Hi.

For today’s topic, I’ll be discussing the intricacies around the abstract and relatively removed concept of adversity. I’ll also be explaining why I used this specific language to describe adversity.

Over the course of several months, I have had the privilege to explore different arenas of thought, and more specifically, thoughts relating to motivation, obstacles, and challenges. It has been some time since I last wrote, so I will try my best to articulate my thoughts in a way that can be readily digestible.

We have all been somewhat exposed to the idea that choosing tolerable pain over pleasure can bring prosperity and peace. And by tolerable pain, I mean pain that you choose to engage in that your different levels of consciousness do not want to experience for the short-term pleasure that it could experience. I believe a simple, and relatively more relatable set of examples can consist of:

“I have an exam tomorrow that I should study for,” or

“I have to go to the gym tonight after work,” or

“I should probably cook dinner”

In each of these examples, there has been a framing of the mind that emphasizes the obstacle that can prevent the underlying desire or the relational longing for a positive consequence. In the first example, the student has an exam that they understand should be studied for, but recognizes the challenge of sitting down and concentrating in order to complete this task. They understand that through cost-benefit analysis, that they are going to most likely dedicate the rest of their night to studying rather than other pleasures, such as spending the night with friends or playing video games (arbitrary short-term pleasurable alternatives). In the second example, the individual here recognizes that after a day of work, understands the positive consequences leading to long-term longevity and well-being if they choose to go to the gym. However, once again, there’s a focus on the implications of spending another night at the gym instead of going home, to where they can be comfortable and experience short-term pleasures. In the final example, the individual engages in another cost-benefit analysis in where they are weighing the pros and cons of either making dinner or access a convenient alternative.

In these examples, there are major themes that I would like to highlight.

1. There is a focus on the obstacles of achieving long-term benefits.
2. The individual engages in cost-benefit analysis.
3. It’s their choice.

It is comforting to know that our brains are incredibly adaptive and equipped to make decisions that will allow for convenience and pleasure. The pleasure principle, to bluntly define, revolves around striving for pleasure in the most convenient manner to satisfy biological needs. In order to achieve, let’s say, high achieving performance in any working environment, there is an increased level of need to dedicate and commit time and energy towards that goal. However, the frame of mind will alter the approach that you may have in engaging with those goals. If you were to focus on the obstacles that would prevent you from achieving long-term benefits, the long-term benefits are minimized, and as a result, you will naturally succumb to short-term pleasures in an effort to both ease and appease your ego, and create dissonance within yourself. When you are presented with options, you can create more options, but with these more options, you will engage in cost-benefit analysis to determine what is the best course of action to take. Your mind naturally strives to access the most convenient option that will maximize your wants for dopamine. As a result, in every decision that you make (and, by the way, you make thousands, hundreds of thousands of decisions every day), your mind is inherently equipped to be able to analyze your options and pursue the most effective outlet. Finally, in the end, and this relates to my previous point, you have agency, more often than not, to create decisions for yourself. It is your choice to decide if you want the long-term goals. It is your choice to help yourself.

This last statement may receive resistance or pushback. This is perfectly understandable– it would mean you must take accountability and responsibility for your actions and decisions. This isn’t to discount or disregard the idea that external circumstances may alter your approach or change the way that you navigate your life. These difficulties may be imposed upon you without warning, and those are difficult because you must adapt. However, for the decisions where these external circumstances are not imposed, you are presented with several different options, and then for you to make the decision that you know, inherently, is not going to lead to the production of long-term benefits, it is imperative that you take accountability. If you choose not to do so, you will find yourself repeating recurring circumstances due to becoming victims of your own natural design of striving for comfort. If there is any respite, I would like to point out that comfort should only be taken in knowing that natural states are geared towards achieving accessible and convenient options that will maximize benefit, and it is difficult to challenge. However, to challenge these notions differentiates those who perceive adversity as adversity, compared to those who perceive adversity as an opportunity for failure, and as a result, growth.

On a final note, I mentioned that adversity may be a removed concept. What I mean by this is that adversity is scary and challenging to the ego. As a result, we will aim to distract ourselves from the impending necessity for addressing the adversities in our lives. Because of this, adversity is removed because we have chosen to make it removed. In the end, if there is one thing that should be taken away from this post, is that, you are in control of your reality. Don’t waste your time. Your time is the most valuable currency that you own, and for you to not take accountability and to distract yourself from the potential good that you could achieve, you will not maximize your well-being. You are worth and deserving of at least that much to know that your time is valuable.

It’s been a while. Sorry for being MIA. Hope you didn’t miss me too much!

For today’s subject, I’ll be focusing on better describing and translating an experience that has been enveloping my being in the past couple of months. This seems a little abstract, but I’m sure as I continue to depict this experience, it will be more relatable as you continue through this article.

To begin, I feel as though there has been a veil or a lens that has been slowly acclimating in concordance with the added responsibilities and roles that I have assumed. To clarify, this veil or lens has accelerated a droop in my eyes, which is only a somatic manifestation of the stress that I have been feeling as I continue to dive deeper into the working world. There has been a noticeable shift in the quality of work that I was able to deliver to my clientele, which only adds to the cognitive disparities that I’ve already been experiencing. While the quality of work being diminished may not be noticed by my clients, it’s noticeable for me due to constant awareness of my thoughts passing and preventing my ability to be as present during my sessions. There has been a weight added that encompasses my thoughts, continually perpetuating and propelling my thoughts to move towards the next responsibility or task that must be completed within that day, which soon transforms towards tasks and responsibilities that I must complete in the following days. When I find myself feeling the weight of this veil or lens, it spirals my thoughts of productivity to consider the long-term investments that I am creating by my present-day behaviors and actions.

“Well, J, that sounds like burnout.”

Well… perhaps. From the way that I’ve conceptualized burnout, it implies the development of an inability to not only deliver the same quality of work or deliverables expected, but it also leads to lowered levels of motivation and a deepening sense of hopelessness over time. I do not feel hopeless. I do not feel the lowered levels of motivation. I’m finding myself being more motivated than ever to perform, leading to the chasing of an unimaginable bar of performance and quality. But that’s the part that gets me– this is a bar that can never be achieved. Why is it that I am relentlessly chasing after an abstract concept of success that I have never seen or experienced. How can I chase after something that I do not even know exists? In addition to this, I have recognized that the veil or lens is a weight that I feel when I continue to move “upwards”. To put it simply, it’s gravity. I have now experienced gravity in my relentless efforts towards providing myself stability and financial security. Perhaps I have been feeling gravity my entire life, but this is the first that I have become aware of its existence and the acknowledgement of the relationship that I have with it. The role that it serves is only a deterrent. It’s a transparent, subtle blanket of distress that tugs me downwards away from the unfathomable bar of success.

The question now is: why does this exist? Why is it that I am able to now operationalize these sensations of stress? What function does it serve, if not to prevent me from achieving what I initially thought would be success? Maybe it’s redirecting me and informing me that what I’m doing already is enough. Maybe it’s telling me that it only gets harder. I can’t tell. But I’m feeling the weight, and it’s only getting heavier. Fuck.

What is the single greatest and strongest motivator that human beings behave accordingly as a result of? Death. The awareness of death, which has been perpetually minimized through exposure to distractions. If you don’t think about death, you will have a tendency to further disregard the inevitable, and as a result, you will become comfortable. What happens if you utilize the energy of fear and apply the concept of death and the awareness of death to inform your decisions? Would it be fair to say that you will become more motivated? Would it be fair to say that the fear in itself would manifest in ways that can be perceived as productive to other people?

I’d like to challenge this notion. The bitterness that we experience from acclimating, from adapting, from becoming “normal” is present within each of us, and for some, will be less prevalent or prominent as a result of years of burying and avoidance of the subject. Bitterness is comparable to cognitive dissonance as a result of wanting to be the same or alike even though we are innately different from one another in our interpretations, responses and reactions. What happens when we bring that bitterness to light and start conversations and dialogues revolving around being wholeheartedly you? Why is it that everyone preaches differentiation when they are the same as everyone else? Does this bitterness only go away at the recognition of death?

Why are we motivated by fear and the acknowledgement of death? Is it because by the end of our lives, we will look back and see that we have regrets? Is the greatest fear that we experience be that we did not live a life worth living? How do we even define that? Do we need to have the urgency or sense that when we wake up, we feel a miracle as if it were bestowed upon us? Are we not in control of our reality? Why use fear as the greatest motivator? In the same way that Christianity utilizes fear of going to Hell to influence our decisions of believing in God, why can’t we revolve our motivation around life in itself? Instead of as a response to death?

What is another driving force that defines human behavior and tendencies? An aggressive energy that is inherently within all of us, which can be transformed towards persistence. An enduring and relentless persistence that you have experienced at one point can still be manifested and utilized in a way that can challenge the productivity that fear of death or awareness of death can instill in us. When was the first time that we experienced this relentless persistence and aggressive nature? It was when we were much younger. When we were young, we explored the world with curiosity and without any hesitation in a manner that allowed us to live our lives to the fullest capacity and capability as a human being could at the time. However, over time, we grow doubtful and find ourselves holding back as a result of socialization and consideration for other people. So, how do we once again manifest this persistence that we once had to serve as motivation? 

I have a couple of hypotheses, but there are conditions that must be met prior to achieving this innate persistence and aggressive state of being. One of the conditions is that we must achieve or acquire a goal or objective that we can wholeheartedly pursue and commit to. Another theory that can help facilitate this achievement is through the belief of self-fulfilling prophecy and exposing your baseline at all levels of consciousness your intention and dedication towards obtaining your goals. I’m certain there are more ways to reconnect ourselves to our inherent aggressive energy, but as of right now, this is all I got. Peace out.

As a preface, this post is free associative by nature.

It’s been a while since I’ve written about loneliness and feeling alone. Today, I feel lonesome. I found myself being more anxious, with more time than I had anticipated, coupled with debates about how to go about my day, compounded with thoughts that exacerbate my insecurities. Insecurities that stem from thoughts revolving around my inability to identify my interests, my understanding of the self, the lack of passion that I desperately seek after. I can find myself playing the flute, but even that seemed lonesome. I can get lost in my work, I can get lost in my words that I type, I can lose myself and enter flow when I engage in things that I want to be, but for today… all I can think about is being alone. I feel lonesome again. Unwanted. And it’s an irrational thought. It’s irrational to think this way, yet my brain automatically creates associations about me being alone and not being in contact with the few individuals that I’ve been in contact with recently. I’m once again finding myself being alone, but even though I am, it’s lesser to the extent in terms of intensity. I don’t find myself being as upset or wanting to sit deeper in my feelings or thoughts. I’m just noticing them, acknowledging that I’m feeling alone. I’m acknowledging these engagements within my intrapsychic, but there’s less of an obligation or gravitation to address these concerns. I’m pretty much rambling, but these are my thoughts that I’ve been noticing. I’m wondering what this implies. Why is it that from before when I was alone, it was completely devastating to the point that it would shake my core? That it would scare me and terrify me in ways that I found unimaginable? It’s strange to see myself at this point where I know that I am physically alone, but I don’t have urges or emotional impulsivities that encourage me to disengage or engage with these maladaptive thoughts. I’m just acknowledging them. I see them. They are solely existing within the inner self but not manifesting in emotional reactions.  

So, what occurs when I’m able to distance myself from these thoughts? Well, I notice I’m at a lower baseline in terms of relative well-being. The average has slightly shifted downwards as a result of external circumstances. Overanalysis of interactions has led to assumptions that create expectations and emotional reactions that are slightly higher in intensity than I would like. It’s important that I’m able to notice this shift and notice these changes, but the question is, what do I need to do to improve my well-being? How can I intervene and mitigate feelings of loneliness? My mind immediately goes to doing things that will either distract me or to do things that I want to do to elicit positive feelings. Things like, playing the flute again today. Things like, going for walks and being in the sun. Things like reading, things like lifting. But these are activities that I engage with everyday, so why does it feel like such a chore today? Where did my motivation go to continue doing these things? As a result, I’ve decided to deconstruct my day in the way that I want to. To do things impulsively and let go. Look at things and see if they elicit some kind of positive response from myself. For example, I decided to free associate in today’s blog instead of thinking twice about my words or how they sound. Another example is that after finishing these thoughts, I’m going to a random fish shop, not to get a fish or anything related. Just because I want to. I’m curious about it, and as a result, why not? I think I’m going to leave this here. Hopefully I’ll reference this at a later point and in hindsight, look at this post with a different lens and re-approach the subject matter with a fresh perspective. By the way, the coffee shop that I’m writing this from has amazing coffee and has bicycles for sale. Amazing. 

You ever look at something, and you can tell what it is but recognize that there are components missing from the image? Somewhat blurred…? But even the term “blurred” doesn’t capture what it is exactly being seen. To be more specific, when you look at this thing, you use the colors of the object, the context at which this object is in, and the lighting/position of the object to determine in the end what it is. If you can’t relate and you have seen everything in its full and complete picture, I’m envious of you and your spectacular vision.

When I was in the second grade, the optometrist recommended that I should wear glasses. They said my vision wasn’t terrible to the point where it necessitated glasses usage, but that it would be highly recommended, and over time, would be needed for far-sighted activities, such as driving and attending classes. Too bad. I rarely wear my glasses. For at least 15 years, I have relied on using lights, colors, and the environment to inform what it is that I would be looking at. For example, when I drive, I look at the shapes of the other cars, the color of stop lights, the shape and color of the dotted lines to inform my driving. This is unequivocally inappropriate, and I recognize that I should use my glasses more frequently. But why do I not?

One night, I went for a walk. And this is unusual for me– I hate walks. I think they’re pretty pointless. But I was distressed that night. I felt alone, and I needed to explore my emotions outside of my apartment. I decided to listen to some of my impulsive thoughts, and one of them said to go for a walk and listen to music. I ended up finding myself at the park, on a bench, and looking up at the sky. I was looking for my wallet, but found my glasses in my jacket pocket instead. I put them on out of curiosity, because I can’t remember the last time that I even looked at the sky, nor do I have memories of looking up at the sky with my glasses on.

“It’s perfect” 

Undeniably, the sky was perfect. I looked around, and in terms of being in its own essence and its naturality, the trees, the ground, the dirt, the shrubs, the grass, the sky, the clouds, the stars were all perfectly them. Why did this stick out so much to me that it warranted a blog post? Well, I think a conversation that I’ve always had with myself includes this concept of perfection and achieving perfection but recognizing that it wasn’t a manageable expectation to have. While I know I couldn’t perfect myself in the same way that perfection cannot be obtained through human means, the earth is perfect. It is truly, organically, itself, and as a result, is in congruency. There is nothing in this world through human means that can replicate or achieve this state of being. Or atleast, not that we can operationalize. It was a beautiful realization. 

So, why don’t I wear glasses more? Why did I not wear glasses? Perhaps I was afraid of seeing everything for what it was. It left an undertone of mystery. Like there was something missing, but it was okay if I didn’t know. You know… The whole ignorance is bliss thing. 

Then there was another realization.

One of disgust.

One of despair. 

“What are we doing to our perfect world?”