We've talked plenty about choosing on this blog before, but the concept of choice is broader than the Pacific and deeper than Marianas. I wish I could say that once you choose something it will all feel like the perfect fit, the starfish will align, and you'll know you've entered the Current of Destiny. As is my current experience, circumstance has yet to provide me with any sense of satiating finality. I'm slowly learning that satisfaction is a matter of who you are rather than where you are. I am presently at the beginning of a potentially lifelong career. Having taken it for granted that I would be at peace with achieving this milestone based solely on having achieved it, it's been hard to come to grips with my lack of satisfaction. Is this because I chose the wrong career? Though I often feel that way, and I would like that to be an excuse, I don't believe that's the reason.
It's really tempting to believe that satisfaction is something you can find if you look hard enough and don't make the wrong choices. I'm not sure if it is, in fact, I'm pretty sure it isn't. Don't get me wrong, I believe it is possible to be truly satisfied with your life, but my issue is whether it is accurate/pragmatic/healthy to think of satisfaction objectively as a destination or achievement. It may be like success and happiness from the perspective of Viktor Frankl in this quotation Danny showed me from the book Man's Search For Meaning:
“Don't aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run—in the long-run, I say!—success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it”
But I always run into the same problem with these "ensuing" qualities. How do I work on something that is undone by any conscious effort?
"I've conquered pride and am now humble! or at least more humble than you."
Does wanting to work on it already doom you to failure? I don't think so. I think the problem is rooted more in why we want to improve ourselves, so if we can somehow go about it in way that is less competitive, selfish, or boastful, then we might be able to see past the mirror, and all the way to Heaven. Let's start with something practicable—
There is a concept in economics known as "satisficing" that has been shown to increase one's sense of satisfaction in the choices one makes. Satisficing is simply the mashing together of the words satisfying and sufficing. Satisficers are satisfied with what suffices. You like satisficers—they demand little of the world, are flexible and easygoing. You can feel safe around a satisficer because s/he doesn't need you to be anymore than you are. The contrast to satisficing is maximizing. Maximizers are the type of people always looking for the very best deal possible. Maybe you know some. Maybe you are one. You admire maximizers—they are ambitious, hardworking, and well-informed. But you probably don't feel very comfortable around them because they want the very best of everything and you might feel like you don't qualify. They're judgmental—They have to be in order to know what the best is so they can get it. The problem with maximizing is that there is only one "best." Not only is it quasi-impossible to achieve the best in anything, but there are so many subjective/ambiguous variables that you can never be sure you truly maximized, therefore, maximizers are seldom satisfied. Satisficers decide what they want, and when they get it, they're satisfied no matter the comparison with other options.
I just bought a car a couple weeks ago, and I had to battle the maximizer in me so I wouldn't regret such a huge purchase. So, after all my habitual, maximizing research, I tried being more satisficing by deciding on a make, model, year, price, condition, and mileage. When I found a car that fit that mold, I bought it. I still have to fight the tendency to be a maximizer ex post facto in comparing my car to others'. Maximizers are expert comparers. They're so good at comparison that all it takes is a better deal that they missed out on to ruin the value of what they have to them. Think of the danger that presents to relationships.
I was surprised at the physical sense of satisfaction I experienced as I tamed the maximizer in me. Interestingly enough, at least in the eyes of comparing maximizers, what maximizers usually end up choosing is qualitatively better than what satisficers get. Not by much, though. in most cases, choosing alone is 99 yards of the field. All your stress and extra effort of maximizing for just the last few feet only makes sense if we see life as the playing field to a goal of happiness instead of a lifelong journey of joy. The most important quality for satisfaction in a car you buy, a career you choose, a school you go to, a person you marry, or a bird in the hand, is that it's yours. Especially satisfying are the things you've chosen that have the volition to choose you back, and literally nothing can compare.
I started this thinking I would write about other things, but sometimes your heart bypasses the brain and goes straight for the fingertips. Sometimes the right choice to make is "let it be," or at least I'm going to let it be.
If you are worried about where you are, just take time to gaze at the stars, or swim in the ocean (at your own risk, of course), ponder on the immensity of the universe and the insignificance of our little world. And, though to us our world is huge, life is long and longer still. Take 3 deep breaths. Tell someone you love how much you appreciate them, and do something nice for someone you don't know. And above all:
Matthew 11:28-30
Love, Alex
