If you live for other people’s approval (i.e., the need to be liked), you must always submit to them, making you detestable.
This unlikeable “contingent self” is the paradox of seeking external validation, which of course, we all need.
Tag: fear
- Theme: Self
Evil: Incompatible illusions
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1–2 minutesEvil is when my illusion is incompatible with your illusion.
(All cultural constructs and ideologies are illusions we invest ourselves in because we are afraid of death.)
*from Ernest Becker
- Theme: Self
Planning as avoidance
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1–2 minutesAssessing inefficiencies and perfecting systems is a unique and meticulous cognitive labor. It can also become a safe harbor by which to avoid reality.
When mental labors never manifest or encounter reality or peers, it is disguised. It is either masking laziness or a deep fear of failure.
When thinking negates doing, your planning steals you from the world. - Theme: Self
Lamed by fear
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1–2 minutesWhat does it mean to “live in fear?” How does fear misshape us over time into petty and cruel things?
Can we redeem ourselves with one moment of bravery at the end? If so, your redemption could more easily take place right now: being brave now (looking within) saves a lifetime of inflicting pain around you.
- Theme: Self
Motivation is simply Avoiding Discomfort
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1–2 minutesWe are bombarded with the imperative mission to seek happiness, but from an evolutionary perspective we are motivated to avoid discomfort.
Anxiety, ambition, and desire are discomforts from which we act: we re-act. There is no “carrot and stick” of reward and punishment. Our only motivating force is avoidance, which is a response., and the challenge is to harness our response as responsibility.
Meanwhile, happiness seems to be a by-product of achievement or participation, not an end to be pursued unto itself.
Merging these notions: “dis-traction” (avoidance) towards happiness will fail to bring it, because you gain no “traction.”
- Theme: Self
“It is what it is”
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1–2 minutesObviously. This is known as a tautophrase: a circular (reinforcing) definition that says the same thing twice.
This phrase pretends to stoic wisdom through acceptance: "it is" beyond control therefore we should move along instead of continuing to consider "it."The most annoying (and detrimental) aspect is the evasion of communal reflection, and subsequent deferral of responsibility, by claiming fixity through redundancy.
- Theme: Self
Stepping into the Cave
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1–2 minutes“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek” Joseph Campbell
Retrieving the treasure is not nearly as important as being the kind of person who takes that first step into the cave.
- Theme: Self
The danger of being within reach of success
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1–2 minutesWhen we feel close to successful completion is when we are the most vulnerable, most prone to error.
We do not pause or re-orient, we simply push harder.