I listened to the latest episode of Teacher Shu's podcast “How Plutarch Guides Young People to Listen to Podcasts” this morning, and some points mentioned in the episode sparked my reflection. This old man who lived in ancient Rome two thousand years ago had such profound observations about young people, and his views are still applicable in modern society.
Plutarch said that many young people, after going through their coming-of-age ceremonies, feel that they have freed themselves from constraints, liberated from their parents and schools, and have become truly free individuals who can lead their own lives and do whatever they want. However, they do not truly realize that after they become adults, constraints do not disappear; instead, they are replaced by desires. In childhood, we have to listen to our parents and teachers, and after starting work, we listen to our leaders. But when I resigned, no one could constrain me; the only thing that could constrain me was my own desires! Hearing this suddenly awakened me to why I felt uncomfortable at work (there was a feeling of being restricted by my boss and meaningless tasks), while in the nearly two months since I resigned, I have rarely felt that carefree joy; I feel constrained by something, and I can vaguely sense that the one limiting myself is me.
The reason I do not feel free is that I am controlled by my own desires. When desire says I want to eat a lot, I am led to open the takeout app. When desire says I am full and want sex, I am led to watch many emotional videos on Game and scroll through social media. Even when I go to the gym, in a sense, it is also to satisfy my sexual desires. Desire says I am too bored now and want to consume more information, more random information, so I am driven by desire to open short video apps: Bilibili, YouTube, Douyin, to fill the endless void within me.
Of course, desires cannot be suppressed. If desires could be quantified, we could eat light food and go to the gym for strength training to reduce the amount of desire generated. And if desire has already arisen, it is reasonable to release it; there is nothing wrong with that.
We should let reason dominate desire, rather than allowing desire to steer our actions. We need to look beyond the surface of desire to see our deeper unmet needs. For example, appetite represents current stress and boredom, sexual desire represents a longing for intimacy, and the desire for information represents my pursuit of meaning and belonging. Suppressing our desires is not advisable; we need to give desires a reasonable and clear outlet for release, or find alternative behaviors, such as replacing scrolling through short videos with listening to podcasts, replacing social media with reading books, and replacing eating a lot with exercising. When external constraints disappear, internal desires will gradually surface and take over our choices in subtle ways. Those immediate gratification behaviors can provide quick rewards, but each instance of immediate gratification may reinforce my desires, making me more easily controlled by them. The deeper unmet needs behind desires, such as belonging, growth, and meaning, will not be satisfied, but will instead lead to greater emptiness.
I need to ask myself two questions:
- If there are no external constraints, what do I truly want to achieve?
- What things make me feel that life is meaningful, even to the point of feeling “entrusted with a mission”?