The Intentional Life
A life worth living
I throw away birthday cards. It doesn't stop there — I throw away most cards I get. Christmas cards, thank you cards; you name the occasion, I recycle them almost immediately. Most people I tell this to protest: "why throw away something with sentimental value? They gave you that because they care!" I wasn't always like this. I used to keep everything gifted to me. Whether the other party wrote a novel in the hallmark card, or wrote two words, their offering would end up in a drawer lodged between two other "meaningful" donations. I began to realize that I was lying to myself when doing this; I wanted to minimize the number of things I own, but held onto them despite my internal monologue because it felt like the "right" thing to do. I began to notice this pattern of living on autopilot in many parts of my life, not just the mundane domain of holiday cards; there was something extremely freeing about giving thought to those things that we tend to do without thinking.
A friend of mine recently told me something that sums up the idea of being intentional: "do your thinking while you're sane so that when you're insane, you won't act it." I like referring to periods of clear-minded moral reasoning as "sanity" and the times in which we do the wrong thing (despite our knowing better) as "insanity", largely because that's how it feels. Those moments after coming out of a screaming match that you knew would be a futile effort or the sudden clarity you get after finishing a whole box of cookies embody this description; unless we set an intention and repeatedly practice that mode of being, we will act on autopilot (spoiler alert: our autopilot system typically doesn't work too well)
Here's another dope quote for you:
'You can't think your way into right action, but you can act your way into right thinking.
- Bill Wilson, Alcoholics Anonymous
Often, when we are taking the steps to be more intentional, we struggle to stick to the new resolutions that we set for ourselves. To keep with the initial, albeit silly, example, it was very easy to tell myself "dude, it's ok to throw away holiday cards, just take a picture of them and you'll have a memory of the sentimental moment AND less clutter". However, I still felt guilty when someone gave me a Christmas card and I made a beeline to the bin. What we must realize is that one cannot come to believe without action. We must first do, and then, through repetitive effort, we will come to internalize the belief. In the moments of insanity where we divert from our path, it is useful to be reminded of the guiding principles you established for yourself when you were sane. Setting an intention ensures that you are shooting toward something, rather than living a meandering life.
I had a friend who took their holiday cards and reused them to make crafts; they were really beautiful and definitely wowed the receiver more than they did in their original form. While the approach we took to the flood of holiday cards is different for my friend, the guiding principle is the same: don't live a life on autopilot. Think about all of the small actions you take daily and come to realize that many of them are done without ever having considered why. Don't default to insanity, the intentional life is a life worth living.