The Joy Journal

[soos_mite_ah]

@RendHeaven

[soos_mite_ah]

Hedonism Through the Stages 

I've been thinking of where I'm at when it comes to what I want to experience, work towards, and grow into. And I think there is this part of me that wants to live a more hedonistic life style just to get somethings out of my system.

When it comes to hedonistic life styles, because western society's center of gravity is stage orange, traditionally we think of the Dan Bilzerian and Jordan Belforts of the world. Filthy rich, expensive sports cars, being surrounded by models, cocaine, etc. It's clearly very egotistical and insatiable. I'm pretty sure there is a trope that is along the lines of rich girl/guy parties, does drugs, chases success but then ends up depressed because they realized that those things don't make them happy and that they are hollow because they never paid attention to the meaningful parts of life. 

For me, the hedonistic life style I want is more along the lines of stage green hedonism. For me it's along the lines of travelling to countries, exploring different cultures, collecting experiences instead of things, connecting with a ton of people, having an amazing romantic relationship, finding creative work etc. But at the same time, I see the limits of this. Because ultimately, things external to us won't make us happy even if they are something that is more higher consciousness like collecting experiences instead of collecting Lamborghinis. 

I think a really good example of the limits of stage green hedonism can be seen in Anthony Bourdain's life. His whole thing was travelling, exploring different cultures, having good conversations with the locals while shedding light of the social issues in the area, exploring different cuisines, etc. I don't know what he or really any other celebrity is like when the cameras aren't rolling but from what I remembered, there wasn't any indication from his work of anything being superficial or hollow like what one would think of with stage orange hedonism. His work was very stage green and very heart centered. But he still killed himself. This is such a cliche when it comes to celebrities when the commit suicide where people are like "oh ___ had it all, the money, the power, the success, the fame, the beautiful spouse, and the beautiful home but they were still depressed." And it was similar to how many people reacted to Bourdain's death. But instead of being like "look he had such a well rounded life and he was truly making an impact, but he was still depressed." 

I'm not someone who is impacted by celebrity deaths mainly because I'm not very tuned into celebrity culture in general. But I remember being 18 and this instance having an impact on me. It felt weird. I liked Bourdain's work but not so much to where I binged his show and was a fan so it wasn't some type of parasocial fixation. Now looking back, I think it was this implicit realization that all of the travelling, all of the good conversations, all of the social justice, all of the quality relationships still won't make me happy. I think part of me back then looked up to Bourdain's life style and saw it as aspirational and knowing that despite all that he was so depressed to where he committed suicide. It felt threatening to my ego because I'm here thinking this will bring me happiness but clearly it actually doesn't based on how he ended up. It was me realizing that stage green hedonism is still a form of hedonism even if society might think it's a more conscious form of it. 

Stage red hedonism to me is like stage orange but more brutal, gaudy, and animalistic (think golden toilets, hunting lions for sport, and having a gold pleated AK-47). Don't know what stage blue hedonism would look like since that stage is built on repression. I already talked about stage orange and green hedonism. Stage yellow hedonism to me might be along the lines of having this insatiable thirst for knowledge and research because you don't realize that analyzing and thinking too much can make you miserable because it cuts out from being. I really don't know what stage turquoise hedonism would look like. I'm guessing that it would be chasing mystical stages by any means necessary whether it would be doing WAAY too many psychedelics or going to some other super extreme level. 

So yeah, hedonism isn't isolated to only one stage of the spiral. The reason why I strived for this stage green hedonism when I was 16-18 years old was a reaction against stage orange hedonism and it's definition of a successful, well lived life. I was moving deeper into green and to me the hedonism at stage orange was so obviously limited and hollow to me.  I also had a lot of anxiety regarding figuring my life out and becoming an adult and my number one goal was to live the most meaningful and fulfilling life possible without wasting my time of stupid shit. Even now, one of my big fears is wasting the one life I have. I think now I have a healthy dose of nihilism in me to where I can be more carefree, but back then I couldn't sit with that nihilism. I had to find meaning in something or else what even is my life? Why tf am I here?  

So why is it that after all of this I still want a stage green hedonism? What's different this time around compared to where I was at in my late teens? 

Me in 2019 and onwards: 

Now at 21 I see indulging in this stage green hedonism as scratching an itch rather than seeing it as a life style I have to have. It's wanting to travel, make friends, have good conversations, and a significant other but not necessarily needing it. It's being able to enjoy those things instead of getting attached to it as the pinnacle of meaning and fulfillment in life. Again, there is a healthy sense of hedonism. I would compare it to me finding out that I'm going on a yacht party tomorrow. I would enjoy myself and take in that experience, but I wouldn't be yearning for that lifestyle and day dreaming of becoming super wealthy to where going to yacht parties is what brings me meaning and is what is my norm. Travelling and connecting to people is defiantly something that I want but it isn't this deep existential craving that I had in my late teens.  The desire is there but my attachment isn't.  

Me from 2016-2018: 

In my late teens however, stage green hedonism felt like the blueprint  for living an actualized life much like how some people see the glamor of stage orange hedonism as the one should strive for. Rather than being attached to achievement, I was attached to finding meaning. I think there is a part of me that is attached to finding meaning and analyzing things which is why it's rare for me to dip into nihilism. Part of it stemmed from fear particularly the fear of wasting my life or the fear of messing up my life. I still have anxieties regarding those things now but I have worked through a lot of it tbh. Those fears are still here now but they are not anywhere near as existential crisis inducing as it was back then. 

Back then I really thought those things would bring me happiness. Now I can see those things are something to enjoy but it isn't the end all be all. Because even if you do end up living the stage green hedonistic lifestyle of your dreams, if you don't take care of other areas of your life and work through your regular human shit and the traumas that you accumulated, well you're still going to be miserable. In my late teens I understood the importance of working on myself but my understanding back then wasn't as deep as it is now. There was still a part of me back then that thought happiness is external. There is still a part of me now that is like that based on the complaining I do on here but I'd say that I have become better than before. 

[RendHeaven]

2 hours ago, soos_mite_ah said:

I really don't know what stage turquoise hedonism would look like.

God's Love

Pure fucking beauty with no drawbacks, it's actually sort of ridiculous.

[LastThursday]

3 hours ago, soos_mite_ah said:

Don't know what stage blue hedonism would look like since that stage is built on repression.

I'm reminded of all the Catholic festivals in Spain, a form of blue collective hedonism I'd say. And, the celebration at weddings in general from all cultures. Can't think of any more.

[soos_mite_ah]

11 hours ago, LastThursday said:

I'm reminded of all the Catholic festivals in Spain, a form of blue collective hedonism I'd say. And, the celebration at weddings in general from all cultures. Can't think of any more.

This also reminded me of mardi gras. I didn't know it had religious roots until I looked into it more. It's that you get everything out of your system in a couple days so that you can give up something for Lent for the next 40 days until Easter. I guess the reason why I wasn't thinking of mardi gras is because most people I know don't do it for religious reasons rather it's an excuse for college kids to party which makes me think that it's more orange than blue. 

The weddings part also makes sense. The emphasis on family, tradition, sometimes religion makes it more blue.

[soos_mite_ah]

just really liked this video

[soos_mite_ah]

Lack of Life Experience, FOMO, and Feeling Like a Child

I can't sleep because my mind decided to go on a negative spiral and normally i would brush it off and try my best to go to sleep but clearly it isn't working since it's 4 in the morning and this is keeping me up at night. I hope to god that journaling can help me get things out of my system. 

A lot of what I want to write had been written before in a previous entry so I'm linking it below  to avoid repeating myself:

I have this anxiety of becoming a full fledged adult. I know that sounds really silly especially for the people reading this who are significantly older than me. I am afraid that I won't be able to function on my own and that I'm not going to measure up in terms of maturity. The first I know is mostly bullshit. I have lived on my own at one point. I can do basically all the things I need to do to take care of myself including but not limited to cooking, cleaning, keeping things organized, driving, taking care of finances, knowing the basics of how taxes work, and  keeping up with basic responsibilities. But I'm not financially independent from my parents, I don't have a career, and I don't really know what I'm going to do after college much less with my life. That's the one box I haven't ticked off yet and my nitpicking tendencies likes to hyper focus on it. I think it's reasonable for someone my age and circumstance  to not have everything figured out and as a college student still being somewhat financially reliant on my parents, but I'm still insecure about that. 

As for measuring up in terms of maturity, well.... sometimes I really don't know where I stand. There is this part of me that feels childish due to my lack of life experiences. I have talked about much of that in the journal entry that I linked above. But I have this fear of going out into the real world and having actual adults look at me like I'm this naive girl. I always hear that the biggest part of the college experience is growing socially and learning how to deal with people and tbh, socializing is not one of the things I did much of so far in college. I spent the first year and a half getting my life together and emotionally recovering from a difficult home life after finally getting access to help and then the moment I felt like myself again and like I can socialize like a normal person, I had to move back home because of the pandemic. I also didn't socialize much during my junior and senior year of high school because I had an awakening of sorts and I didn't resonate with my main friend group overnight and we all basically started growing as people in different directions. And because I went to a really small school, I didn't have many people to talk to so I tried to sit tight and wait for college. So basically, from age 16.5 to 21.5, while I always had a couple friends here and there, I haven't had a normal social life or crowd I was around. That's a solid 5 years. 

And tonight I went on a spiral and I checked my snapchat stories. I normally don't check my snapchat but I'm spiraling and the devil on my shoulder told me to do so. And I see people partying, hanging out with friends, chilling with their significant other, travelling and simply living life. I feel this sense of jealousy and insecurity bubble up in me. It just reminds me on how I'm not living a normal life. It makes me feel like I'm behind socially and that to me means that I'm not maturing through life experiences. 

Then there is this whole thing of me never having a "crazy phase" where I went out to parties a lot, got drunk frequently, started experimenting with all types of things, and basically do other wild shit that people typically do in their late teens/ early 20s. Sometimes I feel like that is a rite of passage, like you didn't live and get things out of your system if you didn't do some crazy shit when you were young. A lot of it simply doesn't resonate with me and I know that if I forced myself to do things because people around me were doing it or that it was something that I was expected to do in a certain phase of my life, that it would make me feel miserable and out of alignment with my authentic self. But there is this part of me that sees this as me being straight-laced, boring, sheltered and naive.  

And then there is the pandemic and how I moved back home and how that makes me feel like I've been frozen at age 19. Moving back home definitely doubles down on feeling sheltered. The fact that I'm turning 22 this year feels fake, It also gives me a bit of an existential crisis because oh shit in a couple years I'm going to be in my mid 20s. How tf did that happen?!?!?!?! I mean I know the days are going by but there is a part of me that feels like I've been reliving March 13th 2020 over and over again. I talked about this more in this post I made a month ago: 

 I think a way of looking at this is that I'm experiencing FOMO. I know that term is usually used for people when they compare their boring lives to everyone having fun on social media. For me, while social media does trigger FOMO, I think the FOMO I'm experiencing is in a deeper existential level where I'm sitting here like *what am I doing with my life. I have this one life to live. I'm wasting my time here. I should be out there living* 

I'm trying to reassure myself by reminding myself that I am growing and maturing as a person because I am doing the inner work that is arguably harder for a lot of people compared to stumbling through life and learning from experience in this laize faire kind of way towards self development. I try to reassure myself by telling myself that *Hey, you're never not experiencing life. As long as you're conscious and mindful of every moment, you're living. You don't have to be constantly doing something whether it is being productive, getting ahead, socializing, or travelling to be living. Doing isn't the only way to live. Being is a huge part of it.* It's one of those things that I understand intellectually but it will take my heart a minute to take it in and integrate it. Emotionally, I just want to go out and do things because that's what feels like living. I'm so fucking tired of just being. It was nice for a few months but now I'm over it. 

[soos_mite_ah]

Emotionless = Cool 

I've been thinking as to why once I started displaying a more positive outlook on life that people started seeing me as less relatable and even annoying. I talked about this in a previous post. 

On 4/26/2021 at 5:54 PM, soos_mite_ah said:

Coming off as too positive: I have been told that I come off as positive and really confident by the way I carry myself and that I look like I have my life together. I have a weird relationship with coming off as positive. For a large chunk of my life I was angsty, depressed, and always ranting about something because being annoyed was basically my sense of humor. I had a group of friends but I thought that maybe I'd be more well liked if I was happy and bubbly. I don't know if I watched too much Charisma on Command the summer before college in order to reinvent myself or I read too many self help books talking about how people don't like being around negative people and how to be liked you have to be positive and upbeat. But when I eventually did get to a happier place in my life and I naturally came off as bubbly, I noticed that people still didn't like me and probably thought I was annoying for being a happy person. I'm afraid of coming off as a Tony Robbins sales person type of personality. I don't know how to describe it but it's like the the snake oil sales man type who acts happy and confident but it also looks really fake as if they are trying to craft this charismatic persona instead of being their normal self.  I know positivity can be toxic and cold when it's not backed up with empathy but I am still pretty empathetic (though I might not be as warm....?idk man). I know people have told me that they found me intimidating when they talk to me.  I feel like I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't. Me being negative would be me being a downer no one likes but me being positive would be me being a deluded idiot who is happy all the time because there is this assumption that I'm not aware of the awful stuff in the world or someone who is on a different plane of existence because I have my life together. As a kid I got bullied for being happy, bubbly, and nice, and as a teenager I got criticized for being angsty. I don't know what I'm supposed to do to be socially normal ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

And I've been thinking about how people in their teens and early 20s have this implicit, and sometimes explicit idea that to be cool you need to be emotionless. Honestly I might be talking out of my ass on this one and I don't know if this is just me lol but I feel like I need organize my thoughts. 

I remember growing up hearing the people around me say things like "I only allow myself to be emotional for 5 minutes a day max and then I gotta be a bad bitch", "emotions are gross, don't fall in love, that shit is cringe", "everyone annoys me, I hate everyone", "ugghhh happy people". or simply this "I don't care, the world is shit, nothing matters, idgaf about anyone or anything" attitude. And like from the ages of 13-18 this shit just seemed normal and like common sense. But ever since I got therapy and got to a more bubbly, optimistic place in my life, I looked back at these sentiments and thought *damn, some of yall need therapy.* Even if for some people this isn't coming from an authentic place and people are just posing to be like this, why is this even considered quirky and cool?  I've also encountered people who almost brag about how emotionless they are and how they are borderline sociopathic (these people aren't actually sociopathic based on my encounters with them). Or I've heard people brag about how they haven't cried in years and how they barely feel anything anymore and honestly nowadays I'm just sitting here like *uhhhh.... maybe you should get that checked. That sounds like trauma.*

I think there are a lot of different things at play. I think a lot of older adults look at teenagers and young adults as these hyper emotional, hormonal nut cases and then some of those people want to push back with an attitude of apathy and emotionlessness masquerading as rationality. I think there is the whole thing with toxic masculinity for guys to push down their emotions to seem strong. And even though women are typically allowed to express emotions and be more vulnerable compared to men, there is still a sentiment that if a woman is being emotional whether she's angry, sad, or really really passionate about something that she is hormonal and proves that women are irrational and crazy and therefore can't be taken seriously. Then there is the desensitization from the 24 hour news cycle constantly feeding people with the awful things happening in the world. I know that whenever I see a mass shooting on the news, I haven't had a normal response to it since 2013. Part of me is like *it is what it is, just another day* because there is only so many times you get the same story until it becomes normalized even though it is far from normal.  

I know that I've mainly talked about expressing negative emotions in the previous paragraph, but when you have that emotionless, closed off attitude with your emotions, you can also throw out your positive emotions as well. It's like being phased by negativity and bothered by things in your life is written off as being a cry baby and that you need to suck it up and deal with it. As a result, rather than feelings of negativity getting normalized what gets normalized is this sense of apathy, which also pushes aside feelings of positivity. In addition to that, because numbness is pushed due to the normalization of negative events, happiness can start look like insanity. (Negative feelings aren't normalized but negative events are). Then you start getting the "eww happy people" or "uggh this person is doing too much, why are they so positive, calm tf down" sentiment. 

I remember encountering these sentiments as early as elementary school. I remember other children made fun of me for being happy and really nice to people. Then in middle school, and high school I got angsty and pseudo-emotionless but then I returned back to that bubby happy self I was as a kid in college. In college, I noticed that in my more liberal arts classes, this was seen as a good thing but in my business classes, while I wasn't getting picked on, I still encountered that same stank attitude I had to deal with in elementary school. Me being in the business school in a way made me feel like I was 8 again.  I did write about some of this in a previous post but here is a part that resonates with this post today: 

On 5/13/2021 at 2:38 PM, soos_mite_ah said:

I got into business because I was interested in things like wealth inequality and making workplaces better suited for the people working there to benefit everyone in question. As a result I kind of unintentionally give off this vibe that's like ~~***let's care about each other and come up with creative solutions that helps everyone***~~ and the people around me look irritated and are like *ma'am.... this is corporate America* 

And that's the thing, why is caring about people seen as uncool and cringe and why is having a lot of topics you're excited about and having a lot of hobbies come off as "too intense" for people? This might be my high scores on agreeableness and my openness talking, but I simply don't understand that. To me those things are essential in living a full life where you're happy and fulfilled. Isn't that the goal? I don't want to be dead in the eyes all the time. I've been there and it isn't fun in the slightest.  I know my personal bias is involved, I'm just having a hard time stepping out of it. To me, that's unusual because I was on the other end of the spectrum not to long ago where I was like "eww happy people." I guess from what I remember is that there is an assumption that bubbly happy people are fake, shallow and lacking in depth, delusional, and detached from reality because they don't have the same perspective of doom, gloom, and apathy as you do. Goes back to the whole thing with negative events being normalized but not necessarily negative feelings.

Edited May 30, 2021 by soos_mite_ah

[soos_mite_ah]

Figuring out what I want to do with my life Part 1

The other day I decided to have a thought dump on things that are related to finding my purpose and figuring out what I want to do with my life and who I want to be. I went back and forth on whether or not I should put this in my journal because this felt weirdly personal (ok I know this is supposed to be personal but I'm just saying the hesitation is weird on my part considering the things I have shared on here). I'm probably going to journal for the next few days and then run through the life purpose course material again to see what else I can ask myself to figure my life out. 

Top Values:

• Authenticity
• Awareness
• Justice/Truth
• Empathy
• Joy
• Peace
• Creativity
• Connecting with people
• Learning
• Freedom

Purpose Statement: Understand and Improve the Human Condition

Flow Experiences

• Journaling on a regular basis  
• Writing and researching a topic that I care about whether it is for school or for myself
• Having meaningful conversations with people
• Drawing* (I tried doing this again and I didn’t get into the flow state like I used to as a kid, but I guess doing something creative and detail oriented)
• Contemplating my life / analyzing myself / working on my life through self-development

Things are important to me:

• Travelling, experiencing different cultures and ways of life
•  Deepening relationships, spending time with others, eventually having a family
• Having creative expression that connects with others (mixing empathy and authenticity)
• Learning and getting genuinely educated (those moments when you learn something, and you see life in a different light and a lot of things starts making sense)
• Contribution to a social cause and helping people be more empowered
• Meditation, contemplation, downtime
• Authenticity/ humanness

Causes I care about and things I find interesting:

• Wealth inequality
• Access to health care
• Access to quality education
• Public Health
• Art, pop culture, and it’s impact on a collective
• Businesses and how they can organize themselves better to maximize their potential and treat their workers well at the same time and how those things are one and the same
• Proper workplace treatment: making sure people get paid a fair amount, there is no discrimination, working conditions are good, people feel a sense of fulfillment in work
• Psychology and mental health
• Intersectional feminism
• Money psychology
• Personal finance
• The social sciences: psychology, sociology, history, anthropology, political science
• Analysis and dense pieces of media
• Spirituality and self-development

Things I like doing and why I like them:

• Nerding out on whatever topic I’m currently exploring: My ADHD puts me in hyper focus when I find a topic I’m intrigued by and I get into a flow state easily
• Writing: I enjoy expressing myself and my thoughts (especially with an audience, real or perceived). It also helps me organize my thoughts, clear my head, and come up with insights. It’s the biggest contributor to my sense of self awareness and my ability to grow as a person. I also enjoy psychoanalyzing myself lol.
• Hanging out in coffeeshops, people watching, writing, reading, eating or drinking something: I like the atmosphere, the smell of coffee, how leisurely it can be or how it can encourage productivity. I don’t even care about the coffee to be honest. Whenever I’m there, I either feel peaceful or productive. I can either tap into the part of me that likes to meditate and introspect or the part of me that likes to get shit done.
• Going to arts and science museums: I like hanging out in these places because I can be lost in my thoughts, find random interesting things here and there that makes life more exciting, or just let myself be. I can be spacey and have this meditative sense of calm about me when I’m by myself and this is my favorite place to tap into that.
• Having good conversations with friends: I enjoy listening to other people’s life experience, empathizing with them, learning from them, having fun with them, getting new ideas from them etc. Trying to understand their perspectives and getting a taste of their humanity is something that resonates with me.
• Travelling or reading up on different cultures and their norms: I like looking at the world through different perspectives and seeing how those perspectives can be either similar or different from one another. I also like seeing all the ways you can do something, and the ways humanity got creative in their traditions or their survival. It brings out the creativity and the desire to explore in me.
• Creating made up scenarios in my head that I’m manifesting lol: I like how I can be imaginative and let my mind wander. I like seeing what it comes up with a lot of times. Sometimes this can be escapist or a way of coping with not having something in my life so I should be mindful of that.

Skills and strengths in general:

• Writing
• Dealing with people with empathy and patience
• Giving people advice
• Reading people and being a good judge of character
• Creativity and problem solving
• Sense of self awareness
• Critical thinking and just analyzing things in general
• Being by myself for long periods of time
• Drawing
• Having a good sense of judgment (well most of the time)
• Being organized (keeping my space clean)
• Being good with money (spending, budgeting etc.)
• Being dedicated to something that I care about or have a vision for
• Setting goals and resolutions for personal development
• Having an existential crisis

Things that I have done that I’m proud of:

• Committing myself to self-development at 16, working through the issues I had to deal with from my difficult family, dealing with the generational trauma I was born into, and figuring out my life in general. There are so many different facets to this because I had to work through A LOT of trauma, and I did most of this work independently.
  • (*I’m still working through this but I’m proud of the consistency I have had in my journey and how far I’ve come. My purpose for the last few years is to develop myself and build a solid foundation for happiness. Dealing with my family has been one of the biggest issues I had to deal with in my life so far)
• Having the discipline to journal very regularly for the last year or so (and just building up that habit in general since I was 15 or so). This has been such a good habit that I implemented, and I love how it’s a great tool for my development as well as a creative outlet

Things that I want to aspire towards:

• Working on myself so that I can be the best that I can be and so that I can have a solid foundation for happiness, fulfillment, and emotional strength. I can handle anything that life throws at me.
• Living and working in New Zealand 
• Having enough money to never worry about that and have my needs covered. Being financially independent and carefree.
• Being self employed and/or be in a high-quality workplace where I’m learning new things and I’m in a healthy environment. 
• Having a free and flexible schedule to travel and spend time with people I care about
• A solid friend group and an amazing significant other that meets my standards and desires
• A family eventually. I want to be an amazing mother and raise the kid in the best way I can so that the kid has a good foundation for his/her life. I have so many ideas of how I want to be a conscious parent.
• Having a few books in my name

[soos_mite_ah]

Figuring out what I want to do with my life Part 2

Common themes I noticed:

• Dealing with people
• Writing
• Being in my head
• Business and entrepreneurship

What do these themes mean to me:

Dealing with people: I connect with people, empathize with them, empower them, and evaluate systems that explain human behavior.

• Meaningful conversations and deepening connections
• Caring about social causes
  • Wealth inequality
  • Access to health care and education
  • Intersectional feminism
• Social sciences: psychology, anthropology, sociology, history, political science
• Self-development
• Giving advice
• Spirituality
• Dealing with different cultures and perspectives

Writing: I analyze different topics I’m interested in. I can creatively express myself. I enjoy learning and feeling genuinely educated and I express that in my writing.

• Creative self-expression
• Self-development
• Learning and exploring my interests
• Analyzing those interests
• Communicating with others effectively
• Reading and exploring different cultures and perspectives

Being in my thoughts: I get to have a rich inner world to deepen my understanding of reality and keep myself creative. This also means I have peace of mind and balance internally.

• Meditating and contemplating
• Being alone for long periods of time
• Caring about psychology and mental health
• Self-development
• Analyzing things
• Spirituality
• Travelling
• Creativity, critical thinking, self-awareness
• Existential crisis
• Downtime/ free schedule
•  

Business and Entrepreneurship: To me this means being independent (emotionally and financially) along with caring about workplace issues

• Being self employed
• Wealth inequality
• Fairness in the workplace
• Limits of capitalism
• Work life balance
• Personal finance
• Management
• Vision
• Productivity
• Financial freedom
• Being organized
• Self-development

Overlapping things and things that stick out to me as important for me to consider for a future career:

• Self-development: I need to be growing as a person and learning in my work continuously
• Self-employed: Enables me to have creative control, freedom, flexibility, and knowing I have good management. If I want to do something right, I must do most of it myself.
• Creativity/ Creative freedom: This is how I express my authenticity. I don’t want to be in a competitive, stressful, fast paced environment with a ton of red tape. I want to care about the people around me and mind my own business so I can focus on creating
• Caring about people individually AND systemically: caring about social issues and systemic change along with empathizing with individuals. I’m doing things and implementing solutions hands on instead of just theorizing.
• Analyzing and contemplating: I like to have a role where I must think critically and deeply
• Having time to myself and having work life balance: I want to have enough down time to enjoy other areas of life, contemplate/meditate, and take care of myself in general.  Again, I don’t want to have a career that is stressful and takes over my life.
• Exploring, researching, and dealing with multiple perspectives: Like analyzing and contemplating but also going out, finding sources, and getting my hands dirty
• Spirituality: I want to deal with people in a moral way and have my work grow me into a better person. I want to have a positive sense of contribution

[soos_mite_ah]

Life Purpose Limiting Beliefs 

I feel like I'm constantly surrounded by people who are dissatisfied with their jobs and miserable with their existence and that makes me wonder if trying to find a life purpose is worth it or is even possible. And I don't look down on anyone who is dissatisfied with their work. It's something people have to do in order to survive under capitalism and it can be daunting, or in some cases very difficult to find another job or career due to things like lack of time, lack of resources, how difficult it can be to get an education, and the fear of going homeless and hungry. Systemically, the world isn't set up for you to find fulfilling work and pursue your passions. And not only can it be difficult to figure out what you want to pursue and what you find fulfilling, but it feels like you are working upstream. I try not to listen to people like that. I have a mindset of if I want to achieve something, I'm going to talk to and take advice from someone who actually achieved said thing than listen to someone who doesn't have experience in what I'm trying to do. 

But yeah... Mentally and emotionally I'm going in on another anti-capitalist spiral where it feels like I'm never going to leave my home town and I'm destined to be in a crappy job in a toxic workplace that is unfulfilling, doesn't pay enough, and detracts from my life expectancy because of the amount of stress I'm going to experience because the people on top want to protect their earnings instead of caring about their workers. It's the reality for many people and I'm afraid of falling into that bunch even if I try to do everything to not end up like that.

But this also motivates me to find my life purpose sooner so that I don't end up as a wage slave. I have an attitude from when I was little because of my issues with incompetent authorities (basically my parents who didn't do the greatest job raising me so I had to figure shit out on my own), that if I want something done right, I have to do it myself. If I want to be in a healthy work environment, I have to make that environment myself by being self employed because I can trust myself to care about my values, needs, and health while I can't trust a supervisor or manager to do the same. I'm pretty sure if I can figure out my life purpose that I won't be exploiting my own labor. If I want an ethical business, I have to make one myself because other people won't do a good job on this type of thing and would want to cut corners. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't trust offloading responsibilities onto others because of the systems society has created over the years. 

At the very least, I just want to have rights and feel like I can advocate for them without the threat of losing my job and becoming homeless. And I hate on how this is so survival motivated rather than focusing on how to create meaningful work so that people can do what they like and contribute to a greater cause. What maybe wage slavery for me can be immensely fulfilling and meaningful for someone who is genuinely interested in that job and vice versa. But it's difficult to act from that authenticity because of survival hanging over our heads which I'd say contributes to less contribution and less productivity in the world at large. If we had something like a universal basic income, health care for all, guaranteed housing, accessible and quality education, we could all have a say of what we actually want to do with our lives. We wouldn't have to stay in dead end jobs that treat people like trash and therefore would have more leverage. Instead, employers would have to work to create a quality and healthy workplace so that people would work there because they want to not because their survival depends on it and that can also lead to more democracy in the work place.

Apparently there is a phenomenon happening in the U.S. because the minimum wage is so low to where people don't see the point on going back to work now that the pandemic is dying down because they are getting a better quality of life from government programs. There are some saying that these government programs should be cut so that people have the survival instinct to go back to work and that "people don't want to work anymore because they are lazy." There are also people on the other side that are saying things along the lines of "it's not that people don't want to work, it's that people don't want to work for YOU because you create a bad work place and pay shit wages." People are willing to work even if their ass isn't on the line or if they aren't going to make that much profit. Why else do people have hobbies they put their time and energy into? If people do something they genuinely enjoy and find fulfilling and they aren't punished with instability for choosing a path that lets them do that, they would choose that path. People aren't inherently these lazy slobs that would watch Netflix all day. The system is designed in a way that incentivizes that type of behavior because the last thing you want to do after an exhausting job is to work on things you are passionate about because at that point you're burnt out and have a horrible association with work or anything that requires more energy. At that point, you just want to zone tf out and do something unconscious to escape the existential dread that comes with that whole thing so you can cope with doing the same shit again the next day because the alternative is not sustaining yourself. 

I know all of this sounds super idealistic and like a pipe dream that I need to give up on but I guess what I'm trying to say is that the world the way it is today, doesn't have to be that way. It is that way for a variety of different factors but it doesn't have to. This is a man made problem and we can make a solution for it. 

I love how this video discusses the issues with moralizing and how it's antisystem thinking. It also talks about how conservatives tend to think in binaries where either a tragedy happens or it doesn't and how thinking in this binary doesn't leave any room for looking at how often something happens and to what degree. It's the mentality of if we can't regulate all evil, what's the point on helping the situation at all. I've talked to conservatives about a ton of issues and the insights in this video shed light on the general view of the world they have to lead them to think this way.

I catch myself falling into the same trap as conservatives as times. I have thought about moving to New Zealand from the U.S. because that country (along with many other industrialized nations) makes the U.S. look like a capitalistic hellscape. There is a part of me that says "What's the point of even trying to move to New Zealand? They still have many of the same problems the U.S. has. You aren't going to be able to run away from the issues capitalism causes. They have a high cost of living and they have a housing crisis. What's the point of doing all the hard work to get there and get a visa?" Like the conservatives that I've talked about previously, this is a form of binary thinking where either something happens or it doesn't. Yes, issues caused by capitalism still happens in New Zealand but they still have better labor laws, more regulations, and less corruption and corporate bribing compared to the U.S. They might not regulate all evil, but they are making more moves to help the situation whereas the U.S. is in a standstill when it comes to social progress with conservatives being blue/orange and liberals being orange/green.  I don't see New Zealand as some type of utopia (though I might joke about given the state the U.S. is in right now) but I do think the place is something that I can work with more. 

There are a lot of things that I could say about this video but I thought I'd include a couple sections that really resonated with me as it relates to my post today: 

5:43- 7:02: "A conservative will generally agree with you about what the ills of society are: bigotry, violence, disease, oppression, poverty. But they don't view them as problems to be solved. They are facts of life. Of course racism is terrible....but it's a Monday. Trying to fight racism is like trying to fight the first law of motion. The only reason to talk about it is to commiserate. Besides, if we didn't have bad white people, how would we know we're the good ones?" Morality to them isn't about fighting evil, it's about a set of shared opinions of what evil is. When bad things happen, we sit around agreeing they are bad and anyone who says otherwise, we excommunicate. That's what talking about tragedy is for. And I think it's why they get mad at us when we "politicize tragedies".  As in when yet another shooting happens, we talk about what we can be done to prevent them. It's not just that they refuse to do anything about the problem, though it is definitely that, it's that we aren't participating in the ritual of "thoughts and prayers." It's how we perform our morals after a crisis.  How do they know where we stand if we don't participate. If evil can't be regulated, but we're saying guns can... are we saying the shooting wasn't evil?" 

I'm sure most people will agree that Mondays suck and work is awful. It can seem like a fact of life since this is normalized and therefore we are desensitized to REALLY how messed up this is. We can talk all day about how annoying it is to have to work a job you hate in order to exist but as soon as someone says we should have universal health care and we shouldn't have to rely on our jobs for that, then you are an idealistic socialist who doesn't understand how the world works. And by not understanding how the world works, they mean that you aren't desensitized in the same way they are to where you think it's simply a fact of life and that you still think this thing can be solved. 

13:29-the end: "Humanity as we know it existence as a defiance of nature. Every forms of bigotry, every forms of oppression is a thing we created. They are human problems and they have human solutions. They have not always existed and there are places in the world where they are being addressed. And the idea that the worst things on earth have no great significance, and that most evil is a chaotic mess born from human fallibility can be very depressing to consider. It can also be empowering. This is a secular view. It can be reconciled with spirituality but not with reactionary fundamentalism which is the point. And it can be kind of baffling to assert that when bad things happen maybe we should do something about it. But you just can't take for granted that when someone agrees a thing is bad, they are agreeing it's a problem. But if you cross that hurdle, again, not with the people spewing bullshit but with the people they are trying to convince, you may find that incrementalism still doesn't do anything for them. They may long for something more dramatic and frankly a lot of us feel the same. So maybe that's a gateway into talking about deeper change because we don't need to be as gods to turn the world inside out." 

Something that I think about while I study various issues in the world is that the solutions are there. They have already been found. The difficult part is implementing those solutions. I'm specifically talking about when it comes to convincing people who are systemically incentivized to do awful things in the top to stop and organize the system in a way that helps everyone, not just the few, have a better quality of life. Fighting through the self interest of those at top and dealing with the issues of their development in consciousness is a bitch.  

Edited June 2, 2021 by soos_mite_ah

[soos_mite_ah]

Videos That Make Me Laugh

The "Mr Krabs uses it for promotional reasons. Let me show you some of it's features" killed me lol 

I had a Barbie phase when I was around 4-7 and I remember watching a lot of the movies. I don't remember the plots to the movies but recently I got recommended a bunch of Barbie out of context videos. It unlocked a bunch of memories lmao. Honestly, wtf was I watching

This Prager U kids video reminded me of some of the propaganda books that Rush Limbaugh made for kids that basically glossed over the human rights abuses of colonialism and romanticized the 1700s and 1800s. My uncle was a fan of Rush Limbaugh and his whole radio show and he tried to get me into it but he gave me one of the propaganda books when I was 13ish so I guess it was too late for me to be indoctrinated. That book was really weird from what I remembered. 

I remember stumbling onto Spirit Science's channel back in 2012 or so when I was just getting into things like chakras and meditation. They had this whole conspiracy theory of what human history actually is and that shit was wild. I remember finding it entertaining back then but also thinking it was insane. I just found out that Vaush made a video on it and I noticed some of the right wing ideology that sometimes seeps into spirituality/ what some spiritual people believe and it was nice to see Vaush acknowledge that. Also it was fucking hilarious to watch him lose his shit on how insane this was lol. 

These videos aren't anything new but they always crack me up. The comments under the Bratz video kills me. The Alex Jones remix was how I first found out about him lol. 

[soos_mite_ah]

Where Do I Want to Live When I Grow Up

From a very young age I had an intuitive knowing that I didn't want to live in Texas my whole life. What are the odds that the place where I was born is the one that fits me and who I am fully? I also had this feeling about living in the U.S. as a whole especially when it came to patriotism. I didn't get the point of being proud of where I'm from because that's just where my soul happened to be dropped at by chance. It's not a conscious choice that I made so I don't see the point of claiming where I'm from as if it was my doing and a reflection of me. That's not to say that I don't have an appreciation of where I'm from and where I grew up. I'm simply not attached to it. 

And as a result, I always wondered where I belonged in the world literally as cliché as it sounds. I went to New York City a couple times, once when I was 8 and another time when I was 18. At both times, it felt more like home than where I grew up in. I found myself feeling this way in general with large cities. That is one of the clues I had as to where I wanted to live. It reflected a part of me at that time. But over the years I found that this part of me changed, that a large city is nice but it isn't necessary. I think the reason why I was drawn to cities were due to diversity, progressive values, and busyness. I still do value a sense of diversity and progressive values but I don't really care much for busyness or a fast paced life style. I'm not much of a house person, I very much prefer apartments and small living spaces (tiny houses are also cool).  I find videos like these very satisfying: 

There is something about how a small space forces you to get creative and live a more minimalist and intentional lifestyle that speaks to me. I know I might sound crazy but part of me doesn't mind spending a lot of money on a tiny space. I get that I'm probably not getting my money's worth but if it lets me be more creative, resonates with me, and is near the places I like to hang out at, that's more than enough. 

Another thing that made me think of where I might want to live instead of assuming where I grew up being the default place is how my dad came to the U.S. and how this country fit him better on a personal level than Bangladesh ever did. My mom is the exact opposite. She doesn't like the U.S. as much and really prefers to go back to India. Consequently, I wondered what that place for me would be. 

As weird as it might sound, after finding Spiral Dynamics, all of this made more sense. My dad resonated with living in Texas and the U.S. in general because he is a mix between blue, a lot of orange, and a little bit of green. My mom resonates with India because she is VERY blue with some orange. I was attracted to bigger cities because for many years growing up I was at orange/green. And now that I'm in more green/yellow (I'm using yellow quite generously don't come for me lol), my idea of where I want to live is also evolving. Before finding SD, as a teenager I had this goal in mind to save up money, take time off to travel to a bunch of places, and eventually find a place to settle down at. Don't get me wrong, I still want to travel for the sake of experience but as for finding a place to settle down, I have narrowed down my sights more after finding SD. Personally, I feel that New Zealand fits me the best. 

This video sums things up pretty well and backs it up with data: 

Here are some important charts from the video: 

I went ahead and circled both New Zealand and the US so that they are easier to find in the chart below: 

I noticed that a lot of the better developed countries tend to be more green. I don't think we will get a yellow country for another couple hundred years so that's out of the question. I guess the best I can do is going for the greenest country possible. I would go with Sweden, Denmark and Norway, instead of New Zealand but as much as I hate to say, I'm going to be 100% honest with myself and say that it's unlikely that I will learn additional languages. Also, those countries are way too far north and even though I like the cold, my seasonal depression says No <3. 

I've also watched a bunch of videos on New Zealand because I've been looking into how to get there. I don't know much about New Zealand from experience but I have looked into a few things here and there. If there is anyone from New Zealand reading this and thinks I'm being fed with bs, I'm sorry if I sound delusional lol, please kindly correct me and give me a more realistic picture 

Pros: 

The Amazing Outdoors (Landscape and Wildlife) + Conservation Efforts: I've been getting into more outdoorsy things lately. I'm here for it. 

Lower Population- small community vibes, less traffic:  I'm here for that. I know I mentioned that I like bigger cities but I'm also good with rural areas tbh. This also goes along with the outdoors, but one of my favorite places in the U.S. to drive by is Arkansas. I really like forests and small towns. They're really beautiful as long as you don't stop driving and as long as you ignore the Confederate flags lol. 

Easier to find a job because of lower population: Not sure how true this is but BET!

Easy to start a business (registration)- it's common culture to start a business: I don't think this is applicable for me at this moment but I guess it's nice to know. Not sure on how it measures up to the U.S. 

Healthcare: SIGN ME TF UP!!!!

Laid back, slow paced life style (can also be a con): I mean, I'm here for it. 

Work life balance: This is something that is super important to me. Pretty much every source I've seen tells me that New Zealand has a good work life balance and prioritizes it because they understand that letting your employees have a life important for businesses to run effectively and that working them to the bone doesn't help anyone. And I really appreciate the basic understanding.  

Fairly diverse (as far as nationalities go): I had to add that in parenthesis because lets be real as far as racial diversity goes, New Zealand isn't about to beat the U.S. But yeah I'm here for the diversity. 

Safe/ low crime rate: I searched up the crime rate and apparently it's similar to that of the U.S. but as far as violent crime is considered, it is lower. 

Easy to travel given you have a car (road trips are easy to do): Honestly bet! I love road trips. 

Cons: 

Expensive (little competition, most things are imported): Actually something I'm worried about

Housing shortage and high rental prices: Actually something I'm worried about

Far away from other countries so if you want to travel it's going to be expensive and time consuming: This seems like a legit con but at the same time, (this is going to sound awful) I think I can use this as an excuse to not visit my toxic family super regularly. 

Weather changes a lot: I swear whenever I travel somewhere, there is always that one person that says something along the lines of iF yOU don'T lIKe thE weATHEr JuSt WaIT 5 mInUTes. So as a result, I don't really take this seriously. Yeah the weather is more unpredictable and is getting more extreme. It's not limited to one place. It's climate change. We're all in this together *cue the highschool musical sound track* 

You need a car: While I do prefer public transport for environmental reasons and so that I can walk anywhere without worrying about a car, driving everywhere is something that I'm used to because I lived in Texas my whole life. 

City life is kind of basic (not so many shopping places, night life etc.): And that's perfectly all right with me. I'm more so into cities for their diversity and their progressive attitudes rather than for getting lit or going shopping.  

Consumer laws aren't that good and neither is customer service: This seems more like an inconvenience rather than an actual problem. But then again, I'm not a Karen so I think I should be ok lol. 

Internet coverage isn't the best mainly in rural areas: I mean, I don't see myself living in a super rural area if when I do make the move (hey, I gotta stay manifesting lol) 

Heating and insulation in houses aren't the best: I searched up the climate here and it seems tamer than Dallas. I've also lived in places where heating and insulation isn't the best and that has similar winters to New Zealand so I don't think this would be that much of an adjustment to be honest. 

Earthquakes: I guess part of me isn't afraid of earthquakes that much mainly out of the ignorance of not experiencing them. But at the same time, New Zealand also apparently has the infrastructure to deal with this so that's good. 

Overall, I think my main selling points is the work culture, the better labor laws, and health care. The quality of life compared to the U.S. seems so much better. My friends and I used to joke how New Zealand is like one of the goody two shoes countries that has their shit together and minds their own business along with the Nordic countries. Meanwhile, the U.S. is like the loud hot cheeto girl in high school who has an inflated ego and goes around telling people how "real" they are when really they do nothing but get into other people's business and start fights at 8am in the morning while being a complete utter mess herself. And consequently, people are afraid of her and try to stay on her good side. And speaking of which, this is petty and idealistic, but I don't want my tax dollars funding the U.S. military and it's war crimes when really that money could be spent making other areas of life better for all of us. 

 

[soos_mite_ah]

What Do You Want to be When You Grow Up? Part 1: Fetishizing and Monetizing Your Interests

I feel like I haven't been writing as much ever since I found out that this is my ideal medium for my life purpose. I had to push myself to write the last couple full length posts and push through the resistance. I started asking myself why this resistance is there in the first place? I think when I put writing into this context of this ~~**grand life purpose**~~ or ~~**hero's journey**~~ part of me felt overwhelmed by it. I know with the whole hero's journey metaphor that there is a part where the hero gets a call to action but they don't want to take it even if it is exciting and fulfilling because they want to be in their cushy, comfortable lives. I think I resonate with this a little bit but I think a more important concept to consider is this thing called "detachment from outcome." 

Both the concepts of the hero's journey and detachment from outcome are discussed in the life purpose course. The hero's journey is the emotional and mythological framework behind the life purpose course. The hero is some naive person  living in the ordinary world in a simple life and then something unusual presents itself to them. Then, the journey presents itself to them and they get a call to adventure. While it is exciting and interesting, it's also scary for the person because they don't want to leave the comfort of their mundane life. Then the call presents again usually because something dramatic happens. The hero gets cornered and with much resistance the hero gets on the journey to find the holy grail (or in this case achieve some type of long term goal). The hero faces a variety of obstacles and has to go into uncharted territory. Along the road they find a mentor that helps them but eventually they have to figure things out on their own. Eventually, the hero goes through the challenges and achieves their goal. But by now the challenges and the journey turned them into a different person and the meaning of their original goal changes. Then they bring back their holy grail and achievements back to their community and then becomes a mentor to help another hero in the future. 

Detachment from outcome is when you do have a calling in life but you don't take it too seriously because in the end nothing means anything and it all leads to the same place which is death. Your purpose isn't about where you end up rather it is about the journey, about how you grow, about how you enjoy yourself on the way there. Sometimes the problem with life purpose is that we take it too seriously and start acting in cringey ways or we treat people badly because we have a stick up our ass. You flow through life rather than imposing yourself on it. There is little to no resistance involved. The only thing that is guaranteed is doing your work and enjoying your work. The rest are just the icing on the cake. You shouldn't expect perks or rely on it. And detachment helps because when you are tense, anxious, neurotic, and competitive, you aren't producing your best work than if you were relaxed and enjoying the process. 

I think the concept that resonates with a person more is completely relative. For me personally, I found that detaching from the outcome is more important than having a grand compelling vision (even though I have one of those to a certain extent). Because I think the problem with only thinking about the hero's journey and following your bliss instead of balancing it out with detachment from outcome is that you can fall into the trap of fetishizing your interests rather than cultivating your passion. I find that a lot of creative people and type A, super ambitious people tend to fall into this trap more. 

First off with creative people, it's very easy for them to get into the flow of whatever creative outlet that they choose. Even though I didn't go into studying art in college, I know people who did and I found that they walk in with this sense of passion but then school sucks it out of them because then there is this pressure of deadlines and this sense of obligation. When there is that sense of obligation, you become attached to the outcome and it isn't something you intrinsically want to do rather it is something you *have to do*. I have some experience with this when I took studio art in high school. I enjoy drawing but when I was being graded on it, it took me out of that flow state. And my teacher was basically talking to us about when you have clients you have to be more perfectionistic in your class and produce exactly what they said (the fact that she was a harsh and rigid grader didn't help my sense of creativity if I'm going to be honest). And that's when I realized that maybe a creative field might not be for me. I don't think I'm super comfortable with monetizing my creative outlets. And if I am to do something creative, I really need to have another job that will take care of my expenses. Because first of all, I'm not about that starving artist life. Second and more importantly, I feel that when you put so much pressure on your craft to where it's your main source of livelihood (or worse an unstable source), that your survival instincts interfere with your ability to be creative because you're more worried about having a roof over your head rather than focusing on doing your best work. That's when you get attached to outcome. While monetizing your hobbies and interest can be a nice plus, I don't think focusing on the monetization aspect is the healthiest way of going about it. I don't think that life purpose is all about career or your job and thinking about life purpose in that way can lead to unhealthy consequences. (I'm going to do a whole post talking about the type A, super ambitious people and capitalism in the next post since this is getting rather long). 

Another problem that creatives sometimes run into is fetishizing their interests. I believe that there is a difference between having interests and having a passion. It's like comparing initial attraction to a stable long term relationship. At first with your interests you have this honeymoon phase where you are super enthusiastic and excited about what you're going to do. After that honeymoon phase is up, that's the real test of how long term this interest, whether it be for a creative venture or a partner, would last. I think with people who fetishize their interests or fetishize this idea of what a relationship is supposed to be like, that they want the honeymoon phase to last forever and have that constant high, that the romanticize the process instead of seeing it for what it is and appreciate it even when it gets mundane and boring. Because if you are really passionate about an interest, romantic or otherwise, you won't need that constant titillations and you're ok when things get a little slow because there is an intrinsic motivation there apart from chasing excitement. Because from what I know about long term relationships (granted this knowledge comes from friends and things I've read so doing @ me lol) is that after a while of being with that person, it becomes kind of meh and routine but it's not necessarily a bad thing. Sure you need to look out for stagnation and signs of not trying anymore but there is something beautiful about being able to appreciate that stillness, being content, and just, well, being with your partner. I think it's the same with life purpose when it comes to detaching from outcome and being content and intrinsically motivated.

I think there is something that is more sustainable in finding a passion that you are interested in and that lights up the spark in you but you see that passion as a tool to sharpen and as a craft to slowly master rather than romanticizing the craft. It's the difference between a firework that is exciting, loud, and unpredictable and that goes off in like 3 seconds and a slow burning fire that actually keeps you warm through the winter. I also think that the difference between interests and passions is the consistency you are able to cultivate, again like the slow burning fire. I was interested in writing but I didn't realize how passionate I was about it until I spent like a year on this journal, writing these pseudo blogposts on this forum, and cultivating my interest into something consistent. And to be perfectly honest, I wasn't expecting this. I started this journal out of fun and basically me shitposting my thoughts and I didn't think much of it. I believe that being detached from outcome and not taking this journal seriously was the reason why I was able to be consistent because I didn't feel like I had to force myself to do anything. 

I mean my first post was: 

On 7/19/2020 at 10:56 PM, soos_mite_ah said:

I'm making this journal to pour out the joy that I feel in my life and document how I'm working towards higher levels of joy. Let's see how this works out :). 

I also really liked this post from a thread I made about a week back when I was questioning the medium to my life purpose. I thought about it quite often if I'm going to be honest. It really resonated with me. 

On 6/2/2021 at 1:38 PM, Yarco said:

Someone with writing as their ideal medium weighing in here.

Yes, it's really your ideal medium.

Don't think of the writing as your life purpose itself. It's just a tool that allows you to most effectively communicate and actualize your life purpose.

Your life purpose is what you write about. 

An analogy... Your life purpose might be building birdhouses. Using a hammer is your ideal medium to accomplish it. That doesn't make the hammer itself your life purpose. It's just a tool. Who the fuck is excited about hammers? Don't focus too hard on the tool, don't start making hammers. Just use it.

Disclaimer: There are people who fetishize writing itself and make that their life purpose. See people with entire Youtube channels devoted to the writing process. Just like there are probably people whose life purpose is constructing the perfect hammer. But that doesn't sound like it's you. So don't get distracted by writing as a purpose instead of a tool. That would be the equivalent of spending hundreds of hours trying to figure out what the ideal hammer to buy is.

This is also a video that I find articulates my points above quite well: 

 

Edited June 8, 2021 by soos_mite_ah

[soos_mite_ah]

What Do You Want to be When You Grow Up? Part 2: Why I Stopped Searching for a Purpose and a Dream Career 

Ok first things first, I didn't give up on searching for my purpose or creating my dream career, I just found a lot of videos that talked about this and even though on the surface it contradicts what I'm trying to do, after watching these videos I found they actually align with my desire to find my purpose. 

In the previous post I talked about how creative people tend to get attached to outcome and I also mentioned that type A, super ambitious people can fall into that trap as well. In this post, I'll be exploring the later through a lot of videos that I found on my YouTube recommendations. I'm going to write out the main points and show my reflections on them. If you are searching for your life purpose, I think it's really valuable to watch these videos because again, even though it might seem like it's contracting your search for a purpose by the title, I think it reveals a lot of the traps that one might encounter when searching for a purpose. These are simply my key takeaways. 

Quote

4:43-5:24: "I personally think that the idea that each of us are here for some specific purpose and that the price of finding that purpose would be like achieving the highest form of fulfillment would be to minimize the human experience. We're not like razors where our sole purpose is to remove hair. We're not machines or things and so I simply think that humans are far too complex for that idea. And I also think that it is limiting in the way it might make us get tunnel vision."

 I really like this because I feel that often when we talk about life purpose, we get this stage orange, success/career oriented view of purpose where our purpose revolves around what we do and produce. And while work has an element of that when it comes to purpose, I think it's good to have many different purposes in different areas of your life that align with what you value and resonate with. It also goes along with putting all of your eggs in one basket and having one thing rule your life which doesn't give you a rich multifaceted experience of life in my opinion, nor does it honor your complexity as a person or your human experience. I know the life purpose course has a whole section of figuring out your values and I honestly think that it's the most important part of the course because your values are what guides you towards your purpose or purposes. 

Quote

5:24-5:57: I think it can cause a lot of anxiety. For a lot of us, feeling like we haven't "found it" whatever that means or that we can't quite pinpoint what it is for us, can make us feel like failures or really lost. And I also think that it can be seen as this impossible task where any purpose we have in mind isn't big enough or isn't special enough compared to others. And what even is a "good enough" purpose to have in life?"

This resonated with me because a while back I was thinking about how you don't have to be special or exceptional to be deserving of love. This section also resonated with me because as I've been getting older, I have been feeling that anxiety of *oh shit I need to figure out what I'm doing in my life because or else I'm going to waste my life or worse die because I can't support myself.* I think coming from that place of anxiety and coming from a place of wanting this special or grandiose vision goes back to the whole attachment to outcome concept and that level of neuroticism from taking this whole finding your purpose thing so seriously can be counterproductive. And that's difficult to do when you keep being told that without this purpose that your life is going to be unfulfilling, a waste, or a failure. Finding your purpose is a purpose and it is my purpose for the time being and as much as my ambitious, type A side of my personality wants to come out and find my purpose as soon as possible, it can be a challenge to detach from that and focus on the journey instead of the destination of finding that purpose. 

Quote

6:00-7:45: "I started asking myself, what is the purpose of finding my life purpose? Is it supposed to be this magic spell for long lasting happiness? Is it that once that we have found we that purpose, only then will we be truly fulfilled? I don't think that is always necessarily true. How about until then? Do we just settle for unfulfillment until we find our purpose which may or may not exist? So if it's not life purpose that will bring us all of those things that we talked about, the things that most humans want and need what's going to bring it then. This is my current philosophy on this. By living a life that aligns with the things I value and believe in and doing so everyday. Instead of living my life thinking that there is one big thing that I'm supposed to discover called "purpose" which is supposedly will make everything feel right. For instance, I value learning and developing my character, so I feel like I'm living purposefully when I write, and read, and have interesting conversations with people. 

Again, this goes back to the whole values thing and taking the time to enjoy the process of finding your purpose and having your values be the compass on your journey. I think this is where our culture often goes wrong when it comes to life purpose because of it's focus on career. Because there is an emphasis on picking a career rather than the process in which you pick a career, what you actually value, and whether or not it's coming from a healthy place. Especially when Lana talks about how she feels like she's living purposefully when she is writing, reading, having conversations with people, experiencing new things, and being led by a sense of curiosity, that really resonated with me. I think whenever we ask a child what they want to be when they grow up or when we conflate life purpose with career, we miss out on the smaller things that gives us a sense of purpose. And then goes back to the whole thing about creating a rich, multifaceted life instead of putting all of your eggs in one basket. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Quote

1:45-2:45: "We all do not need to live super profound lives with this huge meaning to them that it's ok to just be average in life and just enjoy what you enjoy and just ~exist~ sometimes. Just be. Imagine 7.6 billion people on this earth all with that crushing pressure to find some sort of meaning or to be super important to everyone in the world or just people outside of their bubble. It's just not possible. And there is all this pressure from society saying we have to productive all the time. We have to be constantly be making money on everything that we enjoy. If you aren't making money from a hobby or whatever, what is the point of doing that? And society instills shame into us if we aren't making money which is so toxic." 

This goes along with the detaching from outcome piece because even if you do have a super profound life, you're still going to fade into oblivion with the test of time. It isn't the best strategy to want to make yourself significant through your life purpose. I think what's important about finding that flow state on whatever you're mastering is that that flow state puts you into that state of being. And that state of being feels natural instead of stressful because you aren't in that place of constant resistance. This also goes along with how you should unhook from money when it comes to searching for your life purpose.  Over all, a large chunk of this video is about just letting yourself exist and be so that you can take in life and the human experience. She also talks about how there is so much relativity in our experience and how life looks to every person. As a result, that there is no way to do life wrong (this is around the 5 minute mark). I just really liked that point. It goes along with the notion of how your purpose is something that you construct rather than some absolute truth. 

Quote

6:18-8:10: "Purpose and dream job tend to go hand in hand at least in our culture. That is ultimately what society teaches us that if you can find a career that gives you a purpose, or feels like it gives you a purpose in life and that encompasses your passions too and make money from it, that is living the life. And I don't think that is necessarily is true for everyone. Sometimes a job is just a job. It's to pay the bills. It's just to get food on the table. It's just a job and it's ok to work "just jobs" that you aren't super passionate about for the rest of your life and find that fulfillment elsewhere. Sometimes it happens where people have passions that they aren't passionate enough to financially gain from it and we need to start normalizing this and normalizing people not having dream jobs. Some people do not have one thing that they love to do and that they are really good at to financially gain from it. As long as you're not super miserable in whatever you're doing, it's ok to work jobs that aren't a dream job for you. Personally, I think we as a society and as a culture we identify too much with our work, our career, and our jobs. Granted we do it for a majority of our life unfortunately, we spend a lot of time doing our jobs. But it's not our entire identity and it shouldn't be a significant part of your identity in my opinion, yet it's one of the first questions people get asked like "oh what do you do?" like its one of the most interesting thing about people what this isn't usually the case. We are asked as children "what do you want to be when you grow up?"  What do you want to "be"? Not what you want to DO. No it's what you want to BE. It's like an identity and usually the answers to these questions are typically career choices, like that's the expected answer and acceptable answer from children. "

I have mixed opinions on this section. I think that it's important to have a sense of separation from your career and that it doesn't rule your life or your sense of self. There is so much more to life and who you are than what you do to support yourself. It's ok to have passions and purposes on the side that give you a sense of fulfillment but aren't the thing supporting you. I talked about in my previous post on my feelings around monetizing my passions. Again, this thing goes back to the whole unhooking from money concept. My main critique about this section is that if you're going to be spending a significant amount of your life working, it's important to have something that you care about and that you feel contributes to the world. But I do think that isolating your life purpose to your career is rather limiting to say the least. 

I also really resonated with the "what do you want to be when you grow up?" question as a kid. I remember one time when I was like 13 I was asked this question and I responded with something along the lines of "I want to be fulfilled, stable, and happy and I don't think there is any one way of achieving that." And the person asking me this question gave me the blankest expression as if I entered in data into a computer and it responded with ERROR NOT APPLICABLE as if this person, for a lack of a better way of describing it, started glitching. Then they asked me the question again and specified career choices and I said "listen, I don't know. I'm 13" to which this person responded with "you need to have some idea so you pick AP courses accordingly in high school so that you can apply to colleges and know what you're going to major in. The clock is ticking, you need to decide on a path."  And then I sat there having an existential crisis. Basically the only thing that I came up with was this scene from Daria: 

Then this video goes into a more nihilistic direction of how our existence is a blip in time and that it really isn't that meaningful, significant, or purposeful. And the way that Sarah Hankinson talks about it is not in a depressing way rather on how the fact that we were allowed to exist in this short amount of time at all is a beautiful and remarkable thing. And our purpose is to simply experience life. That's it.  This desire to have a purpose sometimes stems from the fear of death or wanting to have some type of legacy but you don't have to be important to hundreds or thousands of people to be valid. And I just really liked and resonated with that outlook. 

(there are a couple other videos I want to discuss but I'm tired lol. I'll write those posts down tomorrow) 

Edited June 8, 2021 by soos_mite_ah

[soos_mite_ah]

What Do You Want to be When You Grow Up? Part 2.2: Why I Stopped Searching for a Purpose and a Dream Career 

1:18-2:22: The Pressure from Childhood

Ok so she has timestamps on this video which makes journaling on this much easier for me lol 

Katherine talks about how growing up around San Francisco in a work centric culture that she never really questioned hustle culture and some of the unhealthy aspects of it. She mentions that there was a pressure to go to an elite 4 year university growing up and then get a prestigious brand name job and basically have your life planned out by the time you're 13 instead of letting yourself grow, explore your interests, let yourself be creative, and make memories with friends. Instead, there is this pressure of figuring out your life 5-10 years down the line which isn't healthy for children at that age. 

While I didn't grow up in the Bay Area, I did grow up in a circle of strict, and often elitist Asian parents so I do kind of get that pressure to go to an elite 4 year university and have your life planned out. I remember that at 17 my uncle asked me what I was majoring in and what the prospects of that major will be 15 years from now, how things will grow and what career path I'm going to take. And I was just sitting there like *listen my guy, I'm 17, I can't remember what life was like 15 years ago yet you expect me to figure out where I'm going to be in 15 years and how life will turn out and honestly wtf.* 

2:23-3:53: How College Pushes You Towards Industry

Here she talks about how her business major was basically like majoring in jobs and doesn't have the same academic rigor as a lot of liberal arts majors and how you aren't exposed to theory, different ways of looking at the world, and critical thinking as much as other majors. She mentions on how the practical aspects of a business degree is important but it's also important to have a balanced and ethical world view so that you have a better idea on how to do business. 

I agree with her 100%. I am majoring in management and international relations with a minor in human rights. I am getting a business degree and I'm also pursuing something that has a lot of the humanities and social sciences as well. I'm exposed to both groups of people, business majors and liberal arts majors and while educationally I get the best of both worlds, the practical knowledge of a business degree and the critical thinking skills of a liberal arts degrees, I do see these two worlds collide in conflicting ways at times. Business as a field of study is blowing up more and more in universities and I think a lot of it has to do with the way that learning is commodified as a way of getting a degree to get a job instead of learning for the sake of learning and educating yourself. Especially in the U.S. where colleges are like businesses that put people into debt, there is this notion of *you need to get a degree that is worth the money and that will pay off the debt* instead of pursuing something you're actually interested in and that makes you feel educated about the world. And with a lot of people who majored in business, I did get a vibe of being more achievement oriented rather than looking out for the broader system and empathizing with others. And even if I don't use my international relations degree of my human rights minor, I do believe that choosing to study these subjects did give me a more well rounded education. 

3:53-11:36

In this basically she talks about how once she got dropped into the corporate world she started being skeptical about what it is she was doing with her life and if corporate America is for her. Then she started talking about working to live vs living to work and how having your career as a big part of your identity can be detrimental in your sense of happiness, fulfillment, and mental health and how a lot of the happiest countries in the world have less work/labor centric cultures compared to the U.S. Then she discusses the dangers of glorifying work.

While I haven't worked a corporate job, I did find myself questioning a lot of this especially lately as I've been trying to figure out my purpose, my priorities, and how I want to live my life. Despite what this video says, I do have a dream career that I'm piecing together but I am aware that this is a piece to my fulfillment and it isn't everything. I do want to align myself with my life purpose but I also believe that there is so much more to life purpose than a career and the skills you're cultivating. I do also have a desire to go out and explore different places and their attitude towards work and career because I do believe that other places on the planet (*cough,  cough* New Zealand) has a more balanced and healthier view on this. I liked her example of the Netherlands and how when you ask people what they do they list out their hobbies and their roles in other people's lives before talking about what they do for a living because their interests and roles in the community is a better reflection of them. I found that really wholesome. 

11:36- end 

This section talks about how to cope with this situation which includes but isn't limited to setting boundaries, taking care of yourself, contemplating what would you do if all of your needs are fulfilled to actualize, and looking at the people you admire and take note what you actually admire about them. 

I don't really much to say on this but valid points and action items were made. I like the question "if capitalism wasn't a thing and all of your needs and wants were fulfilled, what would you do with your time?" I feel like this is a stage green version of the 10 million dollar question which is along the lines of "if you had 10 million dollars, what would you do with your time after you exhausted your needs and wants?" It's basically the same question but phrased in different ways. I mention this because the 10 million dollar question was one of the things that the life purpose course talked about. 

[RendHeaven]

Katherout my Queen ?

[soos_mite_ah]

Jobs That I Have Considered at Some Point or Another

So as I've been thinking about this whole life purpose thing, I have also been reflecting on different career paths I would like to take and how they align with the things discussed in the life purpose course. This is that reflection. The pros are why I considered said career and the cons are why I have doubts and worries. Also, if anyone has any suggestions based on my posts or any input about my thinking process (you know, if there is any self deception, limiting beliefs, not knowing the reality of certain careers, etc.) let me know lol. 

Human Resources

Pros: I want to make the work place a better environment to help people improve the quality of their lives. I want to push democracy in the work place, proper pay and benefits, and ensure that people's rights are protected. I care about human rights and I want to implement solutions on a systemic level by also combining it with my business degree. 

Cons: Heard a lot of horror stories on how HR doesn't actually help anyone and basically does things to cover up issues in the work place so that the company doesn't get sued. Apparently HR can be really sketchy and goes against my values. Also, eww corporate America. 

Consulting

Pros: I wanted to help companies work more efficiently and more consciously so that they treat their workers right since that also boosts their productivity as well. As with HR, I care about human rights and I want to implement solutions on a systemic level by also combining it with my business degree. I also really like giving people advice on how to do things. 

Cons: The work life balance is trash. I tried to look into it more and the whole culture around consulting especially in the big four consulting firms goes against a lot of my values. Plus even after being pushed in this direction, I struggled to even get myself to research anything about this so I think that's a sign that this doesn't resonate with me AT ALL. Also, eww corporate America. 

Blogging / Writing

Pros: It's so easy for me to get into a flow state when I write these journal entries to where I can see myself doing something this for a living. I have a good amount of discipline in this craft and am able to be pretty consistent with it. I love how I can delve into whatever topics I find interesting and go from there. I also like the idea of being self employed. 

Cons: Not sure how much money I can make this way so there is a part of me that sees this only as a hobby rather than a career. Also, I'm wary of the notion of monetizing my passions. I don't want to lose my motivation around writing since it is something that I like to do. Also, I have this fear of someone finding things out about me and then having that jeopardize my future.  Finally, I'm not sure if this is coming from a healthy place. Part of the reason why I like writing in my journal is because there is this exhibitionistic part of me that enjoys oversharing. 

YouTube

Pros: I like talking about things I'm passionate about as well as the idea of being self employed. I also wanted to talk about relevant issues socially and culturally so that people can learn and expand their awareness. 

Cons: I tried this out and realized that I hate shooting videos, I hate talking on camera, I don't even care about social media, and I hate editing videos. Basically, the only thing that I enjoyed about this process was writing the videos. I also realized that I was doing it from an unhealthy place. Part of me really wanted to get famous because of unresolved issues lol.

Therapist/Life Coach

Pros: I love dealing with people and understanding them. I've had an interest in psychology and human behavior in general since I was really little and it's something that I've been building up for a while. I also give really good advice and I'm good at reading people. I also think my interest in spirituality can thrive here more than in other careers other than maybe blogging. Also, if I do life coaching, I could be  self employed. 

Cons: There is a part of me that is afraid that I'm interested in becoming a therapist or life coach for an unhealthy reason. Me figuring people out and giving people advice has a lot of do with a trauma response that I have and I don't think it's wise for my career to double down on that. Also, as far as being a therapist goes, I'm not into getting a PhD because money. 

Becoming a Professor/ Researcher

Pros: This really embraces my value for learning and lets me fuck around and find out.  I also really enjoy writing academic papers and reading about nerdy shit. If I get to concentrate in a subject that I really like in the social sciences, I can see myself really enjoying the whole process of researching. 

Cons: I don't think I can have an impact on the world solely on theorizing. My impact statement is understanding AND improving the human condition. Working in a university would take care of the understanding part, but as far as improving goes, I can only see myself doing so much. I also think this might come from an unhealthy place because I've been in school my whole life so there is a sense of familiarity/ safety with academia instead of going into "the real world." 

 

[soos_mite_ah]

My Choices Under Capitalism 

I know that this can be a very limiting way of looking at my future but sometimes it feels like these are my options. 

1. A boring monotonous career that barely pays enough and is mostly bullshit: You don't create much value or contribute much and then you come home exhausted from the day and are too tired/depressed to do anything else in your life. You have to also act like your job is important  because or else if your employers find out you have a bs position, you can be fired and cut entirely.

Basically, you end up like this clip from Spongebob: 

This clip gave me an existential crisis as a kid. I don't feel like I need to explain much more as to why this type of life bothers me. I only have one life and if 50% of my waking hours is spent like this and the other 50% is affected by how much work emotionally worn me out, I don't know how much I will last. 

2. Careers at Large Competitive Corporations: These jobs pay good money but have a terrible work life balance where you end up working 60-80 hours a week and you're always on call and if you try to put up boundaries you'll be fired. You will get burnt out quickly and you will always be on edge because you don't take care of your physical or emotional needs. Also, the people there are super competitive and cut throat.  Think working in investment banking, consulting, or tech start ups. 

And the thing that sucks about this types of jobs is that I feel like I'm being pushed in this direction without many alternatives by family, school, etc. I constantly have to sit through horror stories or basically propaganda glamorizing certain jobs. I get why this happens because a lot of the people in my field of study is aiming for one of these types of jobs therefore those are the jobs getting talked about but for me personally, since I'm kind of an odd ball in this regard, I feel like I'm being pushed into a direction without alternatives while every ounce of my body and intuition is saying NO. 

3. The Ethical/Meaningful but Underappreciated Careers: A job that is ethical, helps people, and creates actual value in the world but is completely undervalued and you get paid peanuts. You may or may not have a work life balance but that doesn't matter because either way, you'll still be stressed because you aren't even sure if you can keep yourself alive and pay off any debt you got from school. Think being a teacher, social worker, or anything that utilizes a social science degree. And there is only so much that you can do to create an impact because you are confined by a bureaucracy that doesn't value you enough to give you the resources to do your job properly (think how the government doesn't fund schools enough and how teachers are super underpaid and have to do basically everything on their own)

 4. Becoming an Entrepreneur/ Self Employed: You will probably have to work as much as option #2 but it isn't going to be forever. You may or may not create actual value and your work may or may not be useful for humanity, that's dependent on you. Everything from your weekends, health insurance costs, or any other benefits you might get on a traditional job is on you. That can give you flexibility but it also can be taxing because you can't rely on anyone. Also, the chances of becoming successfully self employed and having that be a full time gig instead of some type of side hustle is pretty slim so the odds aren't really in your favor. This option is also really risky.

[soos_mite_ah]

So right after I posted the previous post, it showed that my journal got 18888 views. And I was like *oh cool a synchronicity! I wonder what 8888 means.*I went ahead and googled it and this is what google told me: 

Quote

 

What does the sign 8888 mean?

As long as you are living a life of balance and harmony, angel number 8888 has many positive meanings. It is typically a sign of good fortune, auspicious opportunities and abundance . It can also mean a sudden windfall, money or financial security. Often, angel number 8888 means financial abundance

 

Is this a sign from the universe trying to tell me something? You know what I don't know but this did give me some happy feelings so I'm going to take it and run with it. I don't take manifestation and these things too seriously but I try to have fun with it.

I guess that's why manifestation works for me because I'm not attached to certain things but I'm still positive 

Hmm.... things to think about