Do You Want The Thing, or How You Believe The Thing Will Make You Feel?

“He who knows he has enough is rich.”

Lao Tzu

There’s nothing outside of you that will make you feel whole.

Nothing.

A job won’t make you whole.

A partner won’t make you whole.

That shiny new thing won’t make you whole.

Even if you believe one of these, or something else, makes you feel whole — the belief that it makes you whole comes from within.

It’s not the thing. It’s your belief about the thing.

And this is where it gets tricky.

What happens when the thing changes?

You lose your job to a pandemic?

Your partner leaves you. They cheat.

What happens when the shiny new thing is no longer shiny?

When you tie your self-worth and sense of being enough to something outside yourself, you’re outsourcing two of the most important truths you have to something outside your control.

You’re relinquishing your self-image to externals.

I did it in a spectacularly colossal way.