Now we are fully going backwards, in order to change we need to resolve conflicts, but now we need to create conflicts to cause change? I do apologize, I really do, but as I mentioned change is hard. For change to occur in your life, in most cases you will go through pain, your life will become worse for a period of time as you create the conflicts necessary for change. This is not an enjoyable prospect and this is why we usually shirk away from change, we fall back into what is stable and known. We know how to deal with the pain of our current life, we can manage. Even if we are feeling harm, it is comfortable enough. We reach points in our life where it can become somewhat stable, it might not be all of our life, but we have things that we can rely upon, things that can bring us comfort.
As of writing this, I have a job that brings me comfort, I no longer enjoy my job, but it brings with it financial comfort, even though that has begun to fade as well. It brings me comfort in the level of effort that I need to put in. I know the job, even if I have lost the passion, even though I cannot see what change in the world we are going to make, even though I dread each Monday, even though I desire a change in my profession (I want to help people resolve conflict and change, not work on a computer), I stick with it. I still go to my job, I still push through those feelings of anxiety and depression because it brings comfort to my life. I tell myself that I can enjoy the job for what it is, that it will improve, that my job can become more than an income so that I can live life. I want what I do to mean something to me. I spend however many hours each week working, where those hours feel wasted and are just a means to be able to enjoy the non-working hours. I want to be clear as well, my work currently is not terrible, there are some qualms, but the work is interesting, all the people are good people, I do not wish anything bad on the company or any individual, but it is so far away from who I want to become that I have such a gut-wrenching conflict in my soul that has led to me becoming an awful worker, which creates plenty of other conflicts within myself, but I have not changed, I have only fallen deeper into the conflicts that reside within myself.
Will there be a breaking point? If I continue to live in the comfort of the known, then there is no doubt. I will continue to become worse and worse at my job, until I find the floor that they will tolerate and eventually I will fall below the floor and they will fire me. I feel that I am so far below the standard of who I was, that at any moment they could fire me and I would think it justified. I had a conversation with my boss about that as well, I shared how I felt about work and about my performance in less brutal terms, but with the same heart. I however, did not change at all. I talked about the conflicts, had a few better days, but eventually I fell back into the well of stability and began sinking once again deeper into it.
What then needs to happen to create change? Why must we create conflicts? It is to make that point of stability no longer have any comfort within it. That well must be filled in to create a mound of conflict into which we cannot return without continued effort. If I create a rounded pit large enough, then any outside impact on the position of myself requires no effort on my part to reach the center once again, in fact it takes effort to not be at the minima of a pit. For a mound however, it is the opposite, it will take effort to stay at the top, the local maxima when we are impacted by the world around us, any point that is not the top requires effort to return there once again. The same is true for ourselves, when we create a point of stability in our life to which we are always pulled back as soon as our effort wanes, we cannot escape, we cannot change. We need to give away the stability that resides within, fill in our own well and make it difficult to return. If we create conflict at that point of stability, it then requires effort once again, we can move that local minimum elsewhere. Make that point of stability slightly worse in some way. Make your day to day slightly more miserable.
It does not need to be large, you are seeking change, that requires effort, it requires a lot of effort, the ways in which you force yourself to build up that effort to change should require low effort. For myself, in the pursuit of my dream that is this project, at this moment, I have created an alarm that will go off every day at 8PM asking if I have written that day. Even if I do not feel like writing that day and quickly turn off the alarm, I still feel disappointed in my own self. For that brief moment, I will feel ashamed that I am not becoming the person I desire. (Shame is a different topic, this is not venerating it's use against other people, only when a person chooses it for themselves) On the opposite side, it will also let me feel that I am becoming that person when I have written during the day. The effort to set up the alarm was minimal, but it works to keep myself accountable, it makes my previous point of stability feel worse in a small way. Then it is about searching for more ways to slowly pull yourself away from that point. The end goal is to create conflicts that force you towards a new point of stability, where the effort needed to stay at that point of stability is greater than to move towards another. I will fully admit that I can be lazy, I love the path of least resistance at times, I do enjoy optimization to lower the effort I need to support my day to day, so I need to remove that, I need to modify a point in my life so that it cannot be optimal any longer for how I envision myself.
You may be asking, is there not also the possibility that it becomes too much effort and instead you turn off the alarm. You are right, I have done that many times before and there is a chance I may do it again, which is why I need this tool that I am creating, I need something that can help me to change when I fail over and over again. As easy as it was to turn on the alarm, it is just as simple to turn it off and leave it off, returning to that point of stability where I am not the person of my dreams.
Writing about it now, there is a pull inside of me to turn it off, I can feel the questions swirling inside of myself, why bother putting in that effort? Why are we choosing to annoy ourself? Isn't it just easier to exist as a faceless human going through life? You have good friends, a good family, do you really need to put yourself through this, when, in all likelihood, you will achieve nothing? No one will read this, no one will be changed by this, you will resolve no conflicts through this. You can find yourself a decent job and just go through life with minimal hardship, doesn't that sound good enough? Why cause yourself harm for a world that is already hard enough, one that promises you nothing in return? All are valid questions, all are ones I have struggled with and will continue to struggle with if not on a daily basis, regularly enough to affect my mental health.
In response to all of that though, I simply go to this vision that I have created, where I get to see Humanity and all of the individuals within it, making the positive changes in their lives that they desire, living as true to themselves as they can, where all can be honest with themselves and each other, working through conflicts and pursuing to resolve conflicts not only between one another, but with the vast unknown that surrounds us, where everyone can be enthralled with the dreams that they have, with the possibilities that exist in life and are able to pursue those with the entirety of their souls. For myself as well in that vision, to be able to share in the joy of those around me, to be able to contribute to their dreams. That is what helps me, and the voices within me that voice their valid concerns, believe that the struggle is worth it.
However, there may be a point where that is not enough, it's true, I will break, I will falter, the doubts and fears that reside within me will not calm and I will fall under their spell, I will give up hope in that vision, I will no longer believe that it can exist. I'm sure for a lot of you there is so much pain and conflict in the world today, that any of what I am saying seems hopeless, that my dream will only ever be a dream, that my belief in it is childish and delusional. That is where I can only rely on myself and where you can only rely on yourself. Believe in what you believe, regardless of anyone else. If you falter as well, you can always start again, this project will always be here for you no matter what.