Utopia Syndrome
My life is always surrounded by a kind of floating anxiety. Now I am still sitting at the desk typing words from ten years ago, living in the city I lived in ten years ago, and walking on the streets that existed ten years ago. All of this makes me feel a kind of emptiness, as if everything is nothing. Change, and my growth has no meaning, because it is still the same as in the past. It is this familiarity that scares me, and this sameness makes me feel like life is like a cage. My biggest fear is that everyone else has moved on and I'm still struggling here. Why do I think the teaching profession is scary? Actually, it’s because I see waves of people leaving this place and your new life will never begin. But this is just my opinion, and my opinion is biased.
Did the distance never exist or my life never began.
I don’t like to always live in one place, I don’t like to look at the same scenery every day, and I don’t like to have the same inescapable feeling every day. I don't like this feeling of being old yet not yet experiencing youth. For seven years, I felt that the future would be better, and the future did not come. Until now, the youngest ten years of my life are coming to an end. I don’t know if the future will come, but I know that I have locked myself in. Seven years.
What is my first obsession? I thought I could be beautiful and that I didn't deserve happiness until I achieved true beauty.
What is my second obsession? I think as long as you become beautiful, you can have a wonderful love and a wonderful career.
What is my third obsession? The future has not come yet, the present is not important, the present is just a bridge to the future.
Take the matter of becoming more beautiful as an example. My automatic consciousness always thinks that only beautiful people can get love, and only thin people can be beautiful. I want to wear high heels and paint nail polish. I want to wear a skirt, put on makeup, wear earrings, and dress up very feminine, but I haven't done any of this. I'm waiting, I'm waiting for the day when I become thinner, because when I become thinner, I can become thinner. If I become beautiful, I can do these things. These things can only be done after I become beautiful. But this is actually a paradox in itself, isn’t it? Do you think doing these things will make you more beautiful, or do you do these things because you will become more beautiful? And this is just the first endless cycle of youth.
What is the second infinite loop? Only by becoming more interesting and charming and knowing how to get along with others can I make more friends, but is this really the case? Do people make more friends as they become more interesting and attractive, or do they become more knowledgeable and attractive after making more friends?
The third paradox in my life comes from the fact that I believe that a person should be allowed to work in this field only if he is outstanding in one field and truly loves what he does. . So my job always made me feel insecure because I didn't love my job that much and I wasn't great at what I did.
The ultimate paradox in my life may be that people must follow their own passions in life. People must have their own career in this life. The career they love must be found and they must find what they like to do. things and get it done. These questions have always bothered me and made me feel at a loss in life. I suddenly realized that when I saw the term Utopia Syndrome yesterday, I saw the term Utopia Syndrome in the book "Change - Problem Process and Solution Principles".
The utopian syndrome mentioned in the book means that when people face problems, if they think that they have found or can find the final and most perfect solution, they will easily fall into extremism, and Under such circumstances, people will continue to want to achieve that goal, and people who behave like this have utopian syndrome. There are two elements of utopian syndrome as I understand it. One is having unrealistic expectations for unexpected things and firmly believing that such expectations are no problem. The other is that situations that are not originally a problem are considered not to be. There is always a better way to improve the optimal state, and once you become obsessed with it, you fall into utopian syndrome.
The book says that there are three types of utopian syndrome. The first type is introjection. In this case, people suffer as if they are unable to achieve their goals, and they feel that their inability to achieve such goals is due to personal deficiencies. As a result, if the goal is utopian, then the very act of setting the goal will lead to the failure to achieve the goal. He will not blame the ideality of the goal, but only his own incompetence. For example, people feel that their lives should be richer and more rewarding, but they just live in boredom. This situation is actually reflected in me very well. I think youth should be free and happy. I have put a label on youth, and I am constantly adding content to this label. For example, I think young people should travel around the world instead of being restricted to work. Young people should dress up and gather with interesting people, and participate in different activities every day, whether it is dancing, getting drunk, or traveling, they should be bold and bold. Try, youth is neither repetitive nor boring. It would be better if I could become famous at a young age. And why can't I become famous at a young age and be handsome? It may be ridiculous to say it, but maybe this is the illusion that keeps frustrating yourself subconsciously.
The second type of utopian syndrome is simply the belief that the future is infinitely beautiful, but it has not yet been reached, and that trekking with hope is better than reaching the destination. Let me use myself as an example. When I was young, I watched idol dramas and thought that if the heroine was so beautiful, I would be beautiful when I grow up. Even if I don’t look good now, it doesn’t matter, I will become beautiful in the future. When I was a child, my idols were all older than me. When I was a child, I thought I would become them when I grow up. When I grew up, I discovered that this was not the case. At this time, instead of cutting off my unrealistic fantasies, I felt that the future had not yet arrived, and one day I would become like that. So I spent an uneventful seven years waiting. Blindly pursuing the impossible makes those things that are possible become impossible.
The third form of utopian syndrome is projective. The transmissive point of view actually believes that the current state that I cannot reach is not my own problem, nor is it the unreasonable premise, but the problem is It is the fault of others, and others should be responsible for this result. It is my parents who did not provide me with a better environment, and it was my parents who did not allow me to receive a better education. It is the rules and restrictions set by society that hinder me. I refuse to take responsibility and pass the responsibility to others. Just like I always complain about why I didn’t look good when I was born, and why my parents didn’t give me better resources.
The intricate intertwining of these three things makes me feel very unhappy. I lack the power to live in the present and the ability to feel the present. This scarcity makes me always have something. A diffuse unhappiness. So how should we deal with such unhappiness?
First, decide if this is a problem, is anxiety something that shouldn’t exist, is it possible for life to be colorful every moment, is boredom really unbearable and shouldn’t exist? Debate the problem at its root and question the original assumption at its root. Whether boredom and calmness are the norm in life, becoming a talented person is an accident.
Second, start from actual problems instead of spending time in meaningless pursuits. For example, if you feel that life is not rich, then start from the world, make more attempts, and slide Skateboard, go play ball, go watch the NBA, wear high heels, put on makeup, do all the actual executable actions.
Third, use an unconventional means to break the current balance, reframe the problem, and seek second-order changes. I still don’t know what the changes in the second sequence are, and I need to continue to understand them.