![]() ![]() So then I’d have to stay up half the night working. This would cause a little snowball of shittiness in my life. Pretty much my entire life, I woke up late. Here’s a vague picture that kind of looks like someone who is trying to find themselves but instead they got lost in their bed sheet.įor years, I hated mornings. And what most of us mean when we say we’d like to “change” ourselves is simply that we’d like to make slightly better actions and decisions. If you’re like most people, many of these actions and decisions are less than ideal. Instead, think of your life merely as a long sequence of actions and decisions. 1, 2 And when things get emotionally turbulent, we tend to do really dumb shit. That’s because when we get our identities involved-when we decide that certain behaviors or events represent our worth as a human being-things get emotionally turbulent. In The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck, I wrote about the importance of maintaining an identity that is defined by as little as possible. It’s not always about you (in fact, it rarely is) There’s no such thing as a “lovable person.” There are just people who aren’t selfish twats. Similarly, there’s no such thing as a “productive person.” There are just people who do productive things fairly often. Here’s a pro-tip: there’s no such thing as a “gym person.” There are just people who go to the gym. You’ll then become addicted to personal change the same way Eric Clapton was addicted to cocaine or Edgar Allan Poe was addicted to drinking until he passed out face-down in a ditch. But soon, that high will wear off, and you’ll need to define for yourself a new type of “change” to accomplish, and you’ll pursue that. On the flip side, if you succeed, like all drugs, you’ll get this nice high and momentarily escape your sense of yourself. And you will be less motivated to “change” or do anything else in the future. So why even try?” Because you’ve decided these arbitrary actions represent the totality of your character, you will view your failure to get off your ass and put on yoga pants as a verdict on your value as a human being. If/when you fail at something, you start thinking: “Maybe I’m kidding myself. If you fail, you’ll chastise yourself for your irredeemable laziness.Īnd that’s the problem with getting your identity involved. If you succeed (spoiler: you probably won’t), you’ll gain this blissful feeling of being a “new person,” which will last until the next time you feel crappy and want to “change” again. And that raises the emotional stakes massively. The second statement implies that to go to the gym, you must completely reinvent yourself. It’s one thing to say, “I want to start going to the gym every week.” It’s another to say, “It’s time I finally change and become the type of person who goes to the gym each week.” You throw fits and beat yourself up and blame others and decide that you are, in fact, a worthless piece of shit who has no hope in this world. And when you get your identity involved, you become really emotionally attached to imaginary things. Here’s the problem with using the word “change:” it gets your identity involved. If I wake up tomorrow and do the exact opposite of everything I do today, am I a changed person? Or am I simply the same person who decided to try something different? We don’t know what change is because we don’t know what the hell we are. If they used to lie and now they stopped lying, have they “changed”? Are they permanently and irrevocably “fixed”? Will they never lie again? And even if they don’t, will it matter? Please tell us-millions of pissed off ex-wives would like to know. When people lie around whining to their therapists and ex-wives that they’re finally going to “change” themselves, they are promising something imaginary and made up. But does my definition of “change” mean anything? Not really. If that’s the case, then change is pretty damn easy. Or I could decide that “changing myself” means not putting ketchup on my french fries. Therefore, that’s not a very useful definition of “change.” I’ll then sit around beating myself up for not being able to “change” for the rest of my life. I could decide that “changing myself” means having a billion dollars. ![]() What you decide is change or not is an imaginary line drawn in your head. Technically, you are both always changing and never changing. Did I change?īoth yes and no are correct answers, depending on how I define change. Yesterday, I hadn’t written this article. ![]() ![]() It’s something you just made up to make yourself feel good (or bad). Why can’t you change yourself? Because the whole idea of change is an arbitrary construct. Like a thirsty man in a desert chasing a mirage, or a fat man peering into an empty fridge-there’s nothing there. I know that’s not what the infomercials and self-help seminars tell you. You can’t change yourself, so don’t even try. ![]()
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