The gap between where you are and where you could be—the cognitive dissonance of the spirit

This one may sound a bit complicated and maybe even a bit pretentious, but we think that this line of thinking can be quite useful to assess why we often feel empty and unfulfilled. 

We all have days when we think “is this it?” “Am I doing what I’m supposed to?” and “What if?” We all had hopes and dreams when we grew up, and as grownups, we often look down on the naïve dreams of our former selves. But we think that there is a caveat to this—somewhere in our minds there is a compass pointing towards the life of the person we want or could be and deviations from this path feel like a painful mental dissonance. 

An important note is that we’re not referring to the hedonistic modern caricature of this notion, where hopes and dreams are reduced to extrinsic stuff like silly amounts of money, private jets, fast cars, abs, etc. We’re not judging, but there’s more to life, and hopes and dreams can be more nuanced and sophisticated than what you see on social media these days.

To get a better grasp on this conundrum, we’ll explore the concept of cognitive dissonance which we have borrowed from the field of psychology. Cognitive dissonance is in short, the unpleasant feeling we have when our actions don’t align with our beliefs. So, it’s when we have contradictory values or perspectives about things. Examples of modern conflicting values and actions can be:

  • Eating meat and seeing ourselves as animal lovers 

  • Valuing the environment, but not acting on it

  • Valuing traditions, but identifying as a progressive

These are just some examples, of cognitive dissonance for the modern human, and there are many more examples. But we think that the painful dissonance between beliefs and actions can be a useful way to illuminate the painful void between who we are and who we could be if we stopped getting in our way. We need to forgive ourselves for what we have done so far and look ahead. Who could we become if our actions were aligned with who we want to become? If we looked at our shortcomings and moved our life in a direction that’s aligned with our true intrinsic selves?

Let’s be honest with ourselves and assess who and what we want to be and try and align our actions with the overarching harmony that constitutes our values. The more attuned we are to the harmony between our actions and our values the clearer any dissonance will be—making it easier for us to realign our actions and habits. 

An alignment between our day-to-day actions and our hopes and dreams will reduce the overall discomfort in our lives but will introduce stress in the short term. Most of the stuff we should be doing is the stuff we're actively avoiding. So, we need to brace ourselves and welcome more stress and discomfort in the short run—but it will be worth it in the long run.  

We have explored how to identify, prioritize, and implement better habits in previous articles, and this can be a good place to start if you feel motivated to reduce the mental and spiritual dissonance in your life. 

Until next time 

Scott and Lennart  

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