Discerning Counterfeit Satisfaction
I'm not a professional psychologist or anthropologist...these are merely my observations, but they ring particularly true to me...
Discerning Counterfeit Satisfaction
As humans, we need to feel like we’re accomplishing things to feel we have worth or are progressing. We reap great satisfaction by setting goals and achieving them. The greater the accomplishment, the greater our long-term satisfaction and self worth.
In the past, farmers took raw materials nature gave them, namely the unbroken forest and their own two hands and with effort, created tools. These they used to shape the landscape tree by tree, stump by stump and rock by rock, into fields free from debris and clutter. Again with tools they crafted and animals they husbanded, they turned those fields into crop-producing farms, including plowing, planting, fertilizing, watering, weeding, protecting and harvesting. The crops provided real substance for them and their families and they benefited daily from the literal fruits of their labors. Farmers reaped not only crops but real satisfaction. And, when the work became routine, successful farmers often sold their farms and went out to find new land to break, tame and master.
Today, the idea of such long-term effort and its resulting successes seems alien. Life’s pace now allows us to accomplish things very quickly, since we don’t usually have to do all the individual parts ourselves. Rather than building our own tools, we specialize in separate areas that build toward the whole. But, as we become more specialized, we also become more isolated from the satisfaction of having achieved our goals by our own sweat. We now go to work in cars assembled by someone else, eat food grown by someone else, live in houses built by someone else, wear clothes made by someone else, and have children taught by someone else. We naturally are more distant from the results of our accomplishments, since we don’t have a direct hand in achieving them. Thus, we get much less true satisfaction from them. But we need the satisfaction that comes with accomplishment, otherwise, our lives become stagnant, unmeaningful and depressing. So, in today’s high-speed environment, we turn to entertainment to fill the void.
Entertainment has many names, but each provides us some measure of accomplishment, completion and satisfaction. Through books, news media and movies, we live vicariously through others’ stories, real and fiction, and derive momentary satisfaction from seeing their efforts come to a natural conclusion. However, since we’re not directly involved, that satisfaction is fleeting, and we either have to acknowledge the accomplishment isn’t ours and take responsibility for finding something we can personally succeed in, or else seek out the next “story” to get our vicarious satisfaction. This has pervaded our world so much that we’ve become a “credit card” society, mortgaging payoffs from our long-term successes for short-term satisfaction.
Perhaps the most pervasive form of entertainment that distracts us from real accomplishment takes place in our need to play or observe “games”. Whether sports, poker, board games, electronic games, shopping, or interpersonal relationships, each game provides very short-term goals, with usually immediate accomplishments and progressive, successive steps leading to further immediate accomplishments and satisfaction. Because the instant satisfaction can provide us an emotional “rush”, it becomes very addicting. But because our personal effort to achieve it was very low, the satisfaction quickly fades, leaving us searching to find the next “high” and the next.
With such quick “fixes” readily available today, it’s no surprise our society has plunged into a pattern of vicariously living through media and games, since our own lives don’t naturally provide rapid satisfaction. Unfortunately, those rapid successes leave us feeling “empty” and the continued pattern is unsatisfying.
The same is true for our human interactions…the less work they require, the less satisfaction we get from them. “Friends” take more work than “acquaintances”. But as humans, we tend toward the easier options. Thus, we find ourselves in very “shallow” relationships that have become tasteless, and thus produce friendships and marriages that are “disposable”.
Does that mean that entertainment doesn’t have value? No. However, as with all things, it should be taken in moderation and recognized for what it is…entertainment. Entertainment will bring us temporary enjoyment, but it won’t bring us lasting joy.
The healthy way to deal with our constant need to succeed is to focus on positive, enduring achievements affecting not just ourselves, but others. True, lasting satisfaction comes through continuous effort, self-improvement and serving others (improving others and loving them as we love ourselves). That kind of effort is HARD, but, like exercising, the more we do it, the easier it becomes, until we can become spiritual heavyweights in the grand scheme.
© Johnny Giles, 02/25/08
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Side Note:
All of the seven deadly sins have to do with not being satisfied with what we have…
Greed: Wanting more than what we have
Gluttony: Consuming more than what we need
Envy: Wanting what others have
Sloth: Absence of desire to progress/excel
Pride: Belief that others don’t live up to us
Lust: Immoral desire
Wrath: Frustration that things aren’t the way we want them to be
Discerning Counterfeit Satisfaction
As humans, we need to feel like we’re accomplishing things to feel we have worth or are progressing. We reap great satisfaction by setting goals and achieving them. The greater the accomplishment, the greater our long-term satisfaction and self worth.
In the past, farmers took raw materials nature gave them, namely the unbroken forest and their own two hands and with effort, created tools. These they used to shape the landscape tree by tree, stump by stump and rock by rock, into fields free from debris and clutter. Again with tools they crafted and animals they husbanded, they turned those fields into crop-producing farms, including plowing, planting, fertilizing, watering, weeding, protecting and harvesting. The crops provided real substance for them and their families and they benefited daily from the literal fruits of their labors. Farmers reaped not only crops but real satisfaction. And, when the work became routine, successful farmers often sold their farms and went out to find new land to break, tame and master.
Today, the idea of such long-term effort and its resulting successes seems alien. Life’s pace now allows us to accomplish things very quickly, since we don’t usually have to do all the individual parts ourselves. Rather than building our own tools, we specialize in separate areas that build toward the whole. But, as we become more specialized, we also become more isolated from the satisfaction of having achieved our goals by our own sweat. We now go to work in cars assembled by someone else, eat food grown by someone else, live in houses built by someone else, wear clothes made by someone else, and have children taught by someone else. We naturally are more distant from the results of our accomplishments, since we don’t have a direct hand in achieving them. Thus, we get much less true satisfaction from them. But we need the satisfaction that comes with accomplishment, otherwise, our lives become stagnant, unmeaningful and depressing. So, in today’s high-speed environment, we turn to entertainment to fill the void.
Entertainment has many names, but each provides us some measure of accomplishment, completion and satisfaction. Through books, news media and movies, we live vicariously through others’ stories, real and fiction, and derive momentary satisfaction from seeing their efforts come to a natural conclusion. However, since we’re not directly involved, that satisfaction is fleeting, and we either have to acknowledge the accomplishment isn’t ours and take responsibility for finding something we can personally succeed in, or else seek out the next “story” to get our vicarious satisfaction. This has pervaded our world so much that we’ve become a “credit card” society, mortgaging payoffs from our long-term successes for short-term satisfaction.
Perhaps the most pervasive form of entertainment that distracts us from real accomplishment takes place in our need to play or observe “games”. Whether sports, poker, board games, electronic games, shopping, or interpersonal relationships, each game provides very short-term goals, with usually immediate accomplishments and progressive, successive steps leading to further immediate accomplishments and satisfaction. Because the instant satisfaction can provide us an emotional “rush”, it becomes very addicting. But because our personal effort to achieve it was very low, the satisfaction quickly fades, leaving us searching to find the next “high” and the next.
With such quick “fixes” readily available today, it’s no surprise our society has plunged into a pattern of vicariously living through media and games, since our own lives don’t naturally provide rapid satisfaction. Unfortunately, those rapid successes leave us feeling “empty” and the continued pattern is unsatisfying.
The same is true for our human interactions…the less work they require, the less satisfaction we get from them. “Friends” take more work than “acquaintances”. But as humans, we tend toward the easier options. Thus, we find ourselves in very “shallow” relationships that have become tasteless, and thus produce friendships and marriages that are “disposable”.
Does that mean that entertainment doesn’t have value? No. However, as with all things, it should be taken in moderation and recognized for what it is…entertainment. Entertainment will bring us temporary enjoyment, but it won’t bring us lasting joy.
The healthy way to deal with our constant need to succeed is to focus on positive, enduring achievements affecting not just ourselves, but others. True, lasting satisfaction comes through continuous effort, self-improvement and serving others (improving others and loving them as we love ourselves). That kind of effort is HARD, but, like exercising, the more we do it, the easier it becomes, until we can become spiritual heavyweights in the grand scheme.
© Johnny Giles, 02/25/08
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Side Note:
All of the seven deadly sins have to do with not being satisfied with what we have…
Greed: Wanting more than what we have
Gluttony: Consuming more than what we need
Envy: Wanting what others have
Sloth: Absence of desire to progress/excel
Pride: Belief that others don’t live up to us
Lust: Immoral desire
Wrath: Frustration that things aren’t the way we want them to be