Maybe You’re Not Actually Trying

Saved by anna and

I’d recommend assuming there’s some area of your life where you are, without realizing it, frozen in time, and that locating it matters quite a bit. Look across the three theaters of your life: work, relationships, and self-relationship, and take note of the biggest issues you face. Know that you might be looking for something that doesn’t feel... See more

Cate Hall • Maybe You’re Not Actually Trying

I think we are all like this. People are not just high-agency or low-agency in a global sense, across their entire lives. Instead, people are selectively agentic.

Let’s say that life is divided up into three theaters: work, relationships with others (all kinds) and relationship to self (physical health, introspection, emotional development, all of... See more

Cate Hall • Maybe You’re Not Actually Trying

Know that you might be looking for something that doesn’t feel like an issue — it might just feel like sadness or anger , like the sadness of not being seen, or the frustration of not feeling like your work is meaningful. Once you’ve surfaced something, ask yourself: Have I done my best to come up with a set of potential solutions, using all the... See more

Cate Hall • Maybe You’re Not Actually Trying

EElla Jefferies

I never have really tried to actually give art a go, because I’ve always been too scared of failing and not able to deal with my expectations of perfection not being met.
Stepping towards this would bring on a whole other string of issues, like when the clown pull out the handkerchief, and then it just keeps going and going.

Im noticing that when each year passes, the feeling of deep regret is incrementally inflating inside my stomach - slowly spreading like a noxious gas that might take over my whole body and eventually ill retch the creativity out of me. The source of this regret is the idea that I could go my whole life without actualising any of my creative endeavours with my full, unrestrained devotion.

And what hurts even more is that I go on living my life in denial of what I actually want to pursue all because of something as trivial as the internalised fear of failing.

There is a relevant concept from Alexander Technique that I love, “faulty sensory appreciation,” which I learned about from Michael Ashcroft. The concept is that habitual tension distorts your sensory impressions—rigid stillness via bodily tension starts to feel like “good posture,” whereas relaxed uprightness feels strange, to the extent you might... See more

Cate Hall • Maybe You’re Not Actually Trying

It seems like, by default, you are stuck with whatever level of resourcefulness you brought to a problem the first time you encountered it and failed to fix it.

Cate Hall • Maybe You’re Not Actually Trying

LLeah Jo

I get this feeling deep in my gut when I am doing well. This cannot last; this cannot be. Because that first time I lost the good feeling was devastating and scary. Now I bring my fear to the table too every time I feel safe.

But struggling is not evidence that you’ve tried everything. To the contrary, the continuous need for willpower may be the sign of a badly-engineered life.

Cate Hall • Maybe You’re Not Actually Trying

people who are being selectively agentic often have a kind of faulty sensory appreciation. Perhaps relationships feel hard for you, they take willpower, so it’s tempting to believe that you’re Actually Trying, that you’ve brought the full weight of your genius to bear on the problem. You might even take some pride in the struggle. Like rigid... See more

Cate Hall • Maybe You’re Not Actually Trying

I think we are all like this. People are not just high-agency or low-agency in a global sense, across their entire lives. Instead, people are selectively agentic.