Why Are You Here?
Do you ever find yourself wishing you were somewhere else? Or doing something else? Or with someone else?
Inevitably, we all end up in situations we’d rather not be in.
Say you’re at a friend’s birthday party, and you don’t know most other guests. You approach a couple of groups, but the conversations are about mutual friends or topics you know little about. You feel bored and you start thinking “Well, this isn’t super enjoyable. What if I’d stayed home to read that new book I bought today…”
Or maybe you’re on a hike with your family. You can’t stop yourself from thinking about how oppressive the sun is or how annoying all the bugs are. Or perhaps you stayed up late last night and can feel exhaustion creeping in. Just imagine how comfortable a hot bath would be right now…
If you’ve ever experienced this form of escapism (and I bet you have), you know it can go quite far, if you let it. Sometimes everything about my current circumstances makes me feel like shit. My mood is affected, which makes me feel worse about whatever’s going on. A self-perpetuating cycle of shittiness is set in motion, with consequences for both myself and those around me.
Unfortunately, I find myself in this Feedback Loop From Hell often, although considerably less now that I know how to spot it.
To clarify, I am not referring to the physical condition you are in, but rather the mental experience at that moment — the thoughts and emotions stemming from being there and then.
This is important because your physical condition has nothing to do with the experience I described. Your experience of not wanting to be in a room has nothing to do with the people in it, and everything to do with your attitude towards your current condition.
Where does this emotional cocktail of disappointment, anger, and resentment come from in the first place?
I believe it’s a conflict between reality and your expectations towards it. It’s a clash between what you want and what is. Between desire and being.
There are a million others ways I can phrase this idea, but I think you get me. Acknowledging and finding ways to handle this conflict is a central theme in the self-help literature. And for good reason — it’s a fundamental mechanism behind many of the negative feelings that we experience.
Resolving this conflict (or finding ways to make peace with it) is an important step towards escaping those spirals of negative emotion. However, here’s my issue with a lot of the conversation around this topic: knowing you have to fix something doesn’t necessarily help you do so.
The Practice
If what I discussed so far helps you more reliably identify this feeling, that’s great. But I think many of you are already at the stage of awareness and need to move on to the stage of action.
With this in mind, I want to share a simple practice that helps me deal with the feeling of not wanting to be somewhere. It is neither a panacea, nor the “one thing that will massively change your life”, but I think you’ll find it useful.
The practice I am referring to is incredibly simple. Whenever you become aware of this feeling, hit the mental brakes by asking yourself — “Why am I here?”
Why have I chosen to be where I am now? What is my motivation?
There is always one, whether or not you are aware of it in the moment. Just listen out for it.
Maybe you’re really bored at the party, but you know attending will make your friend happy, and seeing them smile brings you joy as well. Maybe your hike is sweaty and tiring, but the reason you came along in the first place was to marvel at the panoramic views that you wouldn’t get anywhere else.
Consistently answering this question relies on your self-awareness about your own motivations. If you have already cultivated this vital skill, that’s great. If you don’t think you have, that’s OK. Adopting this practice will help you develop this type of awareness.
Once you do come up with an answer, you will realize one of two things.
(1) The reason you are here is something meaningful and worthwhile.
The sources of your anxiety will seem insignificant compared to what you care about. The tension will dissipate and you will become grateful for being there.
(2) The reason you are here is something you don’t care about.
Without judgment towards yourself and others, you will either leave and find a more meaningful use of your time, or more likely, you will move your attention towards a different aspect of your environment. The sources of discontent will still exist, but you will not give them nearly as much importance, focusing on something you find interesting instead.
When you are dissatisfied with a situation, you will find yourself immobilized (to borrow some terminology from Wayne Dyer). This practice helps you avoid immobilization by either immersing yourself in the moment or changing either your physical or mental condition.
Another way to think about what this exercise does is that it brings clarity to your decision-making. By elucidating your intentions and motivations, you can make better choices about yourself and be more content with their consequences. This is what I meant when talking about the self-awareness this practice can help you develop.
Make It Useful
I will not deny the fact that much of what I have talked about, and the way I have talked about it, is related to mindfulness. One of the benefits of mindfulness that I, and many others, have observed is an increased ability to calmly approach situations in your everyday life and be more emotionally resilient.
That is absolutely what this practice can help you achieve. It’s useful in all kinds of situations, and I’ve found it particularly good for all manner of social encounters.
The self-awareness you will develop is a useful skill, but even on its own, the practice is a great tool for hijacking negative thought cycles and getting more out of your present moments.
As always, what I would love most is for you to try it out. See if it works. If it doesn’t — change it. Look for a better way to make it useful for yourself. Or come back and tell me how wrong I am.
This is my best attempt at explaining my own experience with this practice. There is likely a lot I’m missing and that is individual to you. While not providing any answers, I hope this might serve as a cautious guide in your own life.
If you have any thoughts, I’d love to hear them. Feel free to leave a comment or get in touch.
Your attention is valuable. Thank you for reading!
