Reinvigorate & Reinvent: Start Now With These 2 Life Paradoxes

Pre-prison, I chased titles, money and status-seeking materialism to feel worthy, adequate, accepted, and be seen and heard.

These are two of the greatest lessons I’ve learned from my experience.

1. It’s not the object I desire; it’s the meaning and feeling I’ve projected onto the object.

2. It’s not the object I desire; it’s how I believe others will perceive me because I acquired the object.

When the object falls short (the book is always better than the movie) of my expectations, I’m left empty and searching for that feeling in my next acquisition.

This was the birth of a wicked cycle for me:

Unworthy/Not Enough -> Desire -> Target -> Expectation ->Acquisition ->

Quick high -> Crash -> Emptiness -> Unworthy/Not Enough = Rinse and Repeat

I was chasing external solutions to heal inner wounds: my sense of unworthiness, not being enough, not being accepted, feeling unseen and unheard.

I couldn’t see what I was doing at the time and how frivolous it was — because it didn’t feel frivolous.

Those quick highs superseded the rest of the cycle; they reinforced that what I was doing was working; I just hadn’t found the…