I’ve generally been introspective. So much to a point where sometimes, I get asked if I am living in a parallel world. This is not about being consumed in thoughts. Clearly, I get into phases where I go very deeply to experientially look at my actions.
Today was once such epiphanic moment. I was able to see so vividly how much of my actions is an effort to make myself feel complete. In my understanding, the feeling of incompleteness is very central to a lot of people’s actions. I’m not going to talk for others, but, I’ve noticed that a lot of my actions are driven by a need for impact - which is the currency. For others, this might be more money, a bigger house or a bigger social circle.
I’m realizing that as we perform actions without fully understanding our underlying motivations, we end up steering ourselves towards a lot of things which are not core to our underlying motivations. Now, I tend to think of this as “purpose”. The problem with trying to figure out the “purpose” without understanding our situation in full, ends up taking us from one purpose to the other, without making us feel complete.
For all the actions we do, at some point, we should be feeling good, complete and be able to reach a point where there’s no more desire to perform action… right ? However, it doesn’t happen for a lot of people. Why ? From my reflection, it looks like, I never acknowledge that this is the core problem that I’m dealing with. Because, I don’t acknowledge the problem in the first place, I don’t consciously share the feedback that the current process of gathering (of relationship, wealth, experiences or whatever) isn’t addressing. And so, I tend to move and try more and more approaches.
So, what’s the point of all this? Should we stop “doing” ? Clearly, No! The point for me is to understand and be conscious of my actions. Be true to myself about why am I really doing something? Are my efforts to do something driven out of an effort to complete myself or towards an externa need or an intersection ? This helps me resolve conflicts in a very different way. The conflict that I’m referring to is the inner conflict. I’ve noticed that whenever I live with this awareness, I can handle things very differently. Otherwise, my solutions are only superficial.
Good luck trying being aware of your actions and going down to its root.