Imagine, for a second, a world in which no philosophy, no religion and no system of thought ever attempted to make some sense of the life we live. More specifically, one where it never attempted to explain what makes the human condition such as we see it today. It can seem incredibly easy or incredibly hard. I say it's none and offer you a tool for achieving that task.

Growing up in a culture shapes the essence from which most of how we perceive the world stems. We may reach a point in which we've discarded so many things we've learned that we no longer identify with that culture, but the ideas behind them are usually a much harder nut to crack. They become embedded in our intuition and hide from the inquisitiveness of our minds. These are ideas we never hear spoken out loud; they're considered axiomatic, self-evident, given.

The first layer visible on top of the hidden one has surely come under our inspection at one point or another. We drive big wedges between us based on whether we accept the statements here stated, they define our philosophies, our religions, our moral code, our value system. Though we largely fail to realize that we almost unanimously agree to ideas that gave rise to these statements, even ideas behind statements we furiously reject.

Bare with this abstraction for one more moment, and then I'll indulge you with bringing it down to Earth. Suppose right now you feel like saying "try me, maybe I surprise you", thinking I'm driving at something you've already considered in your life. And if you feel like that, you could easily be right. But right now, I'm not referring to what you know today. I'm referring to what you knew when events that ended up defining your identity took place.

If your parents are anything likely to find in a civilized culture, they must've spent a great deal of time laying out what qualifies as proper behavior. It's not necessarily based on good or bad - they may have taught you how to be kind or how to be tough, or a little bit of both. When your lunch money got stolen, they may have told you you're a better person then the bully, taught you how to fight back or chickened out and ignored your problem. Either way, I can hardly imagine they prepared you for that day, or took any effort to explain what drives the bully.

Whatever you're given to deal with the world as a kid is, in our culture, unequivocally rooted in the notion that there exists a "way things should be". The art of dealing with life is portrayed as handling exceptions to that. Sadly, exceptions are almost all there is, so one is forced to perceive the world as fundamentally flawed. The fact is, this never spoken idea, that there at all exists such a thing as a "way things should be" is what's flawed.

Now, again, lets imagine we're not given this basis for judgement. Wipe the board clear. Imagine, if, in absence of a way of interpreting the world, you'd be suggested to try a philosophy that states "the world is screwed, hopelessly so - cope". I doubt you'd see that as a particularly good idea. And from this point, I'm inviting you for an even bigger leap of imagination - imagine a world which believed in learning from what's real and finding happiness in that realm. Things are not good or bad, wrong or right, they're the way they are. And this is the arena in which we play out our moves and see what comes out, learning from experience. Abandon, for just a second, a notion that there ever was or ever will be a "way things should be". This arena, as it stands, is perfectly capable of providing everything we need, no compromise required.

Now, you can let go of your imagination. This is, in fact, the real world. It's got everything you need and in it, some things work and some things don't. There's nothing wrong or right about it, as much as there's nothing wrong or right with gravity. Humans are a part of reality and failure to accept it renders us helpless in it. Embracing it empowers us to be happy. It's literally that simple. All you need to do is to let go of a flawed layer of rules to make reality seem to be something it's not, a standard that only makes you feel disappointment over and over again. We don't need those rules. Reality is right there and its meaning is itself. Its wisdom is hiding in plain sight. For crying out loud, it's right here, right now, right before you! Look at it! Now live it and everything is possible.