Personal Growth Sucks

Do you guys ever hate being human? It’s so damn complicated. I have on my ever-present and ever-growing to-do list to “write a blog post.” Easy enough but seeing as I’ve been up since noon and am just now getting around to writing something it’s hard not to ask myself, “What the hell is my problem?”

So I went about trying to trick myself into writing something. Opening the computer, opening WordPress, playing some music, and making myself some coffee. Still nothing. Motivation is at zero today. I busted open my journal Google Doc and wrote in that, trying to get into that “The hardest part of anything is starting!” mindset and damn it actually worked.

But why’s it so hard to write? Why do I have to go through three hours of tricking myself into writing? Being a human sucks. And doesn’t it feel like I’ve beaten this dead-horse of a topic enough over the past few years?

We listened to an Oprah podcast at work this week. I was skeptical because it’s Oprah but it was actually really good. I don’t want to get into the podcast itself because it’s a mess — a bunch of stuff about self-actualization, intentions, values, and everything about ‘living your best life’ — but it was a good mess. It all made wonderful sense and was enlightening.

My supervisor/fwiend asked me after the podcast what I thought about it. I said I needed some time to think and process it all. Luckily she took notes on it like it was a school project or something and I took a picture of the notes for future reference. My brain still feels fucked and my memory useless (I’m blaming the drinking from a month ago by the way) so a reference page with the main points was great.

My immediate thought after the podcast was, “Why is being a human so fucking complicated?” Seriously though, do we need to listen to podcasts and experts to get a grasp on how to live as happily as possible? I want to say no — life should be as easy and as natural as anything — but I’m going with a resounding ‘yes’ to that question. Being a human is complicated as fuck, maybe unnecessarily so, but complicated. Especially for people trying to actually grow and live as happily as possible.

(Another guy was there and listened to the podcast. His immediate reaction was to say, “I’m going to go eat my food” and walked away. He totally got the point of the podcast! His “I am” statement: I am hungry. His intentions? I intend to eat my food.)

We had a guy at work who didn’t seem very bright. He seemed like he lived life to his base needs; he worked to get money to pay for his shit, liked going to the race track and watching cars drive in circles and crashing into each other, and apparently loved to drink Mt. Dew and Jack Daniels. He could’ve been an alcoholic but he didn’t seem too worried if he was. He lived his life and didn’t get a shit about anything I seemingly worry about constantly.

He’s dumb as a rock but I have the suspicion that he’s probably one of the happier people I’ve came across. He never seemed overly happy, but he never seemed overly miserable either. Hell, his wife passed away a year or two ago and he seemed upset for a few weeks at most. I’m not trying to trivialize how other people cope with loss, but it didn’t seem to bother him outwardly. And six months later he had a girlfriend and seemed as happy as he’s ever been, once again not outwardly happy but living life like it wasn’t hard or challenging at all. He exists day to day and that’s just what he does, seemingly without deeper thought to anything going on around him.

I’m conflicted here because, well, what is the point of all of this? I mean life by the way. If it’s to be happy and content with the day to day humdrum of it all, this guy probably has it made. Dumb as a rock, but content and happy with his Jack and Dews and his new girlfriend. Something smart and wise about The Allegory of the Cave here to illustrate my point. How important is ignorance to being happy?

And what in the hell am I doing? I’m writing a big rambly blog post about happiness, ignorance, and wondering what the hell the point of it all is. Who’s really the flawed human being here: me or the dipshit from work? I’m always bothered by everything, wondering about everything, trying to discover the deep secrets of existence, trying to be my best self — as enlightened as Buddha himself, stressing out about how my life is always running out of time and trying to do something important with the rest of my time. Objectively my life is pretty damn good but I can’t help thinking there is more I could be doing and I’m not living up to my protentional or something.

Maybe we’re just two different people: he’s living his best life because he doesn’t give a shit about anything ‘deeper’ whereas myself is fixated on ‘deeper meaning’ so I’m continually needing to gain new information and insights for how to live my life. Maybe it all makes sense given who we are as people. I still think it’s bullshit that life — or maybe my life — apparently requires me to listen to podcasts and go to a therapist and make lists of values and intentions to feel like I’m making personal progress, but I can’t help but feel like I am making progress and maybe this path is the path I gotta take. Sure it’s painfully slow progress but it’s progress none-the-less.

(I did some Googling and came across this Reddit post from someone who gave some good criticisms to the whole “self-development trap” as he calls it. It’s interesting to see the counterpoint, the idea that you will be you no matter what you do. I’d still like to disagree but oh well.)

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