Can we truly do something that is bad for us?
Sometimes we see people engaging in habits and activities that harm themselves. But even those, there are good reasons to do them. For example, letting other people put you to sleep and cut you open; that’s literally surgery. Another example, smoking. If you zoom out for just a second and really think about smoking, it’s wild; there is no way that inhaling smoke can be good for your health over a sustained period of time.
But you know what? It feels cool and looks badass. Even my wife who doesn’t smoke and never did agrees: there’s an element of visual coolness when someone’s smoking.
Can I eat spoiled food just to harm myself? There are people who eat crazy stuff for money, but can they eat that with no upsides? Even the upside of finding out what they can or can’t do? There is no way we can get us to do something that is bad for us.
So we work, sometimes really hard. We do things that are GOOD for us. Because again, why the fuck would we do something bad for us? Sometimes we do things that feel bad for us, but we acknowledge that it’s a growing pain and we take on that pain.
This is where an interesting conundrum happens: if we’re doing something good for us, then why is there a thing called burnout? Isn’t it counterintuitive? We burn ourselves up doing something that is good for us.
I happen to really enjoy playing video games. I also really like spending time with my wife and dogs. I’ve been doing the former for practically all of my life and the latter for practically all of my adult life. That doesn’t burn me out. Listening to music never burns me out, cooking never burns me out. So these are things I think are good for me and they feel good for me, and I don’t burn out from them.
I’ve been burnt out from work before. I’ve been burnt out from trying to be a good son. I’ve been burnt out from trying to be a model student on a visa in the United States. These are all things that were good for me. I worked at the best companies, I was the most filial child out of my parents’ children, I never got into legal trouble while I was on the student visa. Then why did they burn me out?
The mechanic of burnout is simple: what we think is good for us is not actually good for us.
When it comes to good/bad, there are a few dimensions to consider:
- Feels good / Feels bad
- I think it’s good / I think it’s bad
- It’s actually* good / It’s actually* bad
Heroin feels amazing, I’ve heard. Do I think it’s good for me? I think it’s a highly addictive substance that can make me feel like my life depends on it. I don’t think it’s good for me. But what if I’m in a morbid amount of pain? Then regardless of what I think about it, it’s actually good for me.
Actually has a star next to it because there is no absolute good or bad. Everything is contextual; poison in small amounts are anesthesia, stress in small amounts is what promotes muscle growth.
When you overwork, work feels bad. But at the same time you think it’s good for you. The incongruence keeps on making you go against yourself, like stepping on the brakes as you press on the gas pedal. On the other side, if you have habits you can’t kick it’s the opposite; you smoke because it feels good, but when you think about it you know it’s bad for you. Then you try to quit, but it’s so hard to kick the habit because it’s hard to overcome the feeling of feeling… Good.
The internal incongruence is something that’s so hard to resolve because both FEELING and THOUGHTS are so hard to intentionally shift. How the fuck can you make yourself do something that doesn’t feel good whenever you need to make that choice? How can you say yes to things that you think are just horrible ideas?
This is why changing life needs to be considered on a path level. Instant moments of insights and reliefs CAN change everything but we cannot rely on chances. Even if you do change your life in an instant, doesn’t it make more sense to continue living your life the way you want to? Like, suppose I’m morbidly overweight to the point I’m having health problems. If I get a potentially terminal diagnosis and I get shocked into the fact that I might die living this way, doesn’t it make sense that I maintain a healthy lifestyle instead of having that realization once and having one really solid day of a healthy life?
If you’re tired of the way you are living life and at least have a sliver of a thought of wanting to do something about it, you have nothing to lose by considering a long term approach. My Buddhism guide is a perfect general way to get started on any change because it will get you to do something that you think is, and feels bad — but it will be actually good for you. Get my Buddhist practice guide HERE.
May is coming up soon, and all the pre-work curriculum has been released to the registered participants of May You Offer. This is a great time for you to join, and I would love to have you there. Register for May You Offer HERE.