the subconcious desire to do more and the problem with the question of "whats next?"
im sure most people have had this feeling. youve been working really hard for something, maybe its a promotion at work that youve really been longing for, or passing your math midterm, or simple just saving up to buy that really expensive car. youve done all the work, youve done it! you acheived your goal... but whats next?.
in all my life, ive never disliked a word more. i remember going back home for the summers, seeing relatives and all that, and id tell them about how school is going, how dance was going (when i was still in highschool), how volleyball was, and the one question id always be confronted with was; 'after X, what do you plan to do?', in simpler terms 'whats next?'.
as a kid and teenager, i never gave it much thought, but now as i grow older ive realized how much grief this two word sentence has put me through. its as if ive been forced to live my life as a rpg game, i collect achievements, i complete quests, and im constantly looking for the next thing to boost my stats and my levels. its a struggle to get out of this cycle of thinking to be quite frank. since the year or so ive started realizing it and trying to break the cycle, i still find myself left with this almost carnal desire to continue pushing, continue doing, until im left like a deflated balloon.
i am a big nurture over nature thinker, and i want to say there are some key things to consider when i ask myself about the source of this desire to do more.
the first thing was my parents and their upbringing; for the ones who dont know, i am a first generation here in canada (i hate that word but alas). pretty much, my parents didnt always have the best circumstances. my dad served time in the army and his side of the family lost most of their homeland during the wars that took place. my mom pretty much just grew up with the village life, and atleast after events of the war, a large amount of pro-west ideology grew, people needed to make money post war and where else could they go? both my parents came to toronto with the help of their respective family, met here, and desired to make a objectively more abundant life than they would have had back home. needless to say, i am the product of two immigrants, and my parents have always held me, the first born son, to fairly high standards. they've slowed down now that ive entered a technical degree, gotten job experience, gotten a job offer, but having been born into such standards its hard to learn how to lower them for yourself.
another thing is western society as a whole. i am not a crazy communist manifesto thumper, carls marks lover, but its pretty clear that people here cant rest for shit. you see it with some blogs here, the whole productivity, agile methods, talking about work in general. the people here have been essentially programmed to believe if they dont get 'better' each day, they wont make it in their lives. it partially has to do with the fact that the more skilled workers you have, the more skilled labor and profit you can extract from them. you see it with all these college students in the states, theyve done all these internships, valedictorianships, awards, honors classes, but its rare to find them thinking about whether they are truely content with what they have in the moment. its not a strictly american thing too, and id argue its just a general north american ideology rather than one that reflects the west as a whole. the people here are taught from a young age that doing more and more is the only way to live a good life.
anyways, maybe im looking at this too deep. ive talked about this with some of my friends and my dad about this feeling of constantly needing to do more. in my experience, ive found that the more things ive accomplished, the less satisfied i become. its truely an odd feeling because you end up in this cycle of chasing accomplishments rather than just doing the activity for what it is. for example, i used to really love school, first two years i really like the mathematics i was learning; but as i started to get these awards for academic performance and whatever, the less i was satisfied with what i was learning. to alleviate this, i might have pushed myself to look for research placements, or jobs, all in the hope of doing the next thing that would bring this fleeting sense of satisfaction to myself. it sucks because i really do like math! optimiziation and modelling is such an intensely interesting field for me, but i have trouble seeing it as more of a means to an end for the next step in my life (ie, learning two factor mixed modelling, or learning how to design surrogate approaches to binary classification problems, all so i can use them on my job rather than learn to do them for the sake of my personal knowledge).
anyways, the more ive grown angry at this cycle ive found myself in, the more i realize how crucial it is for me to take steps to break the cycle. i am trying, more than ever before to break this thinking. i often go to my dad when i feel overwhelmed with these feelings, and hes given some good advice recently, hes told me that its up to myself to find satisfaction with where i am, that no amount of external praise or attention can replace the satisfaction i feel from putting work into acheiving something, and that to find satisfaction in my acheivements i have to be satisfied with the work ive done. the journey of these things matters more rather than the things themselves. the advice was a bit indirect because i asked about how to deal with the feeling of 'whats next?' but ive started to see how his advice applies.
maybe what matters in the end is how i approach this question. rather than immediately go and actualize that question in my head, ive started instead looking back at what ive done before, and how much work i put in to actually acheiving that. its perfectly fine for me to say that im okay with where things are at right now, i dont need to do more and more, things are cool right now and thats all that matters. anyways, i will probably continue struggling with this from time to time, but i want to say that the past year has taught me that its important to break that cycle, and i should continue to break out of it when i can.