December 2023.
I've made a lot of mistakes in my life.
What pains me the most is that many were repeated mistakes, where I felt seemingly unable to win, being stuck in some cycle for a long period of time.
I've then come to realize that in my case, repeated mistakes might mean that I've developed 'bad habits', and that I need to do the work to replace such 'bad habits' with better habits, which would then allow me to move on from making the same mistakes.
However, upon further reflection, I've realized that there is a deeper root cause in regards to these bad habits, which I can discern as two roots: personal identity and willingness to embrace the hard things.
You might ask, why is it important to do such an introspective analysis, when time might be better spent doing more seemingly productive things? In my case, I'll make a bold assumption that many habits that I've developed all stem from the same root causes, and that directly solving these two root causes would yield noticeable changes in my day-to-day being.
Let's start with identity. I believe that deep down, we all chase a 'dream person' or a character that we want to be. Perhaps it could be a successful executive running a global company, or living in a country house herding sheep in the Alps, or a charismatic and professional-looking leader of a level of government. However, I'll make another bold assumption that we tend to dilute the glorious aspects of these dream personas over time as we grow up; in a sense compromising our identity in order to conform with the social network or environment around us.
While some change of identity can be valid in the long run (i.e. from a 'greedy person' to a 'benefactor'), generally change of identity over time leads to lowering standards as not to appear to self-centered. I agree that humility is a virtue, though one should not confuse being humble with lowering standards across all aspects of one's personal identity. Thus, my take on identity is to be self-aware of what your true identity is, how far your embodied (current) identity has strayed from your true identity, and what changes you should make to actively return to your true identity.
Consider an Olympic athlete. Their identity is "I am an Olympic athlete", and thus have standards to meet in all aspects of life, from work ethic to physical health and choice of activities. In order to reinforce your identity, I find that self-affirmations (out loud, if possible) to be useful. However, self-affirmations do not work overnight, and are an act that takes consistent practice over time in order to truly be effective.
Be aware of existing self-affirmations that you already make. Negative affirmations like "I'm so dumb" or "I can't make it" automatically disqualify and disincentivize you from pursuing tasks. Replace these negative affirmations with positive, constructive ones; every small step makes a difference.
The second root cause involves embracing suffering. Think of all the small moments of suffering or pain that you've endured: the mental fatigue and boredom you face when studying long hours; the fear of pursuing difficult conversations; the commitments you need to make for personal health (i.e. undergoing a blood test that involves an intravenous component) - just to name a few. I call these the hard things: essentially things that are unpleasant, big or small.
People tend to dislike the hard things, and would rather settle for comfort or enjoyment. When you're on the commuter bus heading home, if you own a cell phone, odds are that you'll be on your phone scrolling news feeds. (At least what I've seen probability wise when taking public transit.) Even if reading a book or getting ahead on work tasks would be a much better use of time, odds are that you'll simply revert to social media because it's the most comforting thing to do. And by extension, when you embrace these hard things one at a time, you progressively replace bad habits with better ones.
I could easily stop the essay here and conclude that (1) self-awareness and deliberate reinforcement of your true personal identity and (2) a willingness to embrace hard things are sufficient to correct a wide array of bad habits, which could lead you to make less of the same repeated mistakes. However, I want to take this essay into another direction by further reflecting on the idea of embracing hard things, for I think there is much we can learn on this topic in addition to only fixing mistakes.
My reference point for hard things is only my life in this world, and I don't know if this tendency to pursue comfort is a 21st century type of behavior (being amplified by mass media and social media), or rather a behavior that is present across history (and thus, part of human nature). Which ever the case may be, I strongly believe that a willingness to embrace the hard things makes life much more meaningful.
The most direct benefit of embracing the hard things is obtaining results for self-improvement. One example that I've learned the hard way in school is about learning classical mechanics. In engineering, a large part of the curriculum is about solving problems in classical mechanics (for example, thermodynamics). However, the only way to get good at solving problems is to practice head-first. I tried shortcuts (such as blindly transcribing solutions, or just defining variables and forcing an analytical relationship via algebraic manipulations) - but the only way to fully master solving classical mechanics problems is to look at the question, and write out the problem steps by hand, line-by-line, one problem after the next.
I feel our social surroundings play an important role in getting some fundamental habits right - proper etiquette when greeting someone, personal hygiene acts (i.e. brushing teeth every morning; or making sure that you're odorless in a public setting). These are habits that require you to force yourself to do: it is much more comfortable to simply not do these tasks that require expending extra energy, but I would assume that growing up, social interactions around you did a good job at enforcing them. On the other hand, there are likely many habits that we just know growing up. Habits like eating, drinking and walking just happen naturally, and develop in parallel with habits forced by social surroundings.
The main issue is that both social surroundings and human biology develop just enough habits to survive in a social network of people (by selectively embracing certain hard things), but yet do not force embracing hard things outside of this sufficient boundary.
But there are additional benefits to be gained by embracing the hard things, other than just self-improvement. Consider the collection of hard things in your every day life: the boredom and stress scattered throughout the day, the stress and discomfort from personal challenges you might face, and the periodic passing of time akin to Sisyphus' eternal boulder-rolling act. Yet, embracing these hard things first one may allow you to open new opportunities and perspectives. If you feel unsatisfied with your job and climbing the corporate ladder, perhaps there's another career or calling you can pursue that can be a quantum leap in terms of who you will become in a few years' time. Embracing hard things is analogous to changing your life.
Another benefit from embracing the hard things is that hard things are universal. We all experience hard things in life: from unpleasant activities at work (i.e. the evening shifts at a local restaurant I worked at, where you mop the floors and clean the washrooms almost every night), to more serious things like large personal setbacks, and a fear of death. A literal description of these aspects may not be so fulfilling, but a deeper, analytical conversation about these hard things means having a much deeper understanding of who we are as humans, for the hard things are a unifying part of the human experience. Thus, a collective understanding of how to navigate the shared hard things correlates to a greater appreciation of what it means to be human.
There's nothing wrong with pursuing a hedonistic approach to living.
But a deeper self-reflection on your true personal identity; and a willingness to embrace the hard things makes you realize what it means to be human, and to live the human experience during our time in this world.