Who’s In Control?
You? Or your desires?
Our desires are subtle and unannounced, but they can drag us through life and make us miserable.
Naval Ravikant describes desire as, “a contract that you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want.”
So much of our anxiety stems from wanting something we’re making no effort towards achieving. We want a six pack, but we had donuts for breakfast. We want to be a writer, but we don’t write. We want to travel, but we don’t save the money or plan the trip.
“When I see an anxious person, I ask myself, what do they want? For if a person wasn’t wanting something outside of their own control, why would they be stricken by anxiety?” – Epictetus
We have the things we want. And then we have the world we’re living in. Our actual lives, that are rooted in reality.
Our desires are running into this reality. The reality of our genetics, our actions and our environments.
We have to break our desires into two categories, ones within our control and those outside of our control. Then we have to decide which of these we’re willing to work for.
This is how we take control. This is how we’re not dragged through life by our desires.
What Are You Aiming At?
Know what you’re trying to achieve. If you don’t know where you’re aiming, you’re going to miss.
You probably can’t lose twenty pounds, raise a family, write a book and launch a million-dollar company simultaneously. But you could likely accomplish each of these individually.
It’s easy to picture what we want down the road – the career, the spouse and the body – it’s harder to make a plan and pursue them one at a time. We get stuck in the rut of desiring it all and running into the reality of not having a plan for achieving any of it.
Pick one thing, start making progress towards it and then add the next. Ride the good momentum from making progress on one goal into the next.
In, Perennial Seller, Ryan Holiday succinctly identifies a problem we need to be aware of. Our, “inherently human tendency to pursue a strategy aimed at accomplishing one goal while simultaneously expecting to achieve other goals entirely unrelated.”
Be vigilant against this. So that when you inevitably catch yourself desiring something you’re not working towards, you realize it.
Submit To Reality
Submitting to reality is the willingness to see the world as it is. Not getting lost in the way you desire it to be.
This is not the same as being pushed around by the world. It’s the ability to narrow your focus on what you can control and accept what you can’t.
The anxiety that arises from your desires colliding with reality is a sign. It’s the opportunity for a choice. Decide what you can control about making your desires a reality and then decide if you’re willing to take those actions. If you’re not, let it go.
When you catch yourself feeling anxious, ask, “Where am I not surrendering?”
Submitting to reality, seeing the world as it is, is the basis for being able to change it.
Not in some type of transcending and uniting the world kind of way. Changing your world. The quality of your thoughts, your day, your body. That’s the one that matters. Because if it’s a mess, you’re not going to have an impact on much else.