Realizing the underlying deep desires that I have helps me reframe the questions I am asking about how to actually satisfy them.
Today I continued to think about yesterday’s post. I wanted to avoid sad/destructive emotions at all costs, so I tried to direct my inevitable thoughts towards the underlying principles of the problem that was still causing me pain.
As a part of my self-edu curriculum, I was reading What’s Your Problem. The design is great, as well as the content. The main topic is the mental tool of reframing: asking better questions to solve our problems.
I tried applying it to my situation of getting rejected.
The emotional questions that kept popping up are:
-Why did this happen to me?
-What did I do wrong?
-Why did he not realize how amazing I am?
These types of questions are very hard to answer and most likely the answers are so rooted in the complexity and variability of the world, that it would hardly make any actual sense or have the capacity to comfort me.
Therefore, not being answered, they cause more pain of confusion.
Really eager for some clarity, I asked the question differently.
Why is it that I feel so much pain from this very shallow interaction?
It must be that there is something deeper within me causing this pain, more than just the sadness from a failed romantic venture.
I arrived at a further understanding of yesterday’s post:
Rejections by people/universities/companies/visa applications, etc. are painful because they are immediately denying us the satisfaction of a certain deeper desire.
So it’s not like I actually cared about getting rejected for an internship from Google or being rejected by this guy.
Through this rejection, my desire for a certain picture of myself and an experience I wanted to have as a Google intern and a partner was denied. Social psychology explains clearly that we are actually driven by deep desires in everyday life actions. We are constantly playing the games of self-actualization, self-esteem, love, and belonging, safety, and physiological needs.
So we see these people/universities /companies as the agents of bringing about these desires.
So instead of barking up the wrong tree of trying to get that person/university/career/job, I can think deeply about how to actually satisfy the deeper desire I have.
The pain is most likely caused by the scarcity mindset: seeing that person/university/job/whatever as the only one being able to satisfy your desire.
With my deep need for actual, real education and learning new skills, I am no longer confined to merely Vanderbilt education. I realized designing my own edu and curating what I study is actually attending to my needs better.
As for the guy, apart from the obvious needs for intimacy and opposite-gender attention, perhaps I felt like he was my window into a different world: a richer one, more artistic and less confined by ugly routine issues.
When I realize and am radically transparent with myself about my desires, I can continue my path towards ACTUALLY realizing that desire: by becoming wealthy, which would free up time for being artistic and well, gradually remove me from the ”ugly routine issues”.
I just lost a node that would immediately connect me to a cluster of that kind of lifestyle.
Although the rejection is painful, this situation makes it clear what the deep desires are and directs me towards fulfilling them in a more profound way.