This post originally appeared onWait But Why.
Her name was Alana and within an hour, she was everything to me.
You’re not even sure what you want from the situation.
There’s just this amorphous yearning that’s a part of your life, and that’s that.
When she asked me, it was a no-brainer.
Each person she told covered their mouth with uncontrollable laughter.
If she knew what a restraining order was, she’d have taken one out.
Back then, being part of a tribe was critical to survival.
A tribe meant food and protection in a time when neither was easy to come by.
Being socially accepted waseverything.
Let’s call that obsession a human’s Social Survival Mammoth.
And that was all well and fine in 50,000 BC.
But something funny has happened for humans in the last 10,000 yearstheir civilization hasdramaticallychanged.
Why else would you try on four outfits and still not be sure what to wear before going out?
Why else would you be such animage-crafting douchebagon Facebook?
Or brag when you’re out with friends even though you always regret it later?
Your Authentic Voice, somewhere in there, knows all about you.
Your AV is also someone the mammoth tends to ignore entirely.
A strong opinion from a confident person in the outside world?
The mammoth is all ears.
But a passionate plea from your AV is largely dismissed until someone else validates it.
Which makes it shrink and fade and lose motivation.
Eventually, a mammoth-run person can lose touch with their AV entirely.
In tribal times, AVs often spent their lives in quiet obscurity, and this was largely okay.
Life was simple, and conformity was the goaland the mammoth had conformity covered just fine.
Who you are becomes some blend of the strongest opinions around you.
Likewise, you know those people who react to being criticized by coming back with a nasty low-blow?
That’s the only way to take our lives back.
Others die without ever reining their mammoth in at all, spending their whole lives at its whim.
You spend time with a lot of peoplewhich of them do you actually like the most?
How do you spend your leisure time, and do you truly enjoy all parts of it?
Is there anything you regularly spend money on that you don’t feel that comfortable with?
How does your gut really feel about your job and relationship status?
What’s your true political opinion?
Do you even care?
Do you pretend to care about things you don’t just to have an opinion?
What parts of your life do you think about and a dreadful, sinking feeling washes over you?
Where does the prospect of failure seem like a nightmare?
What are you too timid to publicly try even though you know you’re good at it?
Are you terrified of disappointing your parents and do you choose making them proud over aiming to gratify yourself?
Do you get too excited about being associated with prestigious things or care too much about status?
Do you brag more than you should?
Is there a Puppet Master in your life?
If so, who, and why?
Deeply understanding thisandinternalizingitis a key step to taming yours.
People are highly self-absorbed.
If I try really hard, I can yo everyone.
Yes, maybe in a 40-person tribe with a unified culture.
Being approved of by one key in of person means turning another off.
Being disapproved of or looked down upon or shit-talked about has real consequences in my life.
Really judgy people matter.
When people shit-talk, they set up a category division of which they’re always on the rightside.
They do this to prop themselves up on a pedestal that their mammoth can chomp away on.
You’re not a bad person for being whoever your Authentic Voice is in your one life.
They’re allowing their mammoth to override their love for you, and they should be adamantly ignored.
B) You and everyone you know are going to die.
The mammoth’s fears being irrational is one reason the mammoth has a low IQ.
Here’s the second:
- The mammoth’s efforts are counterproductive.
The irony of the whole thing is that the obsessive lumbering mammoth isn’t even good at his job.
Here’s why:
AVs are interesting.
Mammoths are boring.Every AV is unique and complex, which is inherently interesting.
That’s supremely boring.
Mammoths, on the other hand, followby definition.
That’s what they were built to doblend in and follow the leader.
People with a strong AV see through mammoth-controlled people and aren’t attracted to them.
In other words, he was being run too much by a mammoth.
But actuallydoingsomething after you finish reading this article is a whole different thing.
That takes more than reflectionit takes some courage.
But courage againstwhat,exactly?
Your mammoth has now lost its ability to pull the strings, and it’s tamed.
Making this shift isn’t easy for anyone, but it’s worth obsessing over.
Illustrations by Wait But Why.
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