I read the article by psychologist Cong Feicong at the time I am lost and still walking, which is how life like. I was a super ambitious girl but after school I found I am so desired for the result and have no time to love myself and others. This article touched my heart. I made the summary here, hope it is useful to you as well.
1. The source of the emptiness
Enjoyment is a strange thing to many people.
Many people will choose to endure hardships to escape, feeling that they can not enjoy life, but suffer heavily. They will choose to let themselves go through a lot of difficulties, keep themselves very busy, on the one hand feeling the pain of life, and on the other hand, continue this pain. In fact, busy and bitter also have a certain meaning, its function is to let people keep working, so as not to have time to worry about gains and losses.
Once the hard-working people stop suffering and the busy people stop being busy, they will have to face the lost self and the sense of meaninglessness in their hearts, and then experience the loneliness and nothingness of life.
This is exactly what I am feeling right now as I seem to not have the object as I can not see the result. I believe this is the effect of transformation in the Longtermism, which is actually a good thing.
Loneliness has nothing to do with the outside.
Some people are confused and think that they can’t love life or love others, so they blame themselves and feel that they are “incapable of love” and have no interest in anything. In fact, this is when you need to feel sorry for yourself: it shows that you are not connected with the outside world, your world is only yourself.
Of course, you won’t be disconnected from the world all the time, and you won’t be connected all the time. So people are sometimes lonely, sometimes happy. Loneliness itself is inevitable, but we can think about how to reduce it when we are lonely.
2. Fear keeps people busy dealing with it
When we do things, we tend to have two driving forces: love and fear. Love is when we want to do something because we like it inside. The fear is that we have to do it, or else we might get screwed. It’s the same when we’re near someone. Some people want to be close to a person because of love, and experience satisfaction in the process of being close. Others are forced to approach a person out of fear, often because it is the duty, the right, the right thing to do.
People who are driven by fear are afraid to put their own feelings first, that is, to put themselves first. Such people are afraid to focus on their own feelings and live for joy and happiness.
And the reason why a person can’t enjoy life is that his basic needs are not met. His subconscious mind was busy checking: “Am I safe? Am I free? Can I do it well?“
Like watching a movie. Do you like watching movies? If you like it and want to see it, you will have a sense of security, freedom, and worth to do it. If it’s not safe, if it’s going to blow up at any moment, if somebody suddenly slaps you, you’re not going to be able to watch the movie, because your sense of security is lost.
If you have an “if I have free time, I can’t waste time” belief, you may feel that watching a movie is a waste of time, and you can’t enjoy it because your freedom has been lost.
If you think the movie is too deep, you won’t want to go to the movie, you won’t want to put in the effort to understand it, you won’t be more frustrated, so you won’t enjoy the movie, because your sense of worth has already been lost.
Only when you feel secure, free, and worthwhile are you likely to enjoy the movie and experience meaning.
A state that is busy satisfying a sense of security, freedom, and value is called existence, while a state that pursues a sense of meaning is called life. When your bottom needs are satisfied, you can move from the state of existence to the state of life, you can enjoy meaning, you have other people in your eyes, and your attention is no longer all about yourself. At this point, you have the ability to love.
Therefore, the deep cause of loneliness is not daring to be yourself, dare not follow their feelings to live, only to survive and have to compromise themselves.
3. Love is the result of self fullness
Enjoyment must be based on the satisfaction of the first three, you are willing to revel in it, and you can experience a sense of meaning.
Love only happens when one’s bottom needs are met. That is to say, when a person loves, he must first have a sense of security, freedom, and worth.
A person with a lack of security is focused on himself, thinking about how to protect himself, and how to reassure himself. With one body and mind, without self-compulsion, one has the freedom and energy to see the outside world. A person lacking freedom can only use reason to get along with others, and with reason can not feel the anger of others.
So love is something that people who are full of themselves are qualified to do. When a person has a sense of security, freedom, and value at a certain moment, he has the possibility to love others. People who lack ego just want to be loved, just want to be loved. Love needs energy. People who are full of themselves have extra love to give to others. People who are short of themselves only want to extract energy from others.
The reason why a person can’t find what he is interested in is because his attention has never been on “what I like”, he can’t find out what his heart is interested in. His daily focus was on “how to get security, how to get income, how to do well, how to get recognition”.
As long as you’re worrying about the future, worrying about money, worrying about security, worrying about what other people think of you, you won’t have the energy to find and value what you love.
Reference: One
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