Temporary gratification
I read an article this morning by Kovie Biakalo on "chasing temporary highs".
she started by pointing out how everything in life is temporary, even though some events (negative ones specifically) tend to seem extremely permanent. How rejection, grief, heartbreak, and risks look so lengthy as compared to the more positive things in life. And how at the end of the day everything is just a transient event. How our short-term self and our long-term self require different attention spans, or one might get lost in the crowd. Then she talked about her relationship with running; how it affected her life positively, yet it had provided an escape route for comfort and satisfaction when other things in her go awry..
How she realizes now that sometimes its important not to run away from the important negatives in our lives.
The last part of her articles was so beautiful, so I will quote it here as it was:
"The problem with chasing temporary highs is that they trick you, and in a deceitful way. They trick you into thinking you must escape the negative important temporary moments for positive unimportant ones. They trick you into thinking that your short-term self is the only one that matters. They trick you into escaping short-term pains that you must confront, and that could eventually lead to long-term pleasure; but instead you choose short-term pleasure for a much more lasting long-term pain. The problem with chasing temporary highs is that there is always a temporary high to chase.
Food, alcohol, drugs, sex, (running), and just about anything can be used as a temporary high, negatively. But perhaps worst of all, we can use people too – and we often do. Other people become the medication we take, the “fix” we need, the high we desperately crave to cure whatever pains, and achieve whatever pleasures we desire. And yet, in the deep dark corner of our souls – the place we don’t like to go to often or talk about very much, we know that this chase won’t bring us the joy we really want.
I guess in the end it is a balancing act. Maybe not all temporary highs are bad. Maybe it’s about knowing which to chase, and which to let run past you. Maybe sometimes you have to forget about the more temporary things, and be okay with the less temporary. But there’s also something to be said about obedience to the things you really want in your life, and sometimes the more temporary highs get in the way of those. It can be hard to know though – that whole hindsight thing.
But if you ever find yourself continuously chasing temporary highs – slow down, and maybe even stop. You don’t have to stop running entirely. But you might have to get on a longer, much more difficult path – one where the race isn’t quite so familiar, and the journey is much longer. You might even need to create the path yourself. And if you ever get scared, remember: It’s all temporary anyway."
There have been multiple mental shifts throughout the last five years of my life. I have spent so much time thinking about my self-consciousness, attention span, people's behavioral patterns around me, social and intellectual personality, level of confidence, public presentation, lack of love life, productivity, impatience, aversion to criticism, mastery of the art of self-torture, and the list goes on and on.
I wonder what induced all of these thoughts. I wonder which was a temporary escape route from the important yet repulsive aspects of my life that I wished not to confront. I wonder what are the real things and what are the fixes that I create for myself. I realize one major fix I had in the last few months, and I am aware that the primary reason for letting it go was my insistence that something was amiss. It's truly difficult to separate those temporary highs from those that matter on the long term when the habit has taken place for so long in our lives. There is the addiction to certain behaviors and there is also the fear that letting go might not fix any problem on the long run, so why bother.
At this stage of my life, I am aware that the above topics are an essential part of growing up, yet they could be a huge distraction.. now I am aware they could also be a temporary fix that I run to when I am confronted by long to-do lists, writing up a gigantic thesis, wrapping up a big project, and thinking in terms of reality and the boring practical aspects of life such as graduating and getting a job.
So, what am I going to do?
she started by pointing out how everything in life is temporary, even though some events (negative ones specifically) tend to seem extremely permanent. How rejection, grief, heartbreak, and risks look so lengthy as compared to the more positive things in life. And how at the end of the day everything is just a transient event. How our short-term self and our long-term self require different attention spans, or one might get lost in the crowd. Then she talked about her relationship with running; how it affected her life positively, yet it had provided an escape route for comfort and satisfaction when other things in her go awry..
How she realizes now that sometimes its important not to run away from the important negatives in our lives.
The last part of her articles was so beautiful, so I will quote it here as it was:
"The problem with chasing temporary highs is that they trick you, and in a deceitful way. They trick you into thinking you must escape the negative important temporary moments for positive unimportant ones. They trick you into thinking that your short-term self is the only one that matters. They trick you into escaping short-term pains that you must confront, and that could eventually lead to long-term pleasure; but instead you choose short-term pleasure for a much more lasting long-term pain. The problem with chasing temporary highs is that there is always a temporary high to chase.
Food, alcohol, drugs, sex, (running), and just about anything can be used as a temporary high, negatively. But perhaps worst of all, we can use people too – and we often do. Other people become the medication we take, the “fix” we need, the high we desperately crave to cure whatever pains, and achieve whatever pleasures we desire. And yet, in the deep dark corner of our souls – the place we don’t like to go to often or talk about very much, we know that this chase won’t bring us the joy we really want.
I guess in the end it is a balancing act. Maybe not all temporary highs are bad. Maybe it’s about knowing which to chase, and which to let run past you. Maybe sometimes you have to forget about the more temporary things, and be okay with the less temporary. But there’s also something to be said about obedience to the things you really want in your life, and sometimes the more temporary highs get in the way of those. It can be hard to know though – that whole hindsight thing.
But if you ever find yourself continuously chasing temporary highs – slow down, and maybe even stop. You don’t have to stop running entirely. But you might have to get on a longer, much more difficult path – one where the race isn’t quite so familiar, and the journey is much longer. You might even need to create the path yourself. And if you ever get scared, remember: It’s all temporary anyway."
There have been multiple mental shifts throughout the last five years of my life. I have spent so much time thinking about my self-consciousness, attention span, people's behavioral patterns around me, social and intellectual personality, level of confidence, public presentation, lack of love life, productivity, impatience, aversion to criticism, mastery of the art of self-torture, and the list goes on and on.
I wonder what induced all of these thoughts. I wonder which was a temporary escape route from the important yet repulsive aspects of my life that I wished not to confront. I wonder what are the real things and what are the fixes that I create for myself. I realize one major fix I had in the last few months, and I am aware that the primary reason for letting it go was my insistence that something was amiss. It's truly difficult to separate those temporary highs from those that matter on the long term when the habit has taken place for so long in our lives. There is the addiction to certain behaviors and there is also the fear that letting go might not fix any problem on the long run, so why bother.
At this stage of my life, I am aware that the above topics are an essential part of growing up, yet they could be a huge distraction.. now I am aware they could also be a temporary fix that I run to when I am confronted by long to-do lists, writing up a gigantic thesis, wrapping up a big project, and thinking in terms of reality and the boring practical aspects of life such as graduating and getting a job.
So, what am I going to do?
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