Christmas 2017

Christmas is approaching - for many, it's the last week filled with the hustle and bustle of work. Often we're finishing up projects, standing in lines at stores after work, and wondering in a panic what gift our wife or children would appreciate.

And maybe you just need to cut back a little instead. Don't focus on finding presents this year - instead, take the family out for a glass of Christmas punch or a walk in the countryside. Realise that Christmas is supposed to be about something other than the latest phones, tablets or virtual reality. To stop and tell myself that I won't be swayed by an advert proclaiming that I need product X or service Y to be happy. To look ahead and ask myself if things are a means or an end for me. To give the most precious thing I have - which even the richest people only have 86400 seconds of every day..

In one of his lectures, Czech psychiatrist, educator, Esperantist, holder of the largest number of university degrees and priest Max Kašparů talks about the fleet of ships and the fact that every captain of a ship in the fleet must know 3 things:

how to behave so as not to collide with another boat and go down - they must know the rules of the sea,
how to behave on your own boat so that it doesn't sink without bumping - so that there's no fire, so that the sailors don't rock the boat too much,
where he is sailing - why he is on the ocean, what is the purpose of his voyage and the port where he wants to sail.

Max Kašparů goes on to say that he considers the third thing to be the most important.

We humans are all one big fleet - and small fleets within jobs, neighborhoods, or the people we move among every day. Each of us is the captain of our own ship, which we steer through life. Where do we stand with those three rules?

Family, school, lawyers, but most of all life will teach us how to live so that we do not clash with others and create conflicts.

Health education teaches us how to live so that we don't drown and go to the crematorium - and occasionally some of that pain that hits us and gives us the signal that we are somehow living in a way we shouldn't.

And then there is the third rule - why we are in the world, why we are at the surface of our human existence. Why we set sail on the ocean of our human existence and what is the name of the harbor to which we are to sail.

Dr Kašparů says that as a psychiatrist he works mostly with young people - in educational institutions, in prisons .. also with addicts and young suicides - and he asks them this question almost regularly. And they can't answer it. They don't know what the point of being born is. Where they are going, why they are .. And suddenly, Dr. Kašparů continues, I can see in their faces that they have never encountered this question. The question of why I am.

At the end of the calendar year, it's possible to take a bit of stock - to ask myself how I managed to sail and steer my ship last year. Whether I didn't clash too much with others, whether I managed myself. To remind myself of the goal of my voyage, and to assess with detachment whether I'm getting closer to it, or sailing in big circles all around.

I wish us all a peaceful and blessed Christmas with family, filled with thoughtfulness and love, without unnecessary stress. To my colleagues on standby and to the customers responsible for the systems, may they work reliably (systems, colleagues and customers :-) even during the holidays and vacations. And to the new year 2018 all the best and happy sailing ahead!

18.12.2017, Ing. Peter Humaj, www.ipesoft.com

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