Battling Life Dysmorphia

Objectively, life is great. Subjectively, we struggle. Gratitude might just help. In 25 years’ time you would kill to be the age you are now and as healthy as you are right now.

Every day, after work, I go to the gym. I move my body in some capacity, sweat, and head home. When I get home, I head upstairs to the shower, cleanse my body with a hot shower, and head downstairs to make dinner. I make dinner, chat with my roommates about their days, and a random sports game plays in the background. What a beautiful life it is.

Except, in my head, it is not always that way. I overthink, get stressed out, and sometimes, I just have bad days! Sometimes, I just don’t feel great. I don’t think much of the drive to the gym. How I can effortlessly transport myself a couple of miles away and have access to plenty of equipment to make myself healthy. I don’t give a second thought to having a hot shower. Rather, I have come to expect it. If my shower is a bit cold, I assume my roommates have recently taken a nice long, hot shower and all the hot water with them. I make dinner with food that I picked up from the grocery store, which can seem inconvenient but all I had to do was pick it up from the store. I wasn’t required to plant crops for a season, pray for rain, fight off any animals and insects from eating my crops, or pull the crops from the ground. I just had to go to the store.

Through this lens, you zoom out and realize life has never been better. Objectively, there has never been a point in history where life is better than it is now. We have food we can order with a few taps and lands at our fingertips with the help of Uber Eats. Bored? Just open your phone and play a mindless game or mindlessly scroll on TikTok. Haven’t seen a friend in a while who lives three time zones away? Simply, type a few numbers on your phone and you can pick it up like you never left. Life is good but life doesn’t always seem that way.

Yes, life certainly has its issues. Oil prices, which in turn affect gas prices, have done nothing but go up over the past month, wars are breaking out all over the world, people are feeling the raised rates in the economy, mental health struggles, and it is a tough time to want to be a homeowner. I’m sure we could list out plenty more. Life certainly has its struggles. This is not to undermine what is currently happening, either. There are certainly some big issues that need tending to, but what it is getting at here, is would you trade your life now for the life of someone say 100, 50, or even 20 years ago? 99% of us in the west? Probably not. So why is life objectively so good but subjectively so bad?

Image courtesy of friendly reminder, by ronni. on TikTok.

We are experiencing life dysmorphia.

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Objectively, we have a good life. The world is advancing at a rapid pace and we are more comfortable than ever before. Subjectively, and objectively too, we struggle. There are bouts of loneliness and mental health struggles, just to name a few things. 

But what helps life dysmorphia shine through is we get used to how great our lives are. You get stuck on the hedonic treadmill and once you get disrupted from that, we desire to immediately get back. We have come to expect life to always be great. Then we begin to internalize and look at others and don’t take pleasure in what we have when things fall off the tracks. Social media certainly doesn’t help this.

I think what helps to battle the dysmorphia we might experience is gratitude. I, and I am sure many others are like this as well, get up each morning and I am afforded the opportunity to make something of myself. I get to go to work, I get to go to the gym, I get to spend time with friends, and I get to live life as I please. I get to march to the beat of my own drum. It is an incredible privilege. But life won’t always be that way. 

Eventually, my responsibilities will increase, my body won’t move like it used to, and other people may rely on me much more. It is all part of life and I certainly look forward to that phase of my life. However, something I have really been trying to work on is understanding there is no better time than the present, and where I am currently is not at all bad. There is no better time to be the best at where you are at and the best at what lies six inches in front of you, not being focused on what is six years down the road. That will come in due time but to forever be waiting for the piece of the future that excites is to waste what you are presently afforded. Alex Hormozi had this quote,

“When I was 20 I wanted to be a millionaire… Now that I’m a millionaire, I want to be 20.”

It makes me realize that when I am 30, I’d rather be 24 (my age) with nothing, just to be 24 again. I probably will never be healthier than I am now, although I would of course love to be, but part of the aging process is well, aging and not being as good as you once were. I will never be as young as I am now, either. Gratitude is the mother of all virtues, and you must be thankful for where you are now. Jimmy Carr puts it well,

“I think you would give me everything you own, in 25 years’ time, to be the age you are now and as healthy as you are right now.”

This applies to any age. No matter if you are 75, 50, or 25. There is no better time than the present and there is no better internalization than to realize where you are now are some of the best days of your life. I think having this realization and having gratitude for where you are now not only helps you now but in the future.

In life, we are chasing memories. We want our days to be memorable and filled with novel and interesting things. We yearn for nostalgia and always reminisce on the past. We seek things that we can look back on and say, “Wow, I did that.” How you ensure those days are good is to do things that your future self will thank you for. If you embrace the present and work towards what is right, your future self will thank you. 

Think about our finances and our careers, no one ever comes out of college and gets their dream job. It is very rare. No one ever starts immediately making the salary that they desire. However, what they do is they get a job that  places them on a path to eventually get where they want to be or a job that allows them to have a work-life balance to chase their passions in their non-working hours. It is being reasonable with your present self and realizing, it takes time to get where you want to go. It is also doing something your future self will thank you for and being in line with gratitude. But to get to a spot your future self will thank you for I have found you have to just focus on being the best where you are now, not worried about being the best six years down the road. 

Being the best at the systems you have in place. You don’t rise to your goals, you fall to your systems. What can you do today that tomorrow you would thank yourself for? The work you do, the run you go for, the yoga class you take, or the music you write. All things we will thank ourselves for in the future. Time stops for no one but you can leverage that time to give yourself gifts in the future.

Some days I have bad days at work. Some days I get so frustrated with the traffic driving in. Some days the days barely inch by. But I try to take a moment and realize these are the days my younger self yearned for. To not have meat juice all over him, not to have to take loads of trash out and inevitably have an overstuffed bag break and spill on him, not to slow in the roast in the sun policing an inflatable, and to be working in finance trying to make a name for himself. The low moments for my career used to be much worse.

My younger self would be proud of all that I endured in those moments. My younger self would thankful for what I have now as it was a result of those who came before me. Those we helped, fought, and labored to get me where I am today. My present self certainly thanks my younger self. I’m sure your younger self would smile if they saw where you are today. The only apt comparison is you yesterday versus you today. Not you against anyone else. Life must be on your terms and time must be spent how you please.

If it looks good to society but doesn’t feel good to you, that is not success. That is life lived on someone else’s terms. And perhaps if you spend it chasing things you want to do, working to become who you want to be, and thanking your younger self, the dysmorphia just might get a little better. Life certainly has its problems, mine included, but it just might get a little better. Be thankful for how far you come and what you are currently afforded. Life is short, I have found living with gratitude is a way to lengthen it.

“Gratitude is the wine of the soul. Go on. Get drunk!” - Rumi

Appreciate you reading.

-Scantron

P.S. This wonderful episode of The Diary Of A CEO with Jimmy Carr helped to inspire this piece.