Nietzsche challenges us and disturbs us but that’s a good thing to do with a new year ahead.
Nietzsche puts down the Idols of modernity:
1-Liberty:
For Nietzsche, Freedom is the will to embrace our own responsibility in leading our lives. Freedom is the ability to create a life according to our own special values (he warns us of our ability to assimilate values from external sources: family, society, system or in reaction to them). Freedom is based on our own strength, on our ability to escape conformity and not on the liberty that can be granted to us by a State or a Law, nor the liberty to live like everybody else!
Why would we want liberty if it only means the liberty to choose what has already been packed for us?
2-Equality & Progress:
If equality is the leveling of valleys and mountains… Why would we want equality? Wouldn’t we have more to loose than to gain? I thank Nietzsche to open my eyes on that: Why would we want no differences in our horizon? Why can’t we enjoy diversity? Is a mountain “better” than a valley or a valley “better” than a mountain? And if we level both, with what would we be left with? Why should one be “better” than the other one?
Comfort and uniformity kill creativity, kill inspiration for greatness.
Greatness is not “being better”, greatness is not about being rich, or famous, or powerful…Greatness is authenticity and spirit: any life lived with both ingredients is a great and meaningful life. Modernity has tried to make us believe that progress and money will always lead us to a greater good… is it really so?… at what cost?
There is no a unique universal recipe for happiness (like money or a nice house with a white fence), some people don’t even WANT to be happy, some other just want to live life upon THEIR values!
3-Reason:
Nietzsche believes reason will not allow us to live meaningful lives, that reason can’t grasp reality and that there are very different kinds of knowledge. He invites us to trust more our body and passions, to embrace the concreteness of our life, to identify our values, to be the hero of our own adventure of living. Even more: if living is an art, we shall put reason aside and boost our creativity.
He also attacks Spirituality: Nietzsche considers spirituality self-repudiating and I differ with him on that: I believe we can embrace spirituality without deprecating our own physical existence, I believe we can unify both and this is precisely the challenge of a meaningful life. Don’t we need the strength of our spirit to be the hero of our own concrete life? And, can our spirit grow without connection with the infinite?
So, what does Nietzsche leave us with?
Our responsibility to create our own authentic life, to fully engage in that task, not been neither a spectator nor a follower and not even a leader because a leader puts himself at the service of others. Be an artist in search of beauty and meaning.
I like Nietzsche’s disturbance, I like when he invites us to face our idols and question them. It is politically incorrect to have doubts about the sacred ideals of liberty, comfort and happiness… but I think we can grow and expand from his questioning and this vision of being the creative actor of our own adventure. 
This is great stuff. I will use all the points about freedom with one of my clients who is in the midst of choosing between being free and alone or tied to someone because she feels she needs support in life. I was just speaking to a friend about relationships with money. They can be functional (for example, have enough before helping others) or dysfunctional (for example, poor people refusing bonuses or giving money away or rich people hoarding money). I also concur that spirituality does not necessarily have to cause dualism. I believe that the energy in us and around us is neutral and we can choose our reaction to be made up of negative, positive, or divine energy. Thanks for your thoughts on Nietzsche’s. Deb B.