Published
I’ve been thinking about obsessions and how they materialize. Things we want, achievements we need, people we admire, attention we crave. I only just realized that a fixation is almost always a sign that the call is coming from inside the house. It’s never actually about the thing. Or maybe it is, but not entirely. Here’s what I mean: Pining for a certain accolade is likely less about the accolade and more about a gaping hole inside that an achievement would supposedly fill. A salve for a scar. An ointment for an insecurity. Maybe it helps, maybe it’s worth it, but it will never satiate without acknowledging the real thing that’s screaming. The one that’s urging the running and chasing.
I know chasing. I’ve felt the high of a hot pursuit—running after anything that would provide even a brief moment of confidence—and I know what the withdrawal feels like once it’s over. I’ve latched onto quests and spun narratives around how I would feel if only I were better, prettier, more successful. I’ve participated in an endless race of comparison mind games. I don’t know walking nearly as well. It's feels unfamiliar and strange to enjoy walking because a slower pace once felt intolerable. Stillness meant accepting the quiet solitude that settles in when any race is over and falling into the subsequent spiral of thoughts around what I’m lacking. It meant withstanding a barrage of beliefs around not being enough.
Yet, on a few occasions in recent years, I’ve felt the relief of sitting out that old routine. I’ve exhaled while walking—shrugging off the temptation to run, dismissing the thought patterns that once led me to sprint. Instead I’ve been faced with a vague and unfamiliar indifference. It’s not the depressing kind, but a sense of, eh, that’s not it. Go ahead, I already went there, or tried to go there, or got close and didn’t like it at all. I already ran out of breath only to feel brief exuberance and then find that the trophy was completely irrelevant to what I actually needed, or what I was trying to feel. So I’m just going to walk a little.
If I had to guess where this sense of relief comes from, I would say it’s time and getting to the finish line a few times and seeing the way the metaphorical sausage is made, and then realizing it’s not even that good. Maybe I can make the sausage at home or skip it altogether. The sausage being the job, the person, the invitation—anything that would supposedly immunize me against the criticisms of my own mind, the very berating and blaming that hurried me toward a mirage of validation.
The truth is that, at first, walking is harder than chasing. Sitting and thinking is more difficult than moving with inertia. Rewiring my belief systems is much more challenging than mindlessly obeying an internalized narrative that implies the way I feel is inextricably linked to whatever thing I’m chasing, be it a deadline or a beauty standard or vague source of reassurance. I guess what I’m saying is, it’s much easier to run toward an object or person or byline or compliment or applause—one that might distract from what is actually a long-held and deeply-rooted pain—than it is to stop and realize that pain doesn’t need an external thing; it needs you.
I still chase, but I have to do it differently now. I still clock myself obsessing over a figurative finish line, but I pause before I start because sheer panic doesn’t work like it used to, although it is a hell of a good motivator. Shame doesn’t move me like it once did. Its story—the one that implies my livelihood is tied to my work and appearances and output—doesn’t feel as true. Those old incentives all exist somewhere and get loud when I let them, but they’re sounding less like commands from a domineering coach and more like the incorrect instructions one might receive from a child—earnest but useless and sometimes even endearing and laughable.
Any reason to move faster now starts with a question that may or may not sound the gun. Why do I want this thing? What is it solving or why does it matter? Who am I comparing myself to and why? Can I see where this is going? Do I like this work? The people? This feeling?
Nothing is more motivating than chasing for the sake of proving someone wrong. I’ve done that and I know the satisfaction and victory of living well and doing well just to show them. I guess I’m asking, what happens when you feel like you’ve already shown them? When your motives change? When an obsession starts to look less like a shiny object and more like a reflective surface? When you see through your own tendency to chase only to catch yourself—the one you were after the whole time—redhanded?
Maybe there are seasons for walking and seasons for running. Maybe it’s okay to pursue an external thing for an internal salve. I just never want to run with a blindfold on ever again.
