The Sacred Discontent (ii)

Unfortunately, a more positive perception of our own discontent is far from enough. Accepting it could sometimes lead to a new stream of misconception that we’re slaves to the eternal fate of being constantly dissatisfied because we lack the ability to rival our limitations. That explains our epic failures in our attempts to reverse the situation and the huge number of people who are reluctant to make a change even at the expense of their own good. It’s simply in plain language that it’s the easy path to do nothing about it.

Compared with the burden of responsibility that follows our decisions (of why, what and how), we find the process of justifying our less favorable circumstances less time-consuming, less labor-intense and less mental-draining, which feels pretty much like a dream come true to most people. All possible means or strategies are employed to help stall or avoid decision-making, hence the decision leeches, who feel like the very few lucky dogs who just dodge a bullet in crossfire or win the jackpot against overwhelming odds—“favored by God”—and take great pleasure in it.

Further measures to secure our life of ease will be the powerful tool of motivated reasoning, giving grounds for our deferred decisions to ensure the world, essentially ourselves, see that we’re doing it right. Basically, we’ve been justifying what we’ve done for our entire life, that’s more than enough practice we need. Excuses like “That’ll do”, “There’s no other way out”, “I don’t care”, “It doesn’t matter anymore”,  “That doesn’t bother me at all”, or “There’re people suffering worse than me in the world” pop up without us searching hard for them. Some amongst us should be nominated as topnotch experts in striking the balance between means and ends by lowering our expectation to meet our reality. For instance, women who have been suffering from domestic violence but failed to report it to the juristic system because they convinced themselves (with a nice touch of comparison sometimes) that their husband was a good father to children, a good son to parents and/or a good boss to employees and arrived at a clumsy conclusion that their husband wasn’t a piece of shit (redeemable) without realizing it.

It’s not hard (or more precisely, a piece of cake) to get by as long as we’re able to turn our emotion switch off—minimizing the possibility that we feel the emotions that’ll prompt us to think differently. Such lame excuses hypnotize our sadness, sorrow, anxiety, shame, guilt, regret, and despair, deceiving our mind into believing that it’s all for the best, coz we’ll be better off without those negative energy. They win effortlessly every single time because we want them to win so bad that we don’t even realize that our judgment’s been clouded by such bias. Numbing our feelings intercepts our pathway to cognition, leaving us as a group of primitive creatures, who know no better than instant gratifications. We keep telling ourselves that “when we’re tired / bored / hurt / lost, we should play games / watch TV / go shopping / go partying / go to sleep”, like money, junk food, alcohol and drug is gonna fix the problems. But the truth is there’s something good lying beneath those emotions, a rare opportunity to trigger our metacognition in a crisis. Evading from the confrontation of our problems erases our possibility to growth.

Another force that navigates us away from the path towards precise perception and rational decision is our fear of the unknown, also goes by the name of risk aversion in cognitive psychology. Uncertainty is something we’re bound to encounter once we make up our mind to set foot in the uncharted territory, which is scary because our survival instinct and previous experience hint us that our performance rely heavily on full acknowledgement and good preparation. It’s natural to feel this intuitive dread of unpredictability and steer clear of it so that we won’t get hurt (physically and psychologically). Even though we are aware of the existence and side effect of our own defense system and want to fight it back, it wouldn’t be easy. It’s like tearing ourselves apart. On the contrary, it’s much easier to accept our life as it already is, though not favorable, it’s clearly more preferable. Those mischief being part of our reality means that the pain that we’re suffering from right now is measurable and tolerable, meaning it’s not so horrible. (Name a few things in our deepest fear: ghosts, monsters, zombies and aliens, they’re terrifying because they’re beyond measurement; or worms, spiders, clowns and water that are unbearable to someone.)

However, it all comes down to this one particular reason: our malfunctioning cognition. As a result, we fail to tell the differences between what our want and what we get. Knowing what we can get from what we want is crucial.  A typical case is that most of us described what we want as “earning a lot of money”, “traveling around the world”, or “being famous”. All sounds tempting, but doesn’t work out that well (we need dreamers, but not in a large quantity). Let’s face it, we’ll probably never be able to make as much money as those on the Forbes list, or live a lavish lifestyle like those celebrities, or take over the mass media and steal attention from both the cameras and the crowds—we might as well go with the flow and withdraw to our self-pity. Those remarks are mere imitations of others’ viewpoints or misinterpreted features of elites. What escapes our eye is the detection of what we truly want, not material possession or satisfaction but the control over life that might come from our intelligence, capability, resources, confidence, and personal charisma. Another common mistake is that we (being overweight or not) make up plans to lose weight without rapping our heads around it first. We keep failing from time to time not because fat is invincible or food is irresistible but because there’s probably nothing wrong about our figure. Getting a few pounds off doesn’t change the fact that we are still not feeling very confident about our body. Maybe a more effective way to address the problem is to learn to appreciate ourselves and improve ourselves. 

But easier is not necessarily better, sometimes we have to man up and take the difficult path. To  fight our overprotective defense mechanism, to seek for our identity, to embrace what we have, to confront our fear, and equally important, to alter our misconceptions and change our cognitive pattern by learning more about them. If no idea where we should start with, try reversing the causal relationship we assign to our life first. Like “Whenever I feel bored, I’ll read a book (instead of watching TV)”, “If I’m tired of my work, I’ll go out and exercise (instead of staying in and playing computer games)”. Say it out loud when we run into situations like that and do as instructed (rewards are encouraged as reinforcement). Surprise awaits.