Here’s another angle at the same bug, I think. I have a gut intuition that goes like this:
Real success is a Pareto improvement.
There should be some direction you can move from where you are now, where you literally get more (or at least not less) of every single thing you want. Whatever direction that is should be what we call “success” in our heads. (And since social approval is quite important to most people this definition actually lines up decently well with the conventional definition anyway.) So when people say things like “I’m happy where I am now and wouldn’t want to be more successful/ambitious,” or when people do striving-like stuff and ostensibly make progress but then somehow end up worse off, or when people say things like “I plan to do so-and-so which will improve my life, but I’m just not there yet” instead of diving straight in … my gut translates these actions as “I don’t want what I want” and just gets very very confused and cynical.
I definitely see the logic to this. However, here is where it goes wrong for me, and where I moderately strongly suspect it would/does go wrong for others too.
I can and do try to tell myself to just focus on the process and on making forward progress. To be happy and content with this, rather than focused on the destination. But at the end of the day, the destination is still in my head. I can’t get it out of my head. And I care a lot about it. And I’m not capable of the self-deception or compartmentalization it would take to simultaneously care about the destination while also not caring about it and instead only caring about the process. So when I try to just focus on the process, my mind doesn’t cooperate and continues to care about the destination.
I also recognize this feeling of “You have not done enough” or worse “This goal was meaningless in hindsight”. It’s probably very instrumental, pushing us and our genes to ever greater heights.
So should we lean in to it? Accepting happiness is forever lost behind some horizon? You will just walk around with this internal nagging feeling.
Or should we fix this bug as you say, but risk stagnation? One way may be to become a full-time meditating monk. Then you may have a chance to turn your wetware into a personal nirvana untill you pop out of existence. But that feels meaningless as well.
I’m trying to find a blend; take the edge off the suffering while moving forward.
Here’s another angle at the same bug, I think. I have a gut intuition that goes like this:
Real success is a Pareto improvement.
There should be some direction you can move from where you are now, where you literally get more (or at least not less) of every single thing you want. Whatever direction that is should be what we call “success” in our heads. (And since social approval is quite important to most people this definition actually lines up decently well with the conventional definition anyway.) So when people say things like “I’m happy where I am now and wouldn’t want to be more successful/ambitious,” or when people do striving-like stuff and ostensibly make progress but then somehow end up worse off, or when people say things like “I plan to do so-and-so which will improve my life, but I’m just not there yet” instead of diving straight in … my gut translates these actions as “I don’t want what I want” and just gets very very confused and cynical.
I definitely see the logic to this. However, here is where it goes wrong for me, and where I moderately strongly suspect it would/does go wrong for others too.
I can and do try to tell myself to just focus on the process and on making forward progress. To be happy and content with this, rather than focused on the destination. But at the end of the day, the destination is still in my head. I can’t get it out of my head. And I care a lot about it. And I’m not capable of the self-deception or compartmentalization it would take to simultaneously care about the destination while also not caring about it and instead only caring about the process. So when I try to just focus on the process, my mind doesn’t cooperate and continues to care about the destination.
I also recognize this feeling of “You have not done enough” or worse “This goal was meaningless in hindsight”. It’s probably very instrumental, pushing us and our genes to ever greater heights.
So should we lean in to it? Accepting happiness is forever lost behind some horizon? You will just walk around with this internal nagging feeling.
Or should we fix this bug as you say, but risk stagnation? One way may be to become a full-time meditating monk. Then you may have a chance to turn your wetware into a personal nirvana untill you pop out of existence. But that feels meaningless as well.
I’m trying to find a blend; take the edge off the suffering while moving forward.