Most of us are always in a state of “involuntarily”, and then there are some longing life states in our hearts, but the reality is very cruel, so that we can’t achieve our goals now, so we fall into anxiety and helplessness. middle.
During the National Day holiday, I met a friend I hadn’t seen for a long time. His child is two years old, and while chatting, I could feel a lot of stress and anxiety in him because of having a child. He said that because after having children, the past time is not up to you to make decisions, and then all plans in the future have changed. If you have already bought a good house, you will make plans to change because of the school district housing, and then you will be reluctant to spend it. I want to give the money I earn to my children. He is a very responsible person and hopes to spend more time with his children and work hard to raise them. But he feels that he has sacrificed his opportunities to watch movies, exercise, and travel with his lover. If he wants to restore these, he will have to wait until the child grows up to 18 years old, that is, 16 years. Speaking of which, there was a hint of helplessness in his eyes.
Hearing this, I always feel that something is not right, so I have some questions. Faced with such an involuntary state, we can only be helpless or anxious? I hope that through this article, I will present my complete thinking on this issue, and I hope that after reading it, you will be able to look at your problem from a new perspective.
Let’s start by asking a question: Why do we hate feeling “involuntarily”?
The answer is: everyone is searching for some kind of “freedom” in their hearts. Why do people seek freedom? In fact, not only human beings, as long as they are living things, they will pursue freedom and pursue a kind of casual, natural and abundant growth. No one wants his eyes to be fixed on one place forever, and his ears to hear only constant timbres and tones; he doesn’t want his body to be confined in a small and claustrophobic space, and he doesn’t want his mind to stop running, because when thinking stops, , which means that it no longer exists.
Freedom is human nature, and it can also be said that freedom is a right that we have to accept.
Having said that so much freedom is indispensable, what is freedom?
1. What is freedom?
When it comes to freedom, the first thing that comes to my mind is the freedom of time and place. For example, to be a travel up master, you can travel at any time and go wherever you want. This is called freedom. And going to work in the cubicle every day, clocking in and clocking in at the exact time, and handing over the important time of the day to the company and the boss, this is called freedom.
Is this definition accurate? actually not.
Traveling at any time is not necessarily free. I have heard an up master say that every time he goes out for a trip, he will be very tired, because he will consider the material and topic of the video at every moment, whether the current experience value is worth recording and shooting. This also makes it impossible to play freely.
Traveling up is not necessarily “free”, and working in a cubicle is not necessarily “not free”.
A few years ago, when I first arrived at the former company, I really liked the flat collaborative culture of start-up Internet companies. Everyone discussed things and discussed and hypothesized plans together. I also told my friends at the time that the company I work for is heaven for me. I can say the work I’ve always wanted to do and it feels very free.
Freedom is not necessarily limited to time and place, so what is freedom?
Here’s another story. After my girlfriend’s friend gave birth to a child, her husband gave up the opportunity to go to other places to make money, and chose to give time to his family to accompany the child to grow up. He may have given up some opportunities to make money because of this, and he also lost the freedom to work hard outside, but is he free? I think he is free. Compared with the traditional concept of “men should work hard to earn money”, he is free.
Seeing this, at least we can draw a preliminary conclusion: freedom cannot be defined by external forms such as time and place.
But have you found that their freedom or not is related to their corresponding identities: upholders, employees, fathers… This involves what this article wants to discuss most – the relationship between freedom and roles.
2. Freedom and roles
You may already have doubts in your mind, what role? What does freedom have to do with roles?
This goes back to the friend I started talking about. After he had a child, he added a “father” role, and as a result of this role, the proportion of other roles such as boyfriend, fitness person, learner, and good friend was squeezed. But because he didn’t adapt to the new role and was still used to the previous roles, he encountered the dilemma of “involuntarily”.
In the movie “The Eleventh”, Ma Fuli was wrongly convicted of a murder 30 years ago, so he was jailed. After being released from prison, he saw a drama club remake the murder.
He had planned on this matter for a long time, and he felt that he could endure it as long as he could, and he did not want to disturb the deceased, so there was no need to go to the drama club to make a fuss and reverse the case for himself. But why did he resolutely reverse the case later?
Ma Fuli obeys his wife at home. Although his wife’s daughter is not Ma Fuli’s own, he regards it as his own. Even if he can ignore the malice and ridicule around him, his daughter is reluctant to give birth to a four-month-old baby because of her “criminal” name.
Therefore, in the case of overturning the case, he did not find out what role and responsibility he should assume. But when his murderer label affected his daughter, he changed his mind.
If a person truly recognizes his role, he will naturally take responsibility for the role and do something firmly.
Our life is like a stage play. From the birth of self-awareness, you start your own performance on the stage. But, in this arena, you have to find your role first, or you won’t exist. Without roles, human existence disappears.
Sartre believes that human consciousness is like an “empty” container. Before you exist, you do not have any role, and the role is the essence, which is the reason for “existence precedes essence”.
Because human existence is like an empty container, constantly filled with new roles. This is also the difference between a conscious person and an object that is not conscious. A cup it can only be a cup, but a waiter he will not be a waiter all the time. Because the cup has no consciousness, but man has.
A person’s identity can change constantly, but a cup cannot, even if it is broken, it can only be a cup. And people can choose freely, he can choose not to be a waiter, he can choose to be a chef, so for him, it is free. Just like you are standing on the stage of life, you must first find your own role1 .
Finding your character is easy, but how to get along with your character becomes a new problem. Otherwise, there will be no problems encountered by the friends at the beginning.
3. How to get along with your character
We often hear these words:
“If only the choice at the time was…”;
“I think back then I was still…, but now it’s much worse than before”;
“I’ll be able to do it when I get to…”;
“Thinking that in X years, I’m going to be… I’m afraid I can’t do well”
…
In “The Trap of Time”, we talked about regrets about the past and anxiety about the future, which are all time traps, and we should pay more attention to and experience the present. If we look at it from the perspective of “roles”, we will reminisce and miss the lost roles of the past, and worry about the roles that have not yet come in the future. In fact, it is more effective for us to focus on the role of the moment.
So how should you deal with the current role? Here are three small suggestions, acknowledging the role, attaching to the role, and leaving the role.
1. Acknowledge the role
Many times, the role we think we have realized is actually just a name, and we have not really thought about what the corresponding responsibilities of this role are. Without serious thinking, we will not truly recognize its existence. Because we always like to pay attention to the negative information of a thing, and then take the benefits that have been obtained for granted.
Before falling in love, I was very satisfied with my single status, because I had enough time to read books, watch movies that I wanted to watch, go to the library, stay up late to catch up, go for a run, and stop Daze and vent in the yard. I also wrote a long live single article at a very early age. The article said that because a partner will divide his time infinitely.
After having a girlfriend, this is indeed the case. A lot of my energy and time have been allocated to Ms. Chen. But if my focus is on these lost places, I’m immersed in my past characters. In fact, in my current role, I have a person who can fully reveal my heart. I feel that my soul is more complete than before, and I feel a great sense of being understood, trusted, valued, and taken seriously. .
When I have a role, I take it seriously, find out the benefits it brings to me, and then face up to the transfer of previous roles.
Relationships with people can be your objects of attachment, as can relationships with careers.
A point shared by Jiang Dora before, I particularly agree with it. After she left Dachang, she told herself that work was meaningless, and then said that she enjoyed her current state. But she said another thing. She said that maybe she felt like going back to work later, and when she went back to work, she would definitely see some of the drawbacks of self-media again. This state of believing something when doing something, I think it’s very good.
You don’t have to worry about what other people think. The key point here is to replace “I have to choose this way” with “I would like to choose this way.”
Acknowledging a role means acknowledging the role you are in and not being rude.
2. Dependent role
In our usual cognition, “freedom” and “enslavement” are a pair of opposite concepts, but in fact, the two can be transformed into each other from a dialectical point of view.
Seeing this, you may feel a little strange, how can freedom and enslavement be the same? But you may wish to recall, among the moments when you thought you were very happy before, were there any moments because you were willing to pursue and pay for a person or group? In the process of being captured, you gain happiness, and because this happiness is what you choose, you can also feel “freedom”.
John Bowlby, the author of attachment theory, said that in life, everyone has something to attach to. If you can do what you want to do in the presence of your willingness to be attached, it is a very ideal freedom. It’s like living with someone you like, fighting for your beliefs, and paying for your own mission.
Hulan shared in the round table group that he has three stages in his talk show. The first stage is the trial stage. At that time, he was not sure that he would continue to do talk shows, but he thought it was interesting. At that time, he was still a programmer. In the second stage, he began to accept that talk shows were his main job, so he resigned and started working as a full-time talk show actor. But at this time, he didn’t plan to do a talk show for the rest of his life. Until the third stage, he found that if a joke can bring some help and energy to some depressed and depressed audiences, and spend the same energy and cost on talking In the field of show, the value he provides to the society will be greater, and such value cannot be replaced by anything else. Hulan has built a mission for himself. Even if he often breaks his head, he can’t write good jokes. The whole creative process is very painful, but he is still willing to keep doing it.
When you are attached to a value system that is larger than yourself, you may seem bound by the rules of that system, but it will give you greater inner freedom.
Attachment to a belief, a value, a relationship that you recognize, a professional field that you have pursued all your life, find your mission, these are all possible. Maybe it was not found by you at the beginning, but gradually became clear like the relationship between Hulan and the talk show.
3. Leave the role temporarily
If you are attached to a role for a long time, it will inevitably produce a state of fatigue and burnout. At this time, I don’t think it’s necessary to force yourself to do it. You can take a break from the role first, and draw a rest in the movement of the main line to make space for your own time.
This time, when I came home from Yiwu, I spent very little time reading, thinking, and working, because I wanted to give more time to my family. It can be explained here that I switched from the role of a content producer to the role of a family member. It can also be said that I took advantage of this return to relax myself and temporarily leave the role and responsibility of content production.
The concept of “relaxation” has been talked about by many people recently. My understanding of it is that you don’t have to be tense all the time, you always have to shoulder the mission and responsibility, many things will not be done for a while, and there will be no irreversible consequences. Its important , urgency, and serious consequences may also be a fictional interpersonal bubble in our hearts. So let go of yourself for the time being, hug yourself, comfort yourself, your health and state are more important.
Cui Qinglong has a wonderful description of this feeling of relaxation:
A sense of tranquility is the feeling of having one’s heart at the bottom of a safe valley, a state in which all “background programs” can be emptied and turned off, a heavy rain that leaves school early but no homework, and the feeling of being able to read comics and novels under the covers. It’s an unconditional license for some kind of freedom, but with nothing up front.
Leaving the role is not to escape, but to give yourself a space to absorb new nutrients, and then return to the main line to do things better.
4. Conclusion
At the end, I also asked myself, what is my mission? Although I am a writer who can type some words and integrate some points of view, I am not convinced that writing is something I will insist on doing all my life. Maybe I have not yet met the opportunity to light up my mission.
Freelancing means that you can define your own role. There are too many optional roles. After I left the workplace, I found that all the time and things at hand need to be arranged by myself, which is completely different from the previous work. In the same way, at least when I go to work, my goals can not be defined by me, and even if I know how to fish, I can receive a fixed monthly salary every month. Working for myself means that all my development and benefits are directed towards my own decisions. If you want to exchange your skills for money, then stop talking.
Fanfan said that this is precisely the value of freedom. Because we have the final say in what to do and how to arrange time, so we will no longer use busy work as an excuse, but take full responsibility for our own life.
Although freelancing will bring a lot of uncertainty, it will also bring a matching power of destiny. I am also increasingly accepting a truth:
It seems that every path leads to “success,” and every path may also face failure. When making a choice, I don’t know which one to choose. But no matter how you choose, how anxious you are when you choose, it will eventually pass. For me, what matters is not what I choose, but my attitude towards the choice after making the choice.
I hope that we can all find a role and mission that suits us as soon as possible, and live a self-consistent and happy life.
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