The Builder's Dilemma: How to live a life free of regret
Read time: 7 min
I'm a builder.
Ok, I'm more like a fixer.
In my mind and in real life I fix things; my problems, myself, the people I love and their problems, my home country, furniture, how people are dressed, you name it.
Even when I'm not talking, my overthinking mind is going on and on about how this or that could be 10x better.
I mean well though, I promise.
Ok let's call it what it really is, a controlling habit.
And I'm not gonna lie. my tendency to become overly involved in the lives of those I care about has gotten in trouble more times than I can count.
More importantly, my unrelenting need for improvement comes at a high cost to myself; the cost of being so busy making everything "better" that I miss out on the point of this pursuit altogether: The courage to enjoy my life.
The thing is that for as long as I can remember, I've had this dilemma:
How can you love and accept what is, while at the same time wanting to change and improve it?
To put in simply, here's the battle:
"How things are" VS "How I wish things would be"
Actualize your Potential
Here is a truth I've always chosen to embrace:
From the moment I was born I have been dealt with above average cards.
These cards include:
I can keep going (It's not a brag if it's humble, right?)
Despite other insecurities, I've always intuitively known that I "beam with potential".
With this belief came a pact that I made with myself years ago: to exploit the shit out of these cards (excuse my french).
To actualize my potential. I define this as making the abilities that may lead me to future success a reality.
The first thing is to be aware of those abilities (and limitations).
Through self awareness you recognize yourself, your traits, feelings, behavior, and characteristics.
It's a state of implicit knowledge of your character, emotions and desires.
Self-awareness is how you recognize non-actualized potential.
Awareness is insufficient
Visiting my therapist as a kid I remember I would do all the talking and answer questions even before they were asked. In the end the therapist would say:
Why are you even here? It seems you have it all already figured out.
At the time I thought I did. I would listen to myself talk about the root cause behind my identity issues or the conceptual explanations to my anger and think "Danm I'm good"
But the truth is that I didn't have it figured out. I was just very good at intellectualize my emotions.
I like to visualize it like this:
Imagine a beautiful room overlooking an outdoor garden, with a door and windows connecting the two.
The room is the present moment and reality. The garden is your mind where all your reflections and ideals for potential live.
From the garden you are always a few steps outside of yourself, analyzing objectively, observing and advising.
In the garden you are the expert. You have all the right analysis, explanations, solutions and plan.
but if you are over there, outside, who's over here in the room doing the actual healing and living?
In the garden you are a detached counselor.
Always a few steps out looking in with an smart, aware and objective eye: Reminding yourself why you are the way you are, why you feel what you feel, what you should and shouldn’t do to go where you want to go.
The alternate though is staying here, in the room of your life in the present.
You look around and notice everything as they are. It's not all pretty. Some things are awesome, others not so much.
But this is not a place for judgment.
领英推荐
In here, there's no need to think or worry.
There is nothing to do but simply be, feel, enjoy, love, heal and accept everything as they are, simply because there are.
There is no should, there is simply is.
You throw a party.
The Life of a Builder
Living a life of purpose requires effort, change and constantly building.
When people ask me why I started writing online about growth mindsets, I say this: because building is how I realize my purpose.
And if you are not building something (a skill stack, a career, a business, a project, a habit, your character, a family, a relationship, a network, a community, your body, your mind) you are not growing.
But why should you grow?
Simply because you can.
I believe it is each of our responsibility to solve the problems of our lives, whatever those are for each of us, and see what lies on the other side of whatever we once thought was impossible.
But at what cost? Do you even truly achieve anything if you're not present mentally in the present to reap it's rewards?
Tomorrow is not promised, and as a great rapper once said, YOLO!
The truth is that dance of the acceptance of what is and the desire for what could be is an endless loop that comes full circle.
I am a lover of what is, not because I'm a spiritual person, but because it hurts when I argue with reality. - Byron Katie
The Courage of Joy & Gratitude
A life without growth is a life without purpose.
Simultaneously a life spent solely in endless pursuit is a life destined to be filled with regret.
Between these states there is a dance that creates balance, and I've identified 2 grounding feelings that allow these seemingly opposing states to coexist: Joy and Gratitude.
Joy takes courage.
Joy is a profound emotional state associated with feelings of contentment, well-being, and fulfillment.
None of us know will happen. You don't know if you will get to where you are trying to go.
It always seems like there's so much left to do.
And yet in the midst of this conquest, it is bold to allow yourself to truly feel joy right here right now, despite the uncertainty of the future.
Practically, incorporating joy in your life is done though
Gratitude also takes courage.
Gratitude is the emotional state of being thankful for the privileges, benefits, gifts, or favors one has received from others and from the world.
Gratitude is practiced through daily habits of:
But when you are grateful for having something, implicatively you are simultaneously recognizing that that thing can be taken away from you at any point in time.
Which can be counter intuitive if you are constantly in a state of pursuit of such things.
Practicing Joy and gratitude are the humbling and grounding actions that will bring the pursuit of the builder come full circle.
Making time for joy and gratitude keeps the loop of actualized potential going: The actualized potential to achieve the most rewarding desire of all.
To live a life free of regret.
That's it for today.
With love,
- Laury