Life update! I moved to New York :)
I’m taking biomolecular engineering at nyu, and am living in brooklyn.
I’ve been thinking about higher and lower motivations. Why do we do the things we do? What’s the best intention to have in your heart as you go about life?
I seriously do feel like I’m rediscovering lessons I’ve already come across time and time again when watching movies. Only now, I’m truly understanding them because this time, I’ve actually lived through their consequences and outcomes.
Surprise: character matters more than accomplishments, competence, or anything else.
In this day and age, it IS hard to keep up and cultivate good character. Extremely hard. If you’ve watched The Good Place, you’ll find that attaining moral perfection is impossible. So what extent of moral ratio do you have to keep up to be able to sleep soundly at night? We humans are flawed, flawed creatures.
If the law of entropy applies to morality, then it follows that the more complicated our lives get, the messier the decisions we’ll probably have to face, and the more opportunity we’ll have to get things wrong. I’ve been having trouble the most with the following moral qualms:
keeping promises - there are some promises I haven’t kept to some people, and it bugs me internally endlessly
replying late to people - disrespect of their time
not telling the truth all the time - sometimes i lie or overexaggerate things, accidentally, mostly to save face, and then afterwards, I feel shame
truly doing things out of the right motivation - I want to want to do things out of service and love, more than anything else, but I seem to get fuelled the most by competition, spite, desire, and insecurity.
Things I need to forgive in people more:
doing things out of their self-interest, which results in unfavorable circumstances to me
I believe that every human is a work in progress, though some are further ahead on the path than others. To those, I want to ask: is there a point in time, where you seriously feel absolved for every misdeed you’ve ever done?
There’s a tweet by Visakanv:
https://x.com/visakanv/status/1396399317083070470?s=20
about how “you are not a bad person, you are just incompetent”
and maybe that’s just it huh..
Theory I learned recently— the four motivations and energies of why we do anything are:
fear - insecurity
duty and love - Duty is the motivator of gratitude, responsibility, and the desire to do the right thing. Love is what motivates us out of our care for others and the urge to help them.
desire - success or material wealth
Make sure your ratios are balanced, and do your best to keep your character in a world where this really is extremely hard to do.
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3 favorite substack posts I read this week:
Book I’m currently reading:
Paper Belt on Fire
Kind of an ironic book to read as I’m starting university. Possibly a reflection on this coming soon!
Have a happy week,
Mia