Feeling Potentially Regretful for Self Actualizing

[soos_mite_ah]

About 5 years ago I decided to dedicate a considerable amount of time to self-improvement and raising the quality of my life internally. The time I dedicated to self-actualization was taken form time I could have spent doing something else. As a result, I didn't do as well in school as I probably could have and sometimes I wonder if I would be more successful if I took a more mainstream route. Some examples that articulate this are the following

•  Instead of pushing myself super hard, I decided to take it a little easier in school so that I have time to contemplate and improve myself. I didn't think that getting caught up in a competitive, dog eat dog mindset would be healthy for me mentally or in terms of my success. I still wanted to take things and enjoy life instead of working myself to the bone at 15. 
• I decided to take on activities that I genuinely enjoyed as opposed to what would make me successful in say college applications. Because of that, I suppose people wouldn't see me as "standing out as a leader" because of the types of activities I was focused in. I mainly focused on things that would make me happy and creative as opposed to something that didn't resonate and/or would have felt forced like debate (I just wasn't into it at the time). 
• During college I immersed myself in therapy and self help work because I was dealing with serious trauma. My logic was that it's best if I dealt with this trauma early on instead of having the trauma sabotage me in the future. I limited the activities I took on in college and the amount of time I spent socializing. In other words I didn't see the typical college experience.
• My college experience was mainly me meditating and contemplating which were much more inward focused rather than doing things that were more outward focus such as socializing. Granted I ran into a handful of personal issues that I felt required me to take more time to myself instead of spread myself too thin, however, I could argue that most people who encounter something like this push through it any way and still focus their energy outwards and don't try to stop and be conscious of what's actually going on inside. At least from what i see, those people have more normal and successful lives but then again, I don't know these people and what's going on in their heads. This might be a case of the grass being greener on the other side. 

I've tried to hold my values and my desire for peace and authenticity over success. If I'm going to be honest, sometimes I don't know if I have made the right decision.  Sometimes I look at people who haven't done this work and wonder if ignorance is bliss. Sometimes I wonder if I would have been more successful and fulfilled if I hadn't spent so much time contemplating and working on myself? Sometimes I also wonder if the work that I have done on myself will actually pay dividends and yield to even more success and fulfillment, may be not now, but down the line. 

What are yall's thoughts on this? Have yall experienced anything similar? Have yall had doubts on whether to continue self actualization in any part of the journey? 

Edited October 6, 2020 by soos_mite_ah

[No Self]

It is understandable to feel this way. And yet, had you instead pursued superficial success, you would no doubt have quickly reached a crisis and regretted having invested solely in conforming to society's definition of 'success'. This is an aspect of the mid-life crisis phenomenon.

There is some sort of balance to be found, as financial independence is invaluable no matter what the life philosophy. Personally I don't care for human admiration, even though the ego loves it, because I have experienced how fleeting and shallow it is.

From this point, it is important to accept the decisions already made and make the best choices today moving forward. You are free to be true to your truest vision right now, which may or may not involve focusing more on worldly success.

[shallotsometimes]

@soos_mite_ah  Yeah, I understand where you're coming from. I busted my ass in school but then I hit a wall and everything fell apart. I had anxiety attacks and wasn't sleeping or eating properly, but I still put school above everything else. Eventually I dropped out because my body was screaming at me to take some time for myself and I could no longer get out of bed. Then the pendulum swung to the other side and didn't want to do anything stressful, just rest and contemplate and read books and study spirituality and psychology (I wanted to figure out what the fuck was wrong with me and was terrified of going through another breakdown). I think the answer lies in the middle somewhere, which honestly sounds like what you did? If you want more success there are ways to work on that now, no? Also maybe those other people who seem more successful will hit a wall, who knows. If you feel like you're missing out on life then engage with life more and do less contemplation and self-inquiry. Just be cautious of pushing yourself too hard or doing things that in your heart you don't want to. A lot of people push through that and realize later that they're miserable or living inauthentic lives. You have to know yourself.

[silene]

Hi @soos_mite_ah  so you're about 20 or 21 years old from your profile?  For the vast majority of us who don't live as hermits or monks/nuns, we need to build a life in society, work on career, relationships etc as well as maybe having spirituality. You're still young enough to turn round your education, although it will be a little harder once you've left school. I can tell you're motivated, but now you need to be laser focussed on what practical & vocational skills you need to develop. 

Leo has done a lot  of videos etc on life purpose, career and relationship development, as well as the spiritual stuff.  Look at some of the older ones - I'm catching up on them myself and just today watching  "The Role Of Balance In Personal Development" from 2017 have you seen it?  I'd say it's worth taking some time to contemplate and journal on what is your best balance in the different areas of your development. Then make a plan to re-balance yourself from where you are now. 

Edited October 7, 2020 by silene

[Mu_]

@soos_mite_ah Yah I totally get where your coming from, for years I agonized over this thought and feelings around it.  In the end, I feel you really can't say what road would of lead to what road, since ultimately you are the road and on the road so to say.  I say no need for regrets and what ifs, you are here now and who knows it could be so much worse, and perhaps even much more worse if you had taken another road

[kag101]

I started to get interested in personal development because I had unresolved emotional traumas (that ended up triggering depression & anxiety).

During college, I was meditating a lot, pursuing enlightenment, etc. It was an overly inward kinda thing. I was basically withdrawing myself from the world. And truth to be told, my practices were not giving me results. I was half-assing self-actualization,

It's as if I was trying to self-medicate my depression through self-help. It didn't work. Only when I started to treat this illness through the traditional approach did I actually start to feel like I was truly self-actualizing.

You mentioned that you did therapy. How did that go? Do you still do it?

 

[soos_mite_ah]

@kag101 I started getting into personal development for similar reasons as well. 

For me, I feel like my college experience was more of a "falling asleep" phase in my life where I focused my life inward instead of making a lot of moves in the external. I took college easier so that I can actually take care of myself and work on myself to set a good foundation for the rest of life going forward. That was my intent anyway. 

As for high school, I did work pretty hard but I still made sure that I had a good amount of time to just get to know myself. I didn't necessarily neglect material success but in my mind, sometimes I feel like I could have achieved externally more if I did more work and less actualizing.

I know that I grew as a person internally immensely in the last few years, but sometimes I doubt the actual utility of this. Would I have been more efficient and successful if I did something else or is this setting a good foundation that will be helpful down the line even though I am not seeing the all of the value straight away.  

Therapy is going pretty well. Right now, therapy supplements and complements my meditation habits and whatever I'm working on with self-help. For me, I think it's a good idea to have a professional by my side to make sure I don't go off the deep end since sometimes I do deal with some heavy stuff and so that I have someone as a sounding board for my insights.

Edited October 8, 2020 by soos_mite_ah

[soos_mite_ah]

@Mu_ I forgot who said this but someone once said that "There is no such thing as what could have been."

I suppose I need more balance in my life regarding internal and external forms of self help. 

[Mu_]

@soos_mite_ah maybe you need less forms of help and more forms of just getting out and having fun ?

[Setzer901]

@soos_mite_ah

I have been through what you are saying (and in some ways I still go through it). It can get pretty painful going within, what with all the fear and false beliefs we carry. I think a huge part of it for me was also that I had been through so much in life that to get out of it, I had no choice but to turn to the allure of self improvement. 

Sometimes I have had the feeling that my life was better off without it. But I was a kid who was bullied, rejected and considered a loser, self improvement and self-actualization was an escape from hell. 

I also think that the contemplation and the introspection we do now now serves us later. A lot of people haven't grappled with these concepts and they may well realize in their 50s and 60s that they wasted away life and are no where close to grasping its true purpose and meaning. I think the work that we do now will pay off in spades later. 

[Nahm]

@soos_mite_ah

Does your usage of the term ‘self actualization’ refers to the top (shown here in purple), or the whole pyramid? 

[soos_mite_ah]

11 minutes ago, Nahm said:

@soos_mite_ah

Does your usage of the term ‘self actualization’ refer to the top (shown here in purple), or the whole pyramid? 

I would say that it is concentrated at the top purple section so that I have a higher purpose/ values to guide me, incorporates about half of the green section in order to integrate self love, and the red section so that I can take care of my basic physiological needs. 

I suppose I feel this way because I have been neglecting the orange and the yellow parts in order to pour my energy towards the other sections. 

[Nahm]

@soos_mite_ah

Your response reveals much more emotional intelligence & maturity then I think you might be generally giving yourself credit for when it comes to the yellow and orange. I do not believe you have wasted time, I believe you are yet to recognize the deeper long term value of how you spent that time. There is natural genuine interest, passion & inspiration for purple and green. Not to compare, but to draw this out a little, how many 15 years olds have self actualization on their mind radar at all? 

One practical direct approach might be...how to bring that feeling (interest, passion, inspiration) to yellow & orange so they are not, as you say, neglected. 

If there was one more triangle above that pyramid, at the very top, entitled ‘my dream life’ - and you brazenly expressed it - what would it look like? (Not necessarily asking you to share it) Put another way, what is your dream for this life which is so exciting, so intoxicatingly inspiring for you - that you are waking up every day excited about watching it unfold - just this scrumptious little part - on this one day? This is a slightly different lens, in that what could otherwise be experienced as ‘mundane’ in the day to day, the ‘grind as a means to an end’, is instead recognized to be the very creating and unfolding of your life dream.

The ‘seeing’ of it, and the feeling of it, before ‘it’ is physically ‘here’ - is the seeing of your dream, and is consciously creating. This is often expressed as the joy is the journey, rather than the arrival at the destination. We tend to lean towards thinking in those destination-will-make-me-happy terms...yet upon arriving at our ‘destinations’, we again & again see that we have already created new dreams, of new destinations. So it can rightfully be said imo, that satisfaction is in this very recognition, and never in a future destination, future feeling, or future recognition.  

If you zoom out, it is clear that you would not actually want to, say, take all the awesome experiences you’ll enjoy for the rest of your entire life - and experience them all at once in one day. What is really desired, is presence, or, unconditionally experiencing this ‘part’, this slab of the path which is now,  for what is is, as it is, that it is, via seeing the holon, or, that this ‘part’ of the path is actually simultaneously the whole of experience. That this, is my dream unfolding.

The feeling of that, is greater than the feeling of any thing, relationship, arrival or destination. It is that which makes all ‘good & bad days’ - great days. Precious, even. 

Just a suggestion... I would draw an empty pyramid on a blank piece of paper, and fill it in with the specifics of your dream, in correlation to the color coded sections of Maslow’s pyramid. 

One general example might be, I want a relationship (yellow), and my own place to experience it in (orange). 

Or perhaps, I want a room just for (orange) my canvases, paints, sketchpads, etc (purple).

Or, I want a house (orange), so I can have sex (yellow) when I (we lol) want to (purple; spontaneity). 

(Fill in with your interests obviously)

The experiences you already naturally want...and how they relate to the yellow & orange, stands to infuse yellow & orange, with the infallible awesomeness of youness, and the purple & green already ‘under your belt’. (Imo)

 

Dreaming the life you actually want, expressing it & seeing it daily (such as on a dreamboard) brings limiting beliefs into the light. It helps us see that there is truth to ‘no one is stopping you’ / we only get in our own way. It teaches us to let go, it shows us how we create identities and in some ways pull the past into now...and this brings the only real teacher, the source of it all, viscerally into the living of our lives. There is no thing better, imo. 

From a proactive standpoint, this can be expedited. You could consider revisiting your op, and looking at (we all do it) your pendulum swinging. Look for views in which certain things are thought to be more ‘extremes’. Look to what the other side of that pendulum swing could be, and most often, this sheds light on any ‘barriers’ we’re holding.