Julia Shayk

How to live? How to live well and happily?

I spent years and years in search of the answer, seeking the meaning in my existence and doubting any reason why I lived. I had good family and friends, education and a job, recognition and publicity, love and fun—and yet I was sad and felt lost.

I read hundreds, even thousands of books, and I talked to many people, asking them, "Why do you live? What is our reason for living? Do marriage, career, money and fame really matter? Do we live for these things?" In pursuit of happiness, I changed four countries of residence, three last names, and several professions, all the while trying to keep busy to distract myself from thoughts of the futility of a human existence that draws the meaning of life from achievements.

And one day I stopped. I just stopped chasing anything. I sat on the bench in a park and enjoyed the warm sun like a turtle on a stone in a pond.

The millions of words from the books of great masters finally started to resonate in me. The reason of life is living, being in the flow, and experiencing whatever comes your way, including grief and sadness (they are beautiful and necessary as well). The answer was, as many of you know, presence and awareness, or mindfulness.

So I was sitting on that bench in New York. It was noisy outside, but quiet inside. The turtle in me kept silent, focusing on the kisses of the warm sun’s rays. And I was thinking: I had spent thirty years learning that we live to feel love, loss, touch, to smile or to cry—to present in every second. Every little child knows that, but then forgets, somewhere in early school years of being challenged to compete constantly with others and become “doer” instead of “minder.”

I didn't want my daughter to forget that or adults to spend their precious thirty years of life in some rat race. I decided to open a place of quality reading where good thoughts would be noted and spread, where one can find some internal peace—in every step, in every breath, in every thought.

Julia Shayk

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