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Don’t ask, "what do I want from this?" Ask, "do I want this?"
The difference is getting what you can versus realizing this is not something you want.
We spend too much time extracting what we can, pleased with the getting, but stepping back (by reframing the question) asks if we even want to be in the situation.
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Hedonism is the pursuit of pleasure: your pleasure.
Over-indexed on hedonism converts altruism into a self-serving glow: loving your child is for your own benefit, not theirs.
This discounts all the other motivations by collapsing them into one principle (selfish motivation), which requires mental two-stepping to validate your impulse to care.
(As humans, we are a multiplicity of drives and perspectives, many of which are social bonds, ideological impulses, and non-rational responsibility to others… which need not be reduced into a singular perspective.)
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Soren Kierkegaard distinguishes between objective truth and subjective truth. We can argue empirical (objective) reality while the felt truth of the (subjective) self must be taken at face value.
To deeply understand faith, Jazz music, or falling in love they must be experienced; they cannot be apprehended only through reading or observing.
This leads to a rich set of challenges for how to share and communicate reality with others.
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The pain of failure is also a sign that you are on the right path, because at least you are challenging yourself rather than languishing in soft security.
From this perspective failure is never really failure, because it is merely the cost of taking a risk to grow.
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It is tempting to become all object or all subject: the object lets the world shape them, while the overly subjective treats all others as objects.
Yet, the path according to Simone de Beauvoir, is to embrace an Ethics of Ambiguity: realizing that all binaries hold their opposite within them, and values come from our difficult choices.
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Always stop in the middle of a project and go for a walk, don’t power through and reward yourself when you are done.
This does 2 things:
1. it allows your subconscious to work on the problem.
2. you get some perspective.
Never fear: You will wish to continue the project when you get back. This is known as the Ovsiankina Effect.
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What makes for a good day, is when I’m working for myself on projects I am interested it.
The natural contrast would be solving problems for other people, or fixing their mistakes bothers me. But when I am self-directed and doing something simply because I want to, I feel great.
#perspective
