deciding what matters
We're surrounded daily by an unnerving array of choices. Sometimes choice is empowering. Sometimes choice is paralyzing. Choice creates opportunity, mobility, freedom. It also creates room for doubt, for fear, for regret.
Commitment, on the other hand, has compounding gains, an internal network effect of new learnings and new connections.
I crave commitment, but I also want it to be easy, to be passionate.
Passion implies that you are compelled by a type of magnetism that is out of your control. That committing to it is easy because it was what you were created to do. I want to be so blindingly passionate about something that any other possibility pales in comparison.
People spend their entire lives searching for passion, throwing away things that would’ve been "good enough" for the possibility of colliding with the one thing that would unlock everything. It's a beautiful idea. I think it's why people crave optionality so much.
But what if I never find my true passion?
But what if that passion doesn't exist?
Honestly, I don't think we were meant to explore endlessly. It was only afforded to us by globalization and the internet (see: social networks, dating apps, job boards, etc.). Frankly, most aspects of our lives would be much simpler if we had fewer choices.
That isn't to say, however, that commitment is alternatively easy. It's actually quite uncomfortable. It requires constantly showing up and often a dissolution of self. But alongside the discomfort, comes growth.
From Andrew Miller, "while growth realizes, it narrows. Plural possibilities simmer down." Even though we close the doors to the unlived lives we could have had, we value the one we have that much more.
I also don't think it's fair to expect people to be committed to everything in their lives. It's uncomfortable, exhausting, unsustainable even.
I'm finally beginning to finally explore some kind of middle ground for myself. How do I commit to the things that matter? And let go of everything else.
Knowing which things matter to me, I think, requires a self-awareness that I'm not sure that I have yet. I fear that self-awareness actually can't exist without the exploration, the choices, the fear, the regret.
And so the cycle begins. Like the seasons, my views on what to tether myself to and free myself from never cease to move and change.
All I can do is hope that when tomorrow comes, I will know more than what I know today.
This post made me feel a lot of things.
“I fear that self-awareness actually can't exist without the exploration, the choices, the fear, the regret.”
I share this fear, and it sucks. How can you know that what you have is good when you don’t know what else there is. How can you be fine with where you are when you have never left your place. How can you be fine with *when* you are when the only chance you can know that is through hindsight. It sucks because exploration and regret are like cycles that you experience as you make new choices and lament new mistakes, whether it be jobs, relationships, friendships, places to live, etc. As much as globalization and the democratization of many human rights and needs (as you pointed out) has helped us, it’s also a constant reminder that the search is never over, it could always be “better”. When you wonder how, you are faced with the trivial proof that is the statistics of the situation.
“Even though we close the doors to the unlived lives we could have had, we value the one we have that much more.”
I wish it was always like this. Really, with every ounce of my being I do. I almost feel like this is how humans were designed: monotonously increasing amounts of commitment as we live life and find out what we want and narrow in on it. But I equally feel like stuff like this only happens when it is given the chance. Only if you have the freedom to explore beyond the shackles of your own bubble or own home will you be able to realise growth in this way. I feel more and more like growth is such a difficult word to describe my life with. On the outside I feel like you can apply it but I feel like inside it’s just a bunch of perlin noise. The terror that is being in your 20s is like nothing media has ever been able to capture, and I feel like at the rate I’m going at, it’s only going to stay just as chaotic as it is now. Not trying to exude sadness about this but I feel like it’s just the reality of being human that you can just change at random, feel like you have been attaining what you’ve wanted all along, and then feel like switching everything.
The unfortunate part is when you have people along for the ride with you. You want to compose a cohesive narrative that they can understand. You want to respect people’s time and needs. You want to know what you want so you can communicate effectively. You also just want to feel and appear confident in yourself and like you are in control of your life. But it’s hard when it’s just a façade to shield people from the constant shifting tides inside you. You wonder how there are people out there that know themselves so well and know what is and is not attainable so well that they never seem to have these vicissitudes and just do exactly as they do.
I feel like if you were really ruthless you could reduce life down to very few choices by just refusing everything that falls below your threshold of *perfect*. It’s definitely one way that I coped with the huge volume of choices I had to make in my life. But even then, I still look back and feel incredibly regretful. When you form your threshold too unreasonably, you can wind up with the opposite of too many choices: none whatsoever. And then at that point, you’ve created regrets that seem even worse than whatever regrets you *could* have formed by erring in the opposite direction. At least in that case you would have learned through experience, instead of learning through expense.
Ultimately, these are all the pains of network effects: trying to find your place in a shifting sea of people, places, vocations, things to care about. I often wish I could somehow create all these things myself, and spare myself the pain of searching (as you said) up to my entire life for meaning. But life is like a huge hidden information game, how could you know anything about it until you try?
"Honestly, I don't think we, as people, were meant to explore endlessly." Couldn't agree more. Our brains were "designed" to help us navigate an environment far different from the hyper-connected one we find ourselves in now. Evolution is wild. Really liked this column as a fellow 20-something trying to figure things out. Thanks for sharing!