Inertia - Nº127
Performing versus existing
I surrendered myself to the cages of others' expectations, cultural mandates and institutional allegiances. Until I buried who I was in order to become what I should be. I lost myself when I learned how to please.
— Glennon Doyle
Quality of life is the most important thing to me. We live tackling paths of high resistance in order to be rewarded with an easier life, as good quality relationships, careers, and so on are rarely found any other way. But I’ve noticed that we tend to search for the best qualities to possess by following other people—when really, we need to find them in ourselves. Alone.
One reason I write is to better understand the nature of things. To remind myself of the difference between performing and existing. Part of nature is recognising what’s on the inside and what we’re doing on the outside. And then pivoting from doing things because we think it’s what we should be doing, towards doing things because they feel true to us.
I love analysing things, but it doesn't necessarily translate to making better decisions. Action is always the hardest part. Thinking for too long tends to stop us from actually doing anything. But in thinking deeply about things, I learned that cutting the word should from how we phrase our goals is a paradigm shift that brings substantial energy into our actions. It’s important because most people say things like “I should talk to that guy” or “I should decide on what I want” when there’s pressure to do something; it’s the easiest way to shed some weight off our commitments. It also can be a delicate subject you’re unlikely to be asked about because who you’re doing something for can be incredibly personal. But once you recognise that by saying “should”, you’re just performing, it becomes easier to see how this lack of action can wear on you, which can be enough to spark change.
People usually change once the pain of staying the same becomes too great: when they’re hurting or motivated or received something that enables them to change or when they have learned enough. As Mind Mine puts it: once you’ve been operating from a place of “should” for long enough instead of a place of inner alignment and truth, you can forget how to be yourself. You end up being used to the opposite as a default. Inadequate beliefs start to breed. You don’t think twice. And the mild suffering is normal.
High-level life decisions (career, relationships, etc.) require us to trickle down into the tiny everyday actions we make that form our existence. Finding the need to act a certain way in order to attain a particular career path. But living with the phrase “I should” is like hiding behind a mask all your life, one with obligations and less sincerity. Challenging that notion, however, opens things up. It allows for growth and moves you in a direction you genuinely want. It creates a sense of becoming someone you’re excited about.
Existing with meaning requires you to stand back. You can’t write a great story when you’re always too close, the same way you can’t represent yourself authentically or learn anything when you never stop to deduce your performances. After a while, it can be hard to notice the difference between performing and existing. To help with this, ask yourself:
What feels hard when it should feel easy?
What do you genuinely want to do but aren’t?
What are you not giving enough time to recover from?
What simple tasks are taking you a lot of effort?
Living without the mask and existing is akin to our childhood—probably why we refer back to it so much. A time when we were unconcerned by how people perceived our choices or behaviour, where we followed what felt right and couldn’t care less about what others thought. Putting a mask on took an incredible amount of energy back then, and it was easy to fling it off at the end of the day. It hardly ever felt worth the energy, and you could feel almost sure that nobody cared anyway.
But we lose that feeling as we get older. After a while, for some people, the mask feels like all they have.
To exist is to be better at choosing things that don’t require wearing that mask. You will know you’re doing it right when you become worse in scenarios that require you to wear one. When you feel less inclined towards opportunities pressuring you to mute your valued qualities. When you are more sensitive to the feeling of being forced to do something because others think it is the right choice, not you.
Existing is realising when you’re performing and, more importantly, knowing you don’t have to. We perpetuate our beliefs through patterns, and it is up to us to maintain them, uncover deep-rooted issues that inform them, and rewire those beliefs to say something more aligned with how we want to live.
You can say that life can be fun, that you can live healthfully every day and be successful while being yourself. You can get to a point where you’re averse to performing and choose to avoid things that make you feel like you are faking it (not acting more confident but in the sense of inventing a persona that isn’t you). Your values reflect your authentic self, and the cornerstone to a good life is ensuring your actions continue to prioritise and strengthen them.