Sacrifice PT.2: What Next?

Every decision, whether trivial or life-altering, involves sacrifice. So it pays to make the right ones as we discussed last time. But, for many, there is a vast difference between the life they want, and the sacrifices they make to get it. But do you know what you ought to sacrifice? And for what?

If you don’t know, you’re not alone. A startling 67.9% of people reported experiencing an existential crisis. As of 2018, suicides have tragically risen by an alarming 25% which underscores the trend of people being despondent in their relationship with their lives.

The surge in digital distractions, fuelled by mass mainstream media and social media algorithms governing who you are and what you think, may cause you to lose sight of what’s meaningful. Coupled with explosive advances in technology it’s easy to understand why we’re undergoing a battle to save our attention spans. You can get in mere minutes what another fellow human born centuries ago would have to work months just to have a chance of having. If you’re hungry, you can get food, originating from thousands of miles away, in mere minutes. 

The patience required for the painstaking process of self-accountability is in diminishing supply.

You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink. A life devoted to cheap pleasures - be it indulging in excess drugs, alcohol, or junk food, is enough, for some. 26% of males and 12% of females drink alcohol to excessive or high-risk levels. while 27% of Britons come under the “Binge Drinker” Category. The average screen time in the UK is a retina-frying 5 hours. Within that, there will be those who need professional help, and the support of the people close to them. There’ll also be those who have soaring screen times because of work or another functional activity to get information, which, according to a study by Kings College London, 60% of people say they do. Despite that, there will be a large amount of people with an unhealthy relationship with their phone and entangled with the allure of its distraction. 39% of people, in fact, in the UK experience distress when not being able to access their phones.  A trend only likely to increase as generations emerge that have only ever known life with smartphones.

They offer sanctuary, shielding you from the harsh winds of reality. If you’ve decided to come here, then perhaps this isn’t you. 

The thing is, they’re specifically designed to be pleasurable, so that’s exactly what they are. They all make our brains release dopamine to temporarily mimic happiness and so are great candidates for a fleeting moment of escape. But the chickens always come home to roost. Obesity, substance abuse, and consequent poor mental and physical health, to varying degrees, entail. The hole dug becomes much deeper, and in many cases, inescapable.

Extensive psychological research outlines how the absence of meaning in our lives drives us toward seeking refuge in these insidious pleasures. In 1985, Richard Ryan and Edward Deci devised the Self-Determination theory. They outlined three intrinsic drivers for our motivation:

• Autonomy: The idea that you have the choice and willingly engage in your behaviour.

• Competence: You are effective in your activities.

• Relatedness: Thar you are connected with others. When these are satisfied, we feel motivated and generally healthier.

When these aren’t satisfied, you revert to the use of low-level’ pleasures as a temporary means of bridging the gap between your despondency with your present reality and a synthetic sense of mental well-being.

In the 12-step program in Alcoholics Anonymous, spirituality is inherent to the recovery process. The third step, belief in “God as we understand him” is designed to help people understand a level of meaning beyond their engagement with excessive low-level pleasure, like alcohol, and thus a greater reason to not do it, underscoring the importance of a superordinate perspective or goal in our relationship with low-level pleasures.

But determining something to get out of bed for in the morning is no easy task. The personal development space is a multibillion-dollar industry for this exact reason, after all.

For many, the virulence lies in between the consciousness of a better life, but without the knowledge of how to move towards it, it can easily lead to an inevitable resentment of your present with little scope for brightening your horizons.

On the other hand, you might know the life you want, you know your definition of what Aristotle called “The Good Life”. You might know what you want to strive towards and have an idea of the statue you want to sculpt. But there is still a gnawing sense of existential dread at the gap between your present reality, and your desired one. Psychologist Leon Festinger, the father of Cognitive Dissonance Theory, called this Discrepancy Theory. The gap between your attitudes and actions can cause a sense of distress and/or rationalisation of this gap. Think of the scenario where you want to be fit, slim, and healthy, but when it comes to going to the gym one night you might rationalise and say “I’ll go tomorrow for a bit longer than normal instead” or you say you’re too busy to go at all. These excuses are rationalisations that are the bricks of the wall built between your desired outcome and present reality. The outcome you want is sacrificed in favour of your short-term wants. Not making the necessary sacrifices and sacrificing the required actions instead.

Formulating a value system that is worth sacrificing the immediacy of cheap pleasures for starts with awareness. As renowned Psychologist Abraham Maslow said:

“What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself”.

Self-awareness is the soil from which self-growth sprouts. It houses the knowledge gained from experience.

A book that ignited my journey into this was A Life of One’s Own by Psychologist Joanna Field. Written in the 1930s under the pseudonym Marion Milner, Dr. Field commits to observing herself indefinitely with unforgiving objectivity. She analyses her thoughts and feelings and how they relate to outside events. Even if it’s just watching her emotions unfold as she speaks to a male colleague that she’s not 100% sure she’s attracted to. Over time, she slowly develops a deeper understanding of the association between her internal and external reality, and her insights become significantly more profound. She slowly uncovers the idea that her persistent mental; wrestling was preventing her from seeing the meaning that was staring at her all along - being present and alive in that moment. A quote that particularly stuck with me was “I used to wonder what life was for, no being alive seems sufficient reason”. 

It was Field’s detachment and ruthless objectivity of her self-observation that captivated me. The calm sobriety of her self-analysis and her ability to be excruciatingly honest with herself in the process was extraordinary. From engaging in a seemingly punitive activity as writing in a journal, compounding over several years, Doctor Field emerged as an assured person with a much deeper understanding of who she was and her place in the world, achieved through her journaling broadening her perspective.

Imagine you are on a plane and you look out of your window and see an enormous traffic jam. A thin red stream of brake lights cut across the ground. And, in the middle of this long red stream, you see a fallen tree, you would know that the tree was causing the traffic jam. Yet, if you were in your car in a traffic jam, you would be oblivious to this.

Perspective reveals truth. Observing yourself in the third person, without getting too self-entangled, reveals a clearer perspective on your thoughts. At least for a moment. It allows for a clearer, more truthful self-observation.

In a 2004 study by Wilson and Dunn, the participants improved their self-awareness after undertaking introspective activities. In Dracula, Mina Haker, the object of the count’s lust says, “Journaling is like whispering to oneself and listening at the same time." 

Keeping a daily journal is a foolproof way to understand your thoughts. It trains you to observe the day more, be more present, to pick up material to write about. It habitualises and routinises the practice of self-awareness.

Self-awareness paves the path to self-knowledge. It helps you know what is worth sacrificing, and what’s not. Without self-awareness, you are ignorant of the lessons that steer you in the right direction. Self-awareness reduces the potency of your self-delusion. It gives you greater conviction in sacrificing the less important things.

Try this: When brushing your teeth, take a second to acknowledge “I am brushing my teeth”. It will surprise you how many times you have mindlessly brushed away.

This isn’t like jumpstarting a car, however. You don’t just do it to get yourself off the ground and you’re away. Far from it. Brushing your teeth sustains dental hygiene, but in doing so it creates a fresh and rejuvenating feel after brushing. Cultivating self-awareness and journaling reinforces sustained mental hygiene, and it rejuvenates you in the process.

A life of your own is no stationary destination you think yourself to. Albert Einstein said, "The only source of knowledge is experience.” You may (or may not know) that in one day during the Battle of the Somme, in 1916, over 67,000 men were brutally massacred. We have rough estimates of casualties and first-hand accounts of the survivors. We even have grainy black-and-white footage of the soldiers marching, looking perplexed. We have extensive “knowledge” about it. But, we weren’t there, only they experienced it. They endured it. Only the survivors of that bloody day knew what that dreadful experience was like. Action is the currency of knowledge.

Knowing what you want comes from action, from taking the first steps. Most people don’t have the luxury of knowing where they are headed before they put the first foot in front of the other. This part was a challenge for me. Putting that foot forward without an idea as to where I would go. Having a vague idea of where I would like to be, but no knowledge of how to get there. 

One book that helped me in discovering this was “Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life” by Hector Garcia and Francesc Miralles. 

This introduced me to the Japanese concept of Ikigai. Ikigai (translated as “reason for being”) is a Japanese way of finding and living in alignment with your life’s purpose. Ikigai is a holistic way of approaching life, and Garcia and Miralles outline how you can use it to decipher a professional vocation. 

There are four discovery questions to find this: 

•    What are you good at? 

•    What does the world need? 

•    What do you enjoy? 

•    What can pay you? 

There are 2 million people that play football in England at least twice a month. They must all enjoy it otherwise they would not play it. The world needs, or at least demands football. Yet, of that two million, only 5,368 are professional footballers, equating to around 0.27%. Someone in the 99.73%, sacrificing friendships and relationships for football would not be wise. 

However, there may be elements of playing football that they particularly love, and can apply to fulfil their Ikigai. They may be a fierce competitor and love the thrill of competition when playing football. They may be pretty good at driving themselves and the team to victory. These skills are essential in business/entrepreneurship, for example, which might be closer to the mark of Ikigai than being a professional footballer.

Having said that, it’s important to consider the limitations of the concept of Ikigai. There are things in life you are not paid for because they don’t have a price. You don’t get paid for being a parent, a husband, or a wife. You aren’t paid for taking a walk in nature and losing yourself in the embers of a saffron sunset. As Dr. Field outlined earlier, being aware of your existence and the beauty of the present moment. A beautiful sunset doesn’t fall under any of the tenets of Ikigai, yet makes you feel fulfilled. Ikigai is best utilised as a framework for you to decipher where to propel your life, and to what cause. 

There is a saying that if you ask stupid questions, you get stupid answers. So, the opposite must be true. If you ask thoughtful questions, the answers might well be what you are looking for. 

It certainly does not happen overnight. Everybody falls victim to distraction. After all, as we discussed earlier, there are plenty of them. Sipping from the enticing cup of distraction and drowning in it are two different things, however. In other words, if you are aware of being distracted, at least you know you have something you’re distracted from. Something inherently meaningful to you. As opposed to blindly swimming in the sea of basic pleasures where you merely drift through life. And it all stems from self-awareness. As the Ancient Greeks would say, know thyself.