.

Everything from the relationships we form, our relationship with food, and how we treat people, all of this is set in configured in our “Life’s Template Configuration” file. It’s stored there and as long as it is stored there, that is how our lives will operate.

If drunken disorderly weekends dispersed with domestic violence is what’s configured, then ultimately the lives we live and the relationships and partners we choose will ultimately be to satisfy this specified configuration.

Reconfiguring the life-template

The answer to an unfilling life that is the result of a badly configured handed-over life template is “reconfiguration”.

Now earlier I quoted that my saving grace was “Awareness” but, that awareness alone wasn’t the trick. I was very blessed with outside family members and friends who invited me into their lives and into their homes, and through this, I managed to observe.

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And it’s through that observation, that I started to compare and realize, that you can live a different life. That is when the awareness kicked in. The realization that I will eventually be handed that power and control, was something I was gracefully reminded of by people who loved and care for me deeply.

My Reconfiguration Intervention

A fundamental experience that played a huge contribution to this new life template of mine, was what call my “Reconfiguration Intervention”. I can confidently say I had many of those, but for the sake of this article, I will focus on this one.

In October 2021, I visited Poland and during that visit, I made a trip to Auschwitz which was always a big dream of mine. What I wasn’t prepared for was the fundamental 180-degree turn that trip caused. I can’t speak for all the people who visit Auschwitz, but from the stories I heard, I really went into deep introspection.

You see, my life template configuration before Auschwitz was:

· Spending most of my life in my room as my room is also my office since I am working from home due to Covid at the time;

But besides covid, I was a complete hermit. My extent of going out was Grocery shopping and Sunday strolls through our Mardyke walk path in Cork and visiting the Cork University Grounds and doing some deep thinking. That’s it.

When I heard the stories of these unfortunate souls from Auschwitz and how they were basically stripped of all human dignity and rights, even the right the do a no 1 or 2 at their wish, it really spurred up a great sense of humility but also a bit a survivors guilt.

Survivors Guilt?? Well, That is the closest term I could come up with. To explain it in my words, you see, my life was basically a figurative prison, a prison that is NOT real and a complete insult to these people from Auschwitz. I have so much to live for and celebrate, and yet I actively choose to sit in my room and watch series. When I saw Auschwitz, I saw and heard what a REAL LIFE PRISON looks like. That said, I left Auschwitz with such a level of inspiration, that I told myself: “Simon, you need to live!!” Do it in honor of those, who were denied living.

After my arrival back in Ireland, I looked up Parkrun as I know I use to do that in South Africa, and once I started to get out of my house and started to volunteer at Parkrun on Saturday my life changed. I met new friends, and had a birthday lunch for the first time in a long while, granted Covid was the blocker for most and I started hosting pre-Parkrun breakfast with my dear friend Rob and my flatmate (and friend) and everything else followed.

Sometimes, we need a “reconfiguration intervention.” Given that I unknowingly staged my own, to others that intervention comes at a loss of a great love or a family member, an end to a relationship or divorce, and in more extreme cases a near-death experience.

Recongifuration Dictators and Influencers

Given that my Reconfiguration influence was Auschwitz, and it resulted in a positive influence change, not all influencers are like that.

Be aware of reconfiguration dictators and influencers, that can come in many forms, that can make your life miserable.

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Our lives are ours. It’s yours and yours alone, and no one has control over it but you. With the exception of minors, to an extent, as young minors /adults also have some control, those who believe they don’t, are trapped under the false illusion that they don’t have control.

Sometimes, that illusion can become very real in the form of addiction such as alcoholism, gambling, sex addiction, drug abuse, etc.

But the truth is, with the right support and mental help, breaking the illusion and gaining control over those things can be gained and you can once again, be in control of your life.

Though it might NOT be easy, it certainly is possible.

When Reconfiguration and Love Collide

Sometimes when we are single, we seek a relationship because it offers an embedded reconfiguration.

It can get easy to confuse our need for love with the need for change and again, this places an almost immediate expiry date on the relationship before it began. Because you see, let’s say the new love comes along and with it the reconfiguration, what then? Then the job is done. No need for a partner.

Or worse, you become so clingy and dependent because you fear that if your partner leaves, away this new reconfigured life will too, and ultimately restoration of the old configured life temple will submerge.

Our partners are not meant to be our reconfiguration specialists, yet many seek relationships because of that. They put pressure on their partners to basically create their life. There are those who follow and those who create.

Those, who seek a new life, but do not know how to reconfigure their life template, can easily place that burden on their partner, and that places a huge strain on a relationship.

Relationships are not meant to be projects. Because remember, projects have completion dates and the ultimate goal is to have long-lasting relationships.

The “Defense”

Jumping back to the “Defense” of the unknown colleague. A snap judgment was made of this unknown colleague and this is where I felt the need to step up. The thing is some people are not great at living, and it’s not because they are bad people, it’s because they are NOT aware that they have the power and control to reconfigure their life’s template and chances are that they are living life according to an unfulfilling “handed-over” life template.

Sometimes it is easy to judge from the outside, and it’s mostly so because the ones who are doing the judgment are either very content with their own life or very in denial. That said, sometimes it happens that the ego is so huge, that when other people’s life template doesn’t match theirs, then something must be wrong.

The Lesson to Learn

Before we look at others and start making judgments, let’s walk a mile in their shoes first. The truth is, most often we have no idea what is going on in another person’s life and we certainly won’t have any idea or comprehension of the template configuration of these people from which their lives operate. The truth is, most people are NOT great at living, and most people are looking at others thinking, “Wow, they have the answer”, then those people also might be unhappy and looking around. Most people take their life and wing it moment by moment! No Idea, No clue. But therein lies the beauty, once we realize that we have control, we can really configure life, anyway, we like. Presumably in a legal, moral and orderly fashion.

I have been there myself judging and humility slapped me through the face. Humility is something that gets passed on, it needs to be earned. The thing is humility isn’t a given, it’s earned every day, every moment. It’s not like a grade you pass in school, it’s something everything must work on every day.

Conclusion

Here’s the take aware from this article:

If you’re still living in your parent’s house and life is dreadful, remember the time will come for you to make the change, all you need to do is remember, and don’t succumb.

If you feel depressed and unfulfilled, perhaps go through your life template configuration. Ask yourself, what parameters and configurations were handed down? What works for you and what doesn’t, and then make the change.

The secret is, NO ONE is responsible for your life, other than YOU!

If you are the outsider, have compassion and where possible, enlighten others and show them that they have control and the power

Lastly, if you are the one who needs that reminder, then let this be it.

Live life to the fullest, because not everyone has had or have that luxury.

The End.

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