I’ve had a particularly acute fit of anxiety in which I just couldn’t escape doubts and worries about my existence in this world and what I ought to make of my life and future. All I would do all day was to sit and feel helpless about every situation I could possibly envision, which then drained all my energy for any possible solution out of this predicament. This frankly doesn’t happen often, but when the outpour of anxious thoughts and discomfort with the state of my life and of the world enters my headspace, its sources are also too unpredictable for me to smoothly invite it out of my head. I tend to place immense emphasis on questioning one’s place in the vast context of the world, which simply surrenders too much of my own moods and emotions to the uncertainty of this chaotic and unpredictable world. If I were to retreat to just my own little cabin in the wood, resisting all influences from outside while also relinquishing my own potential in changing it, I could dictate how I feel much more effortlessly. I previously wrote a short entry about the dilemma of wanting to contribute my part to fixing the problems of society and wishing for contentment and peace in place of constant concern for worldly troubles. What I never explicitly articulated was how the conflicting pull of either desire could find its way into my everyday thought and action without me realizing it.
My partner recently observed that I sometimes had the tendency to reserve and even suppress my experience of joy and satisfaction as if I felt undeserved of such happiness in face of ascertained and visible suffering around the world. An event worthy of a cheer of delight could only merit a self-conscious, almost shameful smile from me. Granted, in many pleasurable situations, I would even instinctively find a way to condone the positive aspects, as a mechanism to justify and express my desire to neutralize the good I receive with the bad I have come to recognize in others’ lives. This quite often makes it unpleasant for my loved ones to deal with (my nickname – as a joke – could oscillate between Debbie Downer and a Mother Teresa wannabe, depending on whom you ask). But even more regretful than that is how this tendency traps me in a vicious cycle of depriving myself of a genuine enjoyment in the moment and of barring myself from appreciating the good parts of life without baggage of guilt and shame. Soon, my perception of life and others involved in it also becomes impaired by my constant absorption in a guilt-ridden mindset. After years of socializing and identifying with those who sacrifice their own peace and contentment for the greater good, and learning practices like “check your privileges” and “identify your culpability” that admittedly have been taken too far, I have adopted an unfortunate habit of internalizing some responsibility for things that seem unrelated to my doing and of expecting others to do the same.
Recently I was watching a youtube video capturing the peaceful provincial lifestyle of an immigrant family in a small town in Germany when I caught myself casting a hasty judgment and wondering why a family of three would need to live in such a big house, while millions of others do not even have a roof above their head. After a moment of thoughtless apprehension, I realized that the self-sufficient lifestyle demonstrated in the video was in fact much more favorable for global welfare than the image of inefficiency and so-called “greed” as I was used to. It was, after all, even more laudable than how I am living my life (but let’s halt the self-blame in that regard for a moment). What’s more, it was a mere illusion that the life situations of the family in Germany and those homeless folks elsewhere were even connected to one another. Sure, an impoverished individual could improve their life with the concern and help from someone fairing better in a different corner of the world, but there is no logical link and no guarantee that the effort to help could practically translate to anything. It’s unclear whether the individuals in this particular case have any moral duty for one another (it would be different were we to discuss a wealthy owner of a multi-national corporation and the workers employed with meager rewards by that corporation). Moreover, what I see of others is only a snippet of their lives, and more importantly, everyone is entitled to living their own principles, if these are even relevant to them. It was presumptuous to not only pass judgments off a singular event, but also project my own expectations onto someone else. In fact, I fail to execute even a minuscule of all the actions I think I should take or the words I think I should say, so in the end I’m the one deceived by my own delusion of helping the world.
The point here is that the desire to leave a positive impact on the world diminishes my ability to practice self-contained happiness and satisfaction while also affecting my social relationships and perceptions of others. At the same time, I would feel unfulfilled if helping others beyond me were no longer something I strive towards. In a sense, contributing gives me happiness and satisfaction. But to relieve myself of the burdensome, self-inflicted pressure and learn to appreciate good things in life without guilt again, I ought to change my approach to the troubles and suffering I could see (or just know to be out there). Perhaps that involves separating the different life situations of people from one another and removing culpability where it is irrelevant, or finding comfort and joy in things that are not contingent on the state of the world. Changing my mindset could entail focusing on helping just one individual or a small group of people to start instead of aiming to cast monumental impacts on a broader scale, or accepting that causing no harm (just like that lovely family in rural Germany) is already a great way to make a contribution. There is little point in getting angry at myself or others at the cost of my own peace of mind and enjoyment of little things in life. Care can start with being nice to myself, my loved ones, and strangers whom I would otherwise judge out of habit.