this essay one of my favs from my 21 days of writing challenge I’m taking part in. I touched more on this in my last post day 1: depression
happy reading and blessings <3
All humans on this earth assign their own subjective meaning to life. Most people I know try to optimize towards regret minimization. There are various regret minimization frameworks out there. Basically the goal is to maximize efficiency by not repeating the same mistakes over again. Life is a set of decision trees and each 0 or 1 value accumulates to the collection of choices and actions that is your LIFE.
Every time I played a video game in middle school and defeated the final boss, I reverted back to state 0 (ground floor) to experience a different outcome for x playable character. I loved traversing back down the decision tree only to experience a new set of edges and outcome nodes. The older I got, the more complex the games became. They turned from binary trees into hash trees with extensive sub plots, arcs and side quests within each node choice. It was fun but eventually the game became my life, andI couldn't keep up.
I don't want to die with any regrets. I hate being embarrassed and I hate failure. I tell myself I minimize regret by being thorough. In reality, I've wasted so much time making decisions without listening to my intuition. I've wasted so much time indulging in self-mastrubatory scenarios where I spiral down every rabbit hole in existence and make things so much larger in my head than they really are. My anxiety rules me at times. At the end of the day though, reality is so different from the assumptions I make in my head. I cannot return to state 0 and start over.
There is no way to avoid CRINGE without avoiding satisfaction. The two play hand in hand. How can I love wholly without having faced loss? How can I be happy without having been sad? But by avoiding regret, embarrassment and failure, I'm choosing to stay comfortable.
Avoidance is a symptom of fear and a trauma response to neglect. Neglecting your desires is neglecting yourself. By indulging in avoidance and giving into fear, I will simply not achieve my desires. Optimizing towards regret minimization is the same as retrograding risk maximization. Considering that I am 23 years old without any external financial or emotional obligations besides myself, now isn't the time to be risk averse. In layman terms, I can't be a pussy. It's imperative to stake everything here and now in the present.
When I breathe, center myself and let go, my intuition becomes a north star, clearly pointing me in the direction of my hearts desires. The truth is known within all of us. The present is where the truth lies. I have the power to validate my choices and live without regret. Deep inner okayness ~
- Shrav
vibes~