Research Description
Also available on Substack
(31 pages)
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You cannot have everything you want, however you can want everything you can get.
This paper is very much opinion and connotation based and is written as like a spider-web, where everything is interconnected and might not look pretty from a broader view.
The primary purpose of this paper is on gaining confidence, specifically my own confidence.
Not just confidence in general, but also the gratitude, awareness, and appreciation that I can’t have everything I want but can want everything I can get.
This is directly related to having an overactive imagination, which will be the topic of another paper, and combating the inherent/instinctual action of falling in love with the idea of something and creating little worlds in my head that are not and can not be justified in objective reality.
Or put more simply, this paper is directly antagonistic to I would rather keep my delusions for they are often kinder than the truth.
It’s not about self-discovery or some hedonic/euphoric change of self that I’m trying to celebrate. Nor is this about hardcore discipline and the popularized warrior, purely logical mindset.
I care too much. I love too deeply, too quickly. I create incredibly strong emotional associations with what I think something is and not what it actually is.
All this leads to a false confidence, because if I really want what I say I want, I need to let go. Let go of the characteristics that I know hold me back but for some reason I need to hold.
Even more important: I need the confidence to let myself let go.
Every time I learn something new about myself, it’s almost as if I took a step back. What I thought makes sense leads to more questions.
It’s like staring into the abyss, wondering what is on the other side, hoping that it is something new, but it is just the same thing I’ve seen before, just different.
History doesn’t repeat itself, it just rhymes.
Or maybe that’s the beauty of letting go.
Sure, there is letting go of conformity but more than that, letting go of what brought love - which then reframes not as letting go, but being more present and knowing this too shall pass, for better or for worse.
