If there’s one thing your mind is fantastic at, it’s making you miserable. Even if you’re the luckiest prick in the world.
You may have a good job, but don’t worry: your mind can convince you that it sucks.
You may have a good girlfriend, but don’t fret: your mind will tell you that you should keep looking.
You may live in a wonderful place, but don’t bother: your mind can persuade you to move.
Your mind hates you. But since you can’t become ignorant or stop thinking, get this:
There IS such a thing as over-ambition.
Don’t confuse unhappiness with restlessness.
There’s a big difference between hating what you do while doing it and hating it before and after.
That’s your back stabbing mind talking.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
For sure, Carlos. I think that’s one of our mind’s biggest jobs: to convince us that we don’t have enough. It’s an ancient and brutal survival mechanism. It keeps us alive at the cost of our happiness.
So we have to disagree with our minds sometimes.
Carlos: This is one of my favorite posts, possibly because I can so relate to it. If I could describe myself simply it would be an over-analytical dreamer. Really. I wonder and I worry and I listen to both my mind and my heart. But sometimes the mind sneaks in and convinces me of what the heart is otherwise saying. The mind can really be a trickster.
For instance: My heart says that I could be happy where I am — I have family and friends around me and it’s everything I really want in a town. My mind, however, says that it could be better, that there could be something more.
While I think that this can be a positive thing — wanting something better for ourselves, wanting to change — I think that there’s something to be said for what we have as well. And you’re right, there is such a thing as over-ambition when it gets in the way of present happiness.
Maybe the key isn’t to ignore what your mind is saying but to try to better understand it, question why it’s saying the things it’s saying. Like you say, “don’t confuse unhappiness with restlessness…” There’s awareness and understanding there — kind of translating what the mind is telling you.
Clearly, I’m still trying to figure this all out. Great post!
Wow, great post Carlos. So simple, so true. I’ve barely finished my first cup of coffee this morning as I sit here at work reading blogs (9when I should be checking my overflowing inbox), and something just clicked in my mind when I read this! I never stopped to think that maybe the fleeting feelings of unhappiness, or feeling lost, or like there’s always something better out there for me to be, see or do just *might* be symptoms of restlessness. I always knew I was an overamibitious free spirit (a dichotomy – kind of akin to a project manager slash hippy) – but never considered that maybe, just maybe, I might be confusing that innocent, always-searching aspect of myself and my psyche with a label as negative as “unhappiness”.
I’m old enough to know that I’m pretty set in my ways, have inherited certain psychological dispositions, and have become somewhat of a byproduct of the people I’ve chosen to surround myself with (which, like anyone’s circle of family and friends, can be both good and bad.) I am also jaded enough (after many attempts to “never lose my childlike wonder”) to know that it all is what it is, and it’s just what you make of it, and I know that I’ll never be able to stop being my overanalytical, overambitious, restless self – that’s for sure. But, at least now I can slap a different label on it, put it in a more positive light, and call it a day – and stop losing so much sleep while I try to figure out why I can’t feel 100% happy when I’m living an ideal, perfect life. I guess I’m not crazy, I’m just restless.
Thanks for the early morning lucidity.
Kerri