“A framework is a basic conceptual structure used to solve or address complex issues.” according to Wikipedia.

There are a variety of existing frameworks for life that have been developed over thousands of years. Some of the more notable ones would be world-wide spread religions such as Christianity, Islam, Buddhism; various martial arts, clans, gangs, sects and son on. Although many of them appealed to me, I still found too confusing to start and it always seemed that they contained too many rules, to many regulations and too many concepts to understand. I lacked peace of mind.

I needed a way to find some stability in my life while still making progress. I tried reading various self-development authors and their ideas about life. What I found was usually too extreme for me adopt right away. I found bits and pieces of things that resonated with me and many more things that I just did not feel comfortable with. That is why I kept thinking of a way to solidify and stabilize my thought process while still leaving room for growth and improvement.

That is why I came up with the framework for life for myself. It allowed to me look at my life in much more simpler terms, which got rid of a lot on confusion and mess in my head. It allowed me of a simpler and constructive way of thinking about life and of its challenges.

Building a Pyramid

We are going to pretend like each and every one of our lives can be represented by a pyramid. When we are born we start of from scratch. As we go through our life, we first lay the foundation, then layer by layer, we start building our pyramid. If we are determined and hard-working enough, we will be able to complete our it before our passing. Let us look at the components closer.

Laying Down The Foundation

There are four main building blocks upon which the pyramid of your life is going to be built. They are emotional, physical, mental and spiritual states of being. To have a strong foundation, we must develop and strengthen those four parts of individuality. Each of them supports each other and feeds of each other. For example, if you are not feeling well emotionally, then the rest of the parts are most likely going to suffer.  However, you can prevent that by strengthening the four parts so much that even one of them starts suffering, the other are going to be strong enough to pick you back up and not let you go in a downward spiral.

Creating and Maintaining The Foundation

In my experience, to establish and maintain a strong foundation one has only to do focus on four things: proper diet, proper physical fitness, proper meditation, and proper rest. Once again, these concepts are interrelated to each other just like the four foundation blocks I just mentioned. Those four activities will directly feed and nourish your mental, physical, emotional and spiritual sates of being allowing you to become a wholesome human being.

Diet will have a direct effect on physical sate of being. Meditation will have more of a direct effect on an emotional and spiritual states of being. Proper rest will affect all four parts of your being: mental, emotional, physical and spiritual. Physical training will affect physical and mental aspects of your being more than anything else.  However, it is important to remember that all the parts are interrelated and it is important not to neglect any of them. However, sometimes it might be appropriate to focus more on one part than the other depending on the circumstances.

Building on The Foundation

It is my experience that following the above suggestion should lead you to have a more stable and less easy shakable life.  Once we carry out that, we can start building the pyramid of our lives. The building blocks of the pyramid are going to be accomplished goals in our lives. Naturally, once you have enough of certain goals accomplished, you are going to be able to start to build another level of the pyramid. Naturally, it will need less blocks, but more effort to get those blocks to the next level. Each level completed will bring you closer to your ultimate life purpose until you reach the top point of the pyramid and that is where you will find your life purpose to have been completed.

In order to lay down each additional level, one would have acquire more strength by continuously drawing from your mental, physical, emotional and spiritual resources that support the whole pyramid. To ensure that the foundation can sustain the increasing weight of the pyramid, you will have to improve your rest, physical, meditative and dietary practices in addition to acquiring additional knowledge and experience to continue adding building blocks (goals) to the pyramid.

Implications of The Framework

The above explained model has many implications that makes it plausible. It automatically assumes that each person has a goal or a purpose in life  which they are trying to achieve. It also assumes that each person is able to plan and set up goals to accomplish for oneself to move from one level to another. Those are actually some of the things that many of struggle in life with: some of us don’t know what we want to do with our lives, some of us don’t even plan our lives and just live it as it comes. All of the above things just imply that some people are building never-ending pyramids, some of us stuck at the first level of the pyramid not able to move on. Is that you?

The  model  highlights  some of the more important features of life – collaboration. Let’s imagine we have this grand life vision. How are we going to build this huge pyramid? The simple answer is collaboration with others. It would make the most sense to find other who would help you out in your struggles and share their resources with yours to help you accomplish your goals. And it is only one way, in which this framework can help you answer the questions of life. Just explore!

Benefits of the Framework

I have to admit that this model might be a little bit oversimplified and I am sure that it has some flaws. Yet, I believe that it captures the essence of the human life and the best to lead a satisfying life. One of the major benefits of this framework that it enables you to easily visualize your own progress is life, it let’s you see if you are accomplishing your goals in life. This framework gives you the tools to instill stability and at the same time promote progress in your lives. Have you started building your pyramid of life?