In my humble, highly enlightened opinion, it is paramount that we immediately stop everything to meticulously scrub every single micro-aggression and karmic slip-up from our past where we may have accidentally bruised the ego of a passing gnat. If you fail to meticulously sanitize your past life choices, how on earth will you ever achieve the supreme, Instagram-worthy inflection points of 'free attention'? Truly, nothing screams inner peace like meticulously cataloguing every time you were mildly annoying to someone in 2012.

At first, stumbling through the existential maze of your own unconscious identity crisis feels a lot like wandering IKEA without a map, except more expensive for your therapist. Thus begins your mandatory 'spiritual pilgrimage', a pretentious branding exercise requiring you to roleplay as an authentic, suffering seeker. You are not just hanging out; you are deliberately curating the sacred identity of the weary pilgrim, complete with an invisible backpack of profound realizations.

Your heroic task is to wander into a metaphorical labyrinth - try not to get distracted by the gift shop at the centre - and find your true essence by paying someone $200 an hour to watch you sweat through your fears. This arduous journey involves confronting your deepest, darkest anxieties about not being special, resulting in a dramatic 'Serpentine Path' toward total wholeness. Naturally, this pristine blissful awareness exists solely to serve others, provided they appreciate your superior level of zen.

Of course, once you reach the centre and take your well-deserved selfie of enlightenment, you must trudge all the way back to the depressing periphery of daily existence to practice 'compassionate empathy'. Whenever you inevitably lose your temper at a barista, congratulations: you must re-enter the labyrinth and wander around angrily until you achieve 'silent awareness' - which is just fancy code for realizing nothing matters, so you might as well be nice to the local wildlife.

And as the wise guru Mark Epstein essentially points out, even if your parents actually did a decent job raising you, you’re still going to feel like a hot mess because you're fighting the basic biological inconvenience of not being a self-contained, immortal god. Even healthy people walk out of childhood desperately defending against the terrifying truth that we are fragile, dependent bags of water. But don't worry! That lingering existential dread isn't a sign that you need a vacation; it's the magical 'seed of wisdom'. So stop fighting it, lean directly into the terrifying void, and soon you'll realize the terrifying emptiness is actually just glowing with warm, mysterious vibes. Or maybe you're just hungry.

https://terebess.hu/zen/mesterek/Therapy.pdf

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