I realize that the title of this post seems to be contradicting itself, but I submit to you that this is not the case, and there is some logic to the paradox. By all means I'm sure there is some flaws to my thinking, but as always my purpose when I write down these somewhat strange ramblings is to get the mental gears engaged, and hopefully polish my own thoughts on this matter.

img src

An internal system of value

I think this one is quite easy to grasp, because all of us have participated of these dynamics at some point in time. It's inevitable, and it's ingrained in our socio-financial system as to become second nature for us. In many ways you could say it dictates many of our actions, and that would be very accurate without a doubt.

Things that come too easy, things that require no effort, that have no struggle are intrinsically worthless. This might seem like an attack on kindness, or a hug, but that is not what I'm talking about here, that's not the mental road I'm walking on. You see, one of the many reasons why we value money so much in society for example, is because of how difficult it can be to acquire it. If it grew on trees, like the old saying goes, we probably would care very little about the green paper notes.

This internal system of valuation is programmed in us, and it probably starts from a very early age. If we do our chores, we get a treat, if we our homework, we get to watch TV, etc. The idea is that anything we like, anything we value, must have a cost, and without it, we would take it for granted and in some situations lose interest all together.

Defining Accomplishment

Very much connected to our sense of self worth and to our ego. When we overcome adversity, when we defeat the monster, so to speak, we drench ourselves in positive emotions. Why? Because the accomplishment validates our worth, and it also justifies the sacrifices like nothing else.

In other words, the pain we might have felt when enduring the bad times, gives us the contrast to really appreciate the payout when things turn around. This could apply to so many things in life, it could apply to athletes, it could apply to entrepreneurs and of course Investors. The idea is simple, and we have experienced it ourselves.

"This moment made all the crap worth it"

I'm sure I've said such a phrase countless times, and before I get ready to kick the bucket, many more will come. We could speculate it's a mental system of emotional pain control, but maybe that's just an element on the whole picture.

Evolutionary Psychology

Every single time my mind goes down these rabbit holes I end up making a stop on here. Simply because there has to be a reason for us to have developed these mechanisms. In other words, if they did not help us in any way, if they did not contribute to our survival thousands of years ago, then we would not be here today, or at least we would not display these behavioral traits.

In other words, if "needing to struggle" was not a thing we needed, redundancy aside, then we would have a completely different way of valuing things, valuing our life, even valuing memories. So with this in mind, I've somewhat theorized why this could be the case.

History tells us that society got safe, or at least safe enough in just recent times. If we were to go back just a couple hundred years, people would die just because of a tooth infection. So, it's not outrageous for me to call that part of history as difficult.

However, if we go back even more, thousands of years, all the way to the beginning of our social structures, I'm sure that we would see that at no point in time humans have experienced a time of pure bliss, a time when nothing was wrong, no problems needed solving, and everything came to us easy.

This indicates, at least to me, that we've developed these systems of valuation and post-appreciation as a way to pummel through the hard times and survive the harshest of situations. Our brain has been programmed to overcome, and it probably doesn't know how to function in any other way.

Could we erase millenia of social programming within just a few generations? Maybe, but I heavily doubt that we can. And when I see some of the social anxieties we encounter today in our safer world through this lens, I find myself understand why people with seemingly no problems, are so depressed.

I've met more than once in my life people who create problems, just so that they can fix them and thus experience the system of self valuation I'm describing. Needless to say as an observant of humanity this can be frustrating, but I'm also fascinated by our silly quirks.

Why am I writing about this, you ask?

Maybe because I'm in the middle of experiencing this myself, this whole year has been a struggle. However, it seems that finally the waters are starting to clear, the pressure is starting to come off my back, and the end of the worse is finally here.

So, I'm sitting here pounding away at these keys pondering on this internal system of valuation I'm discussing here, while at the same time laughing at myself a bit. Because no matter how much I think I understand everything, I'll never be immune to my silly humanity.