Except for me, covid seems to have matchmade the whole universe during quarantine. Perhaps it was just those in my social circle. Whatever it was, it was apparent.
I was at a point in my life where I was content. I didn’t seem to find the need to have a partner 95% percent of the time. But I wouldn’t be human if there wasn’t that 5% where I felt a subconscious pressure to find someone because everyone around me had found ‘the one.’ I succumbed to that pressure last night when I found myself going on a date, wanting to feel that connection everyone seemed to have discovered so easily.
Quick spoiler, I didn’t feel any connection as usual last night. However, it was thankfully not a completely fruitless outing.
During dinner, my date mentioned in conversation that he likes to have ‘intentions’ whenever he does anything. His example was our date. He didn’t have expectations about how our date would go, but he has the intention to have a great time. Eventually, with each intentional date, there will be that one time that would lead to something amazing- he believes. He then said that most people choose the route that’s easier – going on a date with no expectations so they don’t get disappointed. I felt called out since I am one of those people. I was doing exactly that, during this date itself.
Living with intention is an ideal way to lead your life. I completely agree that it’s a great idea but we both also acknowledged that it was hard to put into practice. The conversation moved on, with the thought lingering in the back of my mind until our date ended.
Ironically, I found myself picking up a book the very next day, to complete a new goal I set of reading a chapter a day. I opened the book, “Think Like a Monk” by Jay Shetty to find the chapter title glaring back at me with one word, “Intention.”
It’s coincidences like these that often leave us with lessons learned.
In the book, Jay talks about how our intentions have 4 main motivations – fear, desire, duty, and love. He goes on to mention how motivation through fear and desire is unsustainable. It reminded me of my last blog post where I question whether motivation is reliable enough to make us productive when we don’t feel like it. I realized Jay was right. Motivation doesn’t work because our motivations often stem from fear and desire usually. Fear to complete your work before a deadline or desire to succeed and accomplish your goals.
He forced me to rethink my motivations and to get to the root of why I wanted to do anything.
I took my blog as an example. I initially had two previous blogs before this. Both were my safe haven, a place for me to vent my emotions without care when I needed to. A place for me to reflect. They were tools to help me cope throughout the week when I didn’t have therapy. But eventually, I deleted one after the other when they lost their purpose since I no longer needed assistance to manage my emotions.
But why did I create this one?
I discovered that I created this blog with my main driving motivator as desire. I was influenced by social media to have something additional to my 9-to-5 job. To show my creative side and perhaps even with the desire to succeed through it. However, I realized that it’s not a sustainable motivator. I may succeed and get that personal gratification, but I won’t find happiness during the process of creating it or even after I have succeeded with it. Because in reality, wealth and fame were the types of success that were never important to me. It doesn’t make me better than anyone but its about learning more about myself. If money and fame are important to you- by all means, go for it.
So I realized, I needed to change my intention. Just like how my initial intentions for my first blog were not enough for me to commit and motivate to continue those blogs, I needed a different motivation as the root for my intention. I realized I wanted my motivation to be love. Wanting to create out of love and sharing what I learn to help others. I want the root of my intention to be that I keep writing until I’ve changed enough lives. But I won’t deny that it’s hard. Just thinking it, doesn’t make it true. I need to believe it.
I need to be willing to do what it takes to reach the outcome of creating a place of warmth and reliance for people.
What is a goal you are trying to reach now? Why do you want to reach that goal? What is your intention?
Photo by Jack Finnigan on Unsplash
