The Complacency Cycle

 I noticed that there is a cycle of complacency that repeats in my life, and heard Dr. Peterson talking about it, which validated my theory. Sometimes, I feel very satisfied with my day and the work I was able to accomplish. Other times, I regret not accomplishing the goals that I set for myself, and not disciplining myself to the required extent.

In both extremes, I end up assigning myself a sense of satisfaction with myself, and an assessment of how well I am working towards my long-term goals. Currently, my primary long-term goal is to prioritize work, and to divest passion and energy into learning.

Today, while I was moderately successful in achieving this goal, I know I could have done better, and know the points in the day when I failed, and will make it a goal to address these issues and ensure that they do not repeat tomorrow and for the next few days.

Going back to the cycle of complacency, when I am happy and satisficed with myself, I become more reckless and less careful about myself--simply because I see fewer things to improve. Due to this lack of attention, my faults have room to grow and make themselves visible, because I have chosen not to put as much energy into suppressing them. As the faults grow apparent, my self-satisfaction drops, and I tend to put more energy into correcting the faults which I see as stopping my satisfaction from being the highest it can be.

Thus, I feel that without external driving factors, such as the drive I have to study for my upcoming final exams, the natural progression of self-satisfaction is cyclic on a day-to-day scale, and may exhibit some long-term trend, such as positive increase, if I tend to my goals carefully, and care for myself adequately.

This description is qualitative, but on a minute scale, I have experienced events that seem to validate this theory. For example, being complemented by someone is an event in my life that increases my self-satisfaction, and also, because it makes me think more highly of myself, prevents me from paying adequate attention to my shortcomings. The converse can be expressed for when my satisfaction takes a hit, such as by receiving a bad exam result.

One thought I had about this cycle is that of maintaining an attitude of indifference. When I had that thought, I theorized whether not caring too much about the existence of the cycle, but merely aiming to in the long-run improve oneself and one’s habits, would be a good alternative to attempting to diminish the cycle.