I think it depends on how you hold your conversation with the future.

It’s one thing to be fixated on a goal or accomplishment, which you’re right about – would lead to a delayed gratification scenario. Where you’re delaying acceptance or fulfilment for yourself until you’ve achieved ‘enough’. It’s not desirable to be subsumed in that external process.

However, to be without a direction of travel in life, it’s easy to float on the breeze. As much as it’s nice to live in the moment, from personal experience, it’s very easy to lose traction with life and the responsibility of being a person in society. Without a direction to move in, life seems to lose its spark (see extremes of hedonism or nihilism, for example).

We’re conscious beings, so attention and respect for the moment are important. But we’re also human beings, sailing the seas of life, our place in the universe and striving towards progress is part of who we are. Not just technologically mind you, but intellectually, socially and artistically too.

There’s a wonderful book by David Tillich called ‘The Courage to Be’, as well as the more renowned Victor Frankl’s ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’.
Both authors (Tillich from the secular and Frankl from the psychological), speak to the need to have a reason to face up to life. To be alive necessitates a certain amount of resistance and how we choose to face up to that resistance dictates the form of the arenas in which we play out our lives.

Even monks face up to life through a radical pursuit of the interior. Whilst it may not be a ‘pursuit’ in the more common meaning of the word, it is a method of confronting life via emptiness and negation.

Meaning can be an antidote for suffering, but like anything in life: it’s possible to overdose. As much as it can be a medicine, it can also be a drug.
What seems more important is how we continually evolve the conversation of existence within our own lives.

One of my favourite writers is an Irishman called David Whyte, here are two of my favourite quotes of his, which feel applicable here:

‘The way we face the world, alters the face we see in that world’.
&
‘You were more marvellous in your simple wish to find a way, than the gilded roofs of any destination you could reach’.

Oh yes, totally agree with you there Sammy! i.e. The context we know our LO in can really amplify their potency for us. I think many of us objectify them as that role rather than as the complete rounded person warts ‘n’ all. I guess the triggering context is very individual… for some, the context might be a LO glamour or success, for others it is one where LO seems vulnerable or needy. For me, it seems to be where LO seems wise and knowledgeable such as a mentor or someone in a position of authority.

@Allie.

Lucy’s article on overcoming infatuation is great! I hadn’t read that one before. I think my favourite line is: “Life isn’t all about deep, spiritual conversations, pretty outfits and strobe lights.”

It got me thinking … do some people seem wildly attractive because we only see them in certain glamorous contexts and some of the exciting atmosphere rubs off on then? But what’s exciting isn’t the person, but the environment in which we encounter them?

My 20yr old son sent me this. The kid thinks deeper than many adults I know.

@ Landry: I agree that personal self-improvement can sometimes be at odds with improving one’s marriage. I have been working on myself, but I am still not really sure exactly what to do in order to get my marriage back on track. Sometimes it feels like the quest for a purposeful life can be a bit selfish. Part of the problem is it takes both parties to make a marriage work, and focusing on oneself can sometimes take our focus and attention away from our spouses and marriages. Thank you for the book recommendation. I had heard of that book and I will definitely give it a read.

Ambivalence is really tough. I love my wife and really want to improve my marriage, but I am not sure if I will ever be able to have the life I really want with her. Am I being unreasonable and focusing on some impossible ideal that can never happen in my marriage, and is my limerence fueling much of my dissatisfaction? Do I secretly want to be with my LO even though that is basically just a fantasy? Or am I with the wrong person and/or have we just grown apart? Having a marriage that isn’t great but isn’t terrible either is so hard to deal with (especially when you love your spouse or partner but the passion is gone). If things were truly awful most of the time, I would have left years ago, but I am clearly not happy with the status quo either. I feel so guilty feeling like this — especially when things between us are relatively good most of the time.

As I slowly emerge from the depths of limerence, I thought this would be easier, but it is actually getting even harder because it forces me to have to do the hard work of fixing my marriage rather than fixating on my LO. I am torn between feeling like I’ve made my bed and now I have to lie in it and the feeling that life is too short and things could and should be much better. In many ways, I am not even really laying blame because part of the “fault” is mine as well. Maybe we just drifted apart or we were never a good match in the first place?

My wife recently said she believes I will leave her once all of the pubs open up again. I thought that was a strange thing to say because it flat out isn’t the case. Is that just a way of making me feel guilty for wanting to go out and have a social life? Is this just another way for her to try to control me, or is she honestly worried I will leave her for someone else (my LO or another woman)? One surefire way for her to lose me is actually to try to stop me from having a social life. My life has been so boring for so long, and I am insisting on doing more of the things I want to do — recognizing of course that I also need to find some fun, interesting and exciting activities we can do together. I need to consider her wishes as well, but at this point, I am putting my foot down on certain issues and insisting that some things change in my life.

Fixing a marriage surely IS a long and hard road–particularly after a limerent affair. I’ve been on this road for almost a year and a half since full disclosure to my SO. And I’ve wondered if it’s even worth it. After reading this blog, I recognize the ambivalence I have about my wife and my marriage is the EXACT OPPOSITE of the clear goal DrL describes is needed for purposeful living. I just think there’s a difference between the way we identify goals for bettering ourselves (love DrL’s ideas here) and how we figure out how to fix a marriage. In the latter case, I think it isn’t always about how to fix it, but more about whether or not we should try. Author Mia Kirshenbaum writes in her book, Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay, that ambivalence is THE WORST STATE to be in with regard to a marriage and that you should get yourself out of that state as soon as possible by focusing on the answers to a number of key questions. (Funny, that suddenly sounds a lot like the need to break the uncertainty that drives limerence nucleation…) We all believe that we “should give it our best,” but it may be that you cannot fix your marriage and the sooner you realize that, the better. I’d urge anyone struggling in their marriage to read this book.

Thanks Lee-Anne. Yes, I find that article sobering. It’s always useful to get slapped with reality from time to time, even if it hurts. The covid crisis has given many of us the time and space to really see things for what they are a bit more, and appreciate the things that really matter in our lives whether it’s family or getting back one’s sense of self, independent from the cruel clutches of limerence. Without doing it in a self-torchering, self-shaming way, I remind myself very firmly every day that I’m living my life for me, not limerence.