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Chasing societal definitions of success—like career achievements and external validation—often leads to a sense of emptiness and constant questioning of one's choices.
The impact of societal pressures to achieve, the importance of self-reflection, and the danger of defining oneself solely through the perceptions of others.
The need for ongoing personal growth and the reassessment of one's beliefs and self-perceptions.
Embrace a beginner's mindset to continuously update your beliefs to align with one's true self.
Ultimately, the power to define oneself rests within, not with external factors or others' perceptions.
Welcome to the 3rd iteration of this page of thoughts.
I am not sure why or when or how I got the idea to do one of these things.
But I keep coming back here, thinking I have something to say…
So, "What’s been on your mind Keaton?" you say.
Catch us up.
Give us the goods.
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Well…
I have settled down.
I have been trying to "make it" - a career, a "life", a community.
I have been trying to make a new Keaton - And that was where trouble came knocking.
Trying to “Find” Myself
I was chasing my tail. That is what I was doing, chasing my tail, never stopping to smell the flowers.
Society tells us we have to, be that, be this, be better and that money can get you there.
For the sake of this post, lets imagine you are already there wherever that may be for you:
move well, digest well, abundance of income, happy family, friends want you, coworkers desire you, cute humans adore you,
whatever “making it” means to you.
Lets say you’re there that you’ve “made it”.
So you’re there.
You are 30,
now what?
Do you sit and enjoy it?
There is a reason why so many top (individual) athletes fall into a depression after they catch the title they have been chasing all their lives.
“A higher proportion of individual sport athletes reported anxiety or depression than team sport athletes (13% vs. 7%, p < 0.01). Individual sport athletes were more likely than athletes in team sports to play their sports for goal-oriented reasons, as opposed to for fun”
I am no different, at some point I bought into the idea of chasing moving goals, which did in fact get me far, some might even say successful. I managed to start a Career and that should be a huge accomplishment right?
But my target kept moving..
And I kept going- empty of any real feeling of accomplishment.
In Pursuit of Happiness.
I have to find the best.
I would keep drifting away from the path I was on, hoping to find something different.
Again and again I would return back to where I was, as if the joke was that I was already where I needed to be, and I knew it too, but something itched inside me saying what if.
What if there is a cool waterfall over there, what if we miss something, what if there’s a “better view"?
This left me split in many different pieces, I could never settle into one thing. The what if was just too strong.
I look back on many of these moments and they appear to me like forks in the road, stuck with two decisions, you always have to choose don’t you?
That "what if" can be fueled by many things.
Mine was fueled by old beliefs
they came from my parents
they came from the schools I went to
they came from my friends, people I lived near
They came from many places, outside of Keaton.
It was the insatiable urge “how can I be better”. It was more than that, it was how can I be that, because that would be better than this.
How I can I be better than Keaton…
Humans are Social
The more I thought about the question “who is Keaton?” I kept coming back to the Idea that we exist through the perceptions of others.
This concept seems to be the reason ideas can sound amazing in our heads, but when we say them aloud to a friend they might sound utterly silly.
When we take too much alone time, there seems to be a great risk of spiraling into infinity, you may have experienced some of that during The Lock Down, spiraling, I sure as heck did.
It seems that we need someone to throw ourselves against. Someone to call us out on our madness, to ground us into reality.
The problem is, this wiring to define ourselves through the perceptions of others the over use of external validation can lead to a downfall.
Categories
our Mind categorizes things to make life easier, if every day we had to think “who is this person, can I trust them?” about a person we share a kitchen with we would be exhausted.
So we categorize things people and experiences to help free up space in our minds.
These categories are sometimes referred to as bias’, they help us determine how we interact with the world in hopes of achieving our desired intention.
We also use these categories to define ourselves.
How we are perceived by others creates a sort of mirror we can use to define ourselves (instead of infinity) we are able to understand our limits.
We need others to be our mirror, like checking out our hair, we need to checkout our ‘social hair’ or else we might be running around looking like (insert cultural messy hair reference) which might be fine if your going to dance at the beach, but turns into a bit of a problem when your going to interview for (most) jobs.
The problem is, judging defining ourselves completely based on how others perceive us can be our downfall as well.
what you can do
what you like
what you dislike
Who you are (most of the time).
We need to consistently check in with our beliefs to make sure they still serve us and are helping us get to where we we want to go.
Updating your System
Our self perceptions can and will change over a lifetime.
Some of them we cling too like a shield, they are comfortable, they make us feel safe (Why would I take my armor off? We might go to war again).
This is why you have to constantly update who you think you are, like a Windows computer, nonstop.
Updating , as some of you know, often takes a lot bloody longer than you would like it to, with lots of stops and starts and sometimes a crash or two.
call it open minded
call it beginners mind
call it wiping the slate
call the process whatever you want,
Embracing it is simple in concept but challenging in practice.
Simple not Easy.
A Path
So the journey continues- deciding which mirrors to reflect upon myself, while constantly updating my concepts to direct me towards whom I hope to become one day.
I am shaped by my interactions with the people, places, and content I engage with. It took me a long time to really understand the weight of that statement.
Realizing the extent to which the outside world molds my self-perception…
But hey there is good news.
You decide.
Wow you made it to the end!!
Thank you for Reading
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Keaton
a great talk to expand on some of these ideas