I want to start being honest with my posts. And maybe there is no solution, but simply a sounding board for my musings, but at least they’ll be real, raw, and true. On that thought, I think a pretty persisting question in my life has been how do I allocate my time towards love, relaxation, and self-care vs pursuing my goals? And I think I’ve generally bounced back and forth rapidly and often dangerously, where I would neglect my “loving” side, and then 180 and begin indulging my impulses, cravings, and desires to the point where my goals become more fuzzy. And so on.
I think that this has fortunately changed recently; I’ve done a better job of maintaining clarity on my goals and indulging myself in moderation. Maybe this comes naturally with maturation, or maybe this is a result of my free time, where I’m a little bit more focused and a lot more autonomous in pursuing my goals.
A deeper thought, emerges however; what if I am looking at this the wrong way entirely?
It feels unanimously agreed that there is work and there is pleasure. Is there a chance that the overlap is greater than we think, or rather, is there a way that we can live so that becomes the case?
Rather than viewing them and experiencing them as diametric opposites, is there a way to look at life more fluidly in the sense that we are more neutral on each of these experiences, and love the pros of them, while accepting that no one thing meets all of our needs, and that regardless of the pros, there is only so much that this one activity, thing, or person can carry; other activities, things, people carry other pros which are all complementary.
This brings up an interesting question: what combination of acitivies, things, people yields the maximal cumulative “pros” that we seek?
Let’s unravel the next layer: What are “pros”? What are we striving for?
If I had to answer that instinctively, which feels natural given that I care about this topic, I would say that
The pros in my life are freedom, energy, love, intimacy, connection, clout, confidence, strength, achievement, progress, performance, accomplishment, sexiness, discipline, intelligence.
There are more, but as I review this list, two categories come to mind as I separate what my “pros” of life are.
1) Positive emotions: this is simply when our body is a vessel between the universe and our mental state, helping to carry out orders that feed and nurture our souls and brains. I think this is clear when running. It’s such a simple, uncomplicated thing. And yet it gives us freedom (when outside), it gives us endorphins. And it’s just rote.
There’s spending time with people (especially those that you share love with). It just gives a glow, a buzz, and it’s so beautiful.
Positive emotions are undoubtedly such a pro of life.
The other pro I would say is
2) External validation. These can be observed internally, and they enhance or amplify the first category. Regardless of the direct validation we get, we (I) still evaluate myself objectively and do “judge” myself based on how I would view myself externally.
I don’t know if this is healthy. As this can be more volatile. But it’s raw, and it does feel real for some reason / to some extent. I feel pretty low on this side of things, given my life objectively, and I wonder how much this effects my disposition generally; I would wager a lot. It feels like no matter what I do at this point, I won’t have “it,” and that feels quite defeating. No matter what I do to “compensate,” I will never be the person I want / wanted to be. And that’s quite dissapointing. Am I investing heavily for second place?
This feels quite sad, but maybe healthy, to acknowledge who we want to be and the fact there is a disparity. It’s okay to be honest. If there is a chance at improvement, it would happen through honesty, I would hazard to guess. And as I think of it, maybe the second is solely the ego. If we find ourselves in the purgatory between 1 and 2, maybe we should go further to 1?
Or maybe we could have some of 2 in a nuanced way. But knowing me, I like to act firmly in alignment with my decisions.
Let’s lean directly into 1. Let’s let 2 come along naturally if it does, or if it doesn’t.
