Discussions seem to go in trends in the workplace, and already today there have been three separated conversations that have centered around personal growth, and mental health strategies. We were talking about how a lot of people sit down in front of the TV after a work day, so they don't have to think. But, I believe this is working against them in the long run, and even in the short term.
I do get that people want to get away from "work" at the end of the day, but I also feel that most people don't actually know what actually relaxes them. It is like a smoker who swears that having a cigarette calms them, without realizing that the reason it does, is because they are addicts and having one satiates the withdrawal mechanisms.
I believe that by nature, we are creative entities and this is actually one of the processes we use to not only evolve our species, but relax ourselves as individuals. The trouble is that we spend a huge amount of time on creative activities that don't necessarily grow us, but instead grow the profits for a company.
In the workplace, our thinking is led by our job role and there fore is a type of forced creativity, which can be exhausting rather than empowering. Getting home from work however, gives us the space to create ourselves, for ourselves. We get to think what we want to think about, build what we want to build. But, we have been conditioned through the workplace to believe that thinking is exhausting, so instead of spending our time "working" on ourselves, we become thoughtless consumers, having content and solutions pushed to us, rather than building our own.
I also think that it is this process that can leave us lost when our work changes or ends, because we have been building our growth around a job role, instead of around us as individuals, independent of a role. This I think is a big part of the reason that so many feel lost after their retirement, because their sense of value is tied to a role within a company, a role they have developed themselves to satisfy for potentially many years. Once that ends, what is left?
Who are we, when all we have developed is for someone else?
Do you know that feeling of when you are building something and you have that creative energy? Do you know the feeling when you face a problem and find a solution? The feeling is based on the conditions of applying skill and using that skill for a practical outcome, and it is the same process that the state of "flow" comes from. However, those conditions can be faked.
For instance, sitting down in front of a television series can simulate the conditions required through the story telling and the setup of the plot to take us on a journey that weaves through problems. But, while we get the feeling that we are solving the problems, we are actually having everything fed to us through the dialogue and scenes, leveraging the "skills" of the actors as a proxy for ourselves. Essentially, we are getting the feeling of creative problem solving, without doing anything at all. At the end of the show we get a sense of completion, but what have we completed and more importantly, are we better for it?
I suspect not.
But, as long as we feel that we are growing, the mind is tricked into believing it is true. And the longer it goes on, the larger the impact it makes and the harder it is to reverse the process. For instance, I mentioned to a colleague that it is like eating candy every evening, where there are effects in the short, mid and long view of it. In the short term, it tastes good and we feel satisfied. In the mid term, we aren't thinking clearly, we feel worse and we might have regrets. In the long term, we can have quite severe health outcomes that take a lot of effort to address.
I suggest that this is similar for our creative selves, where when we rely on consumption to satisfy our creative needs, we get the illusion of satisfaction, without the reality of it. In the short term we feel okay, in the mid term we feel dissatisfied and in the long term, we realize that we haven't changed, or we are worse off than earlier. So while daily we feel that sense of growth, the reality is we are likely shrinking in respect to the changing world, our skills no longer as impactful as they earlier were.
How does that make us feel?
Like it or not, we are creatures that are driven by progress, yet so many of us are putting off progressing ourselves, because we are too tired from progressing the companies we are working for. However, I believe that the "tiredness" we experience isn't because of thinking too much, but not thinking enough about the things that are important to us, that help us as individuals develop.
We create ourselves through our behaviors and when we keep putting personal growth on hold, we are going to keep falling behind the curve and, that ultimately impacts on our mental health and sense of self. We are tying our worth to the success of a company, instead of ourselves, our values and our place in the community.
I think that if we were to reflect on what actually empowers us as individuals, most of us aren't creating the conditions for success, and this impacts on all of us. But, as creatures of convenience, we are wired to favor the illusion of growth, over growth of the self.
Where we put our attention, matters.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
