319. actions are truer than words
It doesn’t matter what you tell yourself, or the things you espouse to the world. Your actions ultimately show your true values. Your actions reveal what you actually want.
We all say we want certain things — I want to lose weight. I want to write a book. I want to travel the world. I want to start over in a new city. It’s easy to say we want something, and it’s not wrong to want, however if those words aren’t followed up by actions to get you there, then you need to be true to yourself and ask; is this what I really want? Most likely, if you did want that thing, you would have already gotten after it, instead of merely talking about it.
Once we understand this, it’s easy to spot our true priorities. You can ignore what continues to be said and simply focus on your actions. It will show where your values truly lie.
If you say you want to lose weight, yet you continue down the same road, making poor decisions around your nutrition and health, it’s easy to see that you aren’t really in a place where losing weight is of the utmost value to you. If you say you want to write a book, yet fail to sit down and put ideas into words, then stop saying you want to write a book. If you say you want to travel, yet find excuses about it costing too much or not having enough free time, then stop saying you want to travel. If you want to move to a new city so that you can “start over,” yet you take no action towards applying for positions or looking for places to live in that area, then stop saying you want to start over in a new city.
We prioritize what we value. If we’re hungry we eat.
At a certain point, we need to stop lying to ourselves. Get clear on what you value. Stop putting energy into an idea that you have no interest in entertaining with action. Look in the mirror and ask yourself about the actions you consistently do. What are you doing everyday? What can’t you miss out on? What makes you, You? The answers you come up with are the things you truly value, and are what guide your life. All the other “I wants” are just lip service until they become part of what you consistently do. Stop wasting time by saying “I want”, if you really did, you wouldn’t continuously have to tell people because they would already see it in your actions.
259. programmed
All our problems start in childhood. And it’s not just the fault of our parents, it’s also the things that happened at school and with our peers. Anything that happened before that transitionary age of 18, pretty much cemented the way we’ve thought and acted ever since.
The trauma we made it through isn’t who we are, but it did program us to see and approach the world in a certain way. Until we realize that there is a difference between what happened and what we understood it to be, we will be stuck viewing our future through the lens of the past. It can keep us from taking necessary risks, standing up for ourselves, asking for the things we deserve, and working hard to get the things we want.
Being stuck in the past is what stops our growth, and keeps us from the life we keep saying we want to have. At a certain point, we all need to realize it’s no longer good enough to look in the mirror and simply think “this is who I am.” We all need to be willing to break the mirror to see what’s on the other side, and redefine our lives from where we are today.
241. sustained desire
Unfulfilled desire will always be met with disappointment. It’s frustrating to be denied a raise or turned down by that person at the bar. But, fulfilled desire also comes with its own flavor of loss. In getting what we want, we lose the thrill of wanting it. The yearning, the elaborate strategies, the fantasies, and all the energy wound tightly into wanting are exasperated upon acquisition.
Sound familiar? It has too. Just think about the last thing you had to have until you got it. Now that you have it, you may enjoy it, you may even love it, but do you still want it? How does that want compare to the first time it crossed your mind? It is definitely harder to want what you already have, for the obvious reason of owning it. It’s the law of diminishing returns telling us that with increased frequency comes a decrease in satisfaction. The more you use a product, the less satisfaction you’ll get with each subsequent use.
So if desire is always more intense than its requiting, are we doomed in our quest to find the one? Are our attempts at a loving relationship destined for staleness for lack of longing?
It is often said that people only want what they can’t have. This makes sense from the perspective of buying a new gadget, article of clothing or even sexual conquest, but I think that logic breaks down when it comes to love. You see, we cannot own a person in the same way we own our iPhone. People, the ones who we make our partner, are not finite entities for consumption, manufactured in a certain form to fill a specific function. They are organic individuals who think, learn, and grow from their life experiences. This gives them the ability to continuously transform throughout their lives.
If not, then yes, trade that mother fucker in. But that speaks directly to the point.
Because you can know the in’s and out’s of your iPhone, you will want a new one. This isn’t the same for people, because unlike a product, people change with new experiences and grow with new challenges over time. They have the capacity for growth which allows them to continuously transform over the course of the relationship.
The problem isn’t that love is doomed to fail based on the loss of desire, it’s in finding a partner that grows in the same direction as the path you’re walking. In doing so, you will realize their mystery is forever ungraspable. And as soon as we can understand this, sustained desire becomes a real possibility.