How prescient @markmanson
I read his newsletter today (always excellent, go sign up to it and this quote stuck with me because, earlier, I’d said to Jeff, “I’m so tired.” Then I said, “no wait. I’m actually not tired. I think I might just be relaxed.” And he says “I think you’re right [obviously] and you don’t know what it feels like to actually be relaxed.”
It’s so easy to fill the gaps with the tried and true assumptions. They’re our go to. We judge ourselves based on past actions that are no longer part of what we value and we feel better if things go wrong. We say ” I told you so.” I want to take Mark’s concept even further. We don’t just do or think something based on ego and benefit. We do and think things because that’s what we’ve always done and thought. Yet, it may no longer be true. That thing may have changed, morphed. We’ve probably changed, morphed. So we need to find a new truth about it.
I think being relaxed is such a foreign concept that I simply need to describe the feeling using something familiar (and negative, as is my style), that will remind me of how shit I think life is, when it’s actually not.
This is a long way of saying we should test ourselves often. Question if what we think is actually true. It could be something external, like thinking that dipping fresh brioche rolls into icy lemon granita sounds gross (wet bread, anyone?). Or it could be something about ourselves, our friends, family. Am I actually afraid of flying, or is it a story I’ve told myself forever? I’m lazy and unmotivated. But is that actually true? Prove it.*
*Answer, it’s probably not true if you’re reading this, especially if you’ve read this far.