Let’s talk about our mental work. I think that if we command ourselves, we lose ourselves gradually.
One day, someone tweeted on SNS, “Put down your smartphone. Do your work.” What I found interesting was that he tweeted it to himself. He was telling himself to stop looking at SNS. So he was commanding himself to put down his smartphone.
Sometimes, we might find such a person on SNS. Or sometimes, we might do that.
Strange mental work
But if we think about this situation carefully, we will notice strange mental work. In this case, he showed two curious behaviors.
First, he commanded himself. Usually, we don’t command ourselves because we don’t need to. When we need to make a decision, we compare and consider our options, then make a decision. We may struggle with choosing, but we usually never command ourselves.
Next, he wrote it on SNS. Usually, we don’t show our inner dialogue to others. We concentrate on talking to ourselves. We don’t need to show it to others. But he needed to show it.
Why did he show such curious behavior? I think this is because he was confused about values. In other words, he had lost his values. If we command ourselves, we gradually lose our values.
Confusing between social values and ours
This logic is simple. He was confused between social values and his own.
He commanded himself to stop looking at SNS. It means that his body wanted to see it. Perhaps he was doing disgusting work. So he wanted to escape to something, such as SNS.
In such a situation, we can find that the “commanding person” was not himself. The social value commanded him to do his work. Perhaps, it was the value of his parents or surroundings. The value of his surroundings lived in his mind. And they told him to work.
They never allow us to discuss. They always command, “Do this,” “Don’t make excuses,” or “Anyway, you should work to live.” They repress our inner voices.
Perhaps he wanted to escape from working. But his surroundings forced him to work. And he was not able to distinguish between his value and social value. So he commanded himself.
And he needed to show his surroundings that he was working. So he wrote it on SNS.
We are easily confused by SNS
I think that we are easily confused about our values if we touch SNS for a long time. Because many personal values have become social values.
For example, usually doing our work is a good value in our social values. On the other hand, we sometimes don’t want to work. This is a personal value. And many people also don’t want to work. When such people gather on SNS, the personal value “I don’t want to work” becomes a social value.
So we are easily confused about our values if we touch SNS for a long time. It becomes difficult to distinguish the values between society and ourselves.
In such a time, reducing our touching on SNS and reducing our command of ourselves would work.
And if we want to live our lives, we need to follow our values. We need to doubt such “commands.” We can say, “Why do I need to do it?” That will give us our values.
Conclusion
So I think that if we command ourselves, we lose ourselves gradually.
If we understand this logic, we might be able to live our lives easier.
Thank you for reading this article. I hope to see you at the next one.
