The Impulse for Relief
Level 4: Serious Player
"Advertising is based on one thing ... happiness. And you know what happiness is? It's the smell of a new car. It's freedom ... from fear. It's a billboard on the side of the road that screams with reassurance that whatever you are doing ... is ok. You are ok."
- Don Draper, Mad Men
Future Guardian,
Complexities of the character who spoke that aside ...
There's a basic human instinct here we are all susceptible to.
We've spent a great many months walking through fundamentals of making decisions better, getting closer to what you want in life, getting closer to yourself, unveiling your exponential potential, finding happiness no matter what ...
And beneath it all, perhaps, lies this basic human mindset.
We all just want to be ok.
As I write this ...
I reach over to the mug next to me. It's filled with dark liquid ... an "anaerobic honey" processed coffee from El Salvador, roasted in a small(ish) coffee roaster under the watchful eye of a skilled artisan and carefully prepared to be enjoyed in just this moment ...
A luxury. I could be writing this from home. (I have good coffee at home too)
But today our house is under construction, my regular office not available, and I just really needed to come here. To get this.
To be ok.
I look at the shelf of tantalizing baked goods, eyeballing the overly giant chocolate croissant, the delightfully glazed donuts, the muffins topped in crunchy goodness and powdered sugar.
That would be nice,
For a brief moment.
None of these things I need.
A man is traveling on the path of life …
He has been traveling long.
The days are not known. Night, morning, sun, clouds, rain, snow, heat, wind. Through fields, through forests, over mountains, into valleys.
He keeps walking.
One day,
He is walking past an offshoot on the path.
It's a smaller path.
It heads down a hill into a valley. It's not where he wants to go. But as he turns away, to keep walking down his main path, he notices another man casually sitting beside the road.
"You seem tired" the new man says.
The traveler nods, putting his weight on his walking stick.
"Follow me. We have good food, a warm fire, and a bed."
The traveler looks at the path he's on.
Weary.
He turns to the man, nods, and follows him to that comfort.
That anecdote and that allegory suggest (to me anyway) an interesting dynamic.
Relief may often appear reasonable. You're tired. Rest. You're hungry. Eat. You're stressed. Have a little something fun and enjoyable.
But relief is deceitful.
Because relief does not care whether that which you are drawn to is good or bad for you, right or wrong for you.
All it cares about is release from that tension.
And how dangerous is it to go through life with this wild force which draws you to take action, make choices, spend resources, all on things which may have no good outcome for you - which may detract from your ability to get what you want?
You might think … "Excellent! Show me how to see my impulse for relief so I can avoid it and never have this problem!"
That would be an interesting reaction.
It would make sense.
Identify, avoid, and you don't have to succumb to relief.
But there's a problem in this as well.
Energetically there is no difference between all and nothing
The energy in you when you completely go all out and overindulge in something is the same energy in you that it takes to have absolutely none of it.
Eating a whole box of oreos is the same energy as never getting the oreos and avoiding them altogether.
Which is the reason for this advice: if you can't have just a couple of something (if you're inclination is to overindulgence), then not having any at all is the better choice.
Same energy, different outcome.
And so it is with the impulse for relief ... a natural dynamic we all experience as part of this life.
Seeking a dynamic where you completely utterly avoid all impulse for relief is the same energy as completely indulging in that impulse every chance you get.
Personally,
I think it's not about controlling impulse, it's about awareness of the force.
When we're on the path, heading towards that which we desire, often living in uncertainty, taking one small step at a time, showing up every day, showing restraint, doing everything we can to walk the best line that we can ...
We will be weary.
We will doubt.
No matter how much we know that uncertainty is one of the most powerful states to be in because it unlocks all the new, the change, and the discovery that you seek ...
It is still uncertain.
And we will be drawn towards relief from that.
The impulse for relief pulls me away from writing.
In a different way I've written about this in “Resistance and The Joy of Uncertainty”1. When the writing is challenging, when I'm far less certain about what it is I want to do, I have to confront that wall.
It's a terrible irony because, as I've written, it is in that state of uncertainty where the good stuff comes about, but it's also in that state of uncertainty where the impulse for relief screams the loudest. Or maybe it's more of a vivid quiet scream.
I don't usually feel a repulsion to writing, rather, resistance rears it's head like a fog.
Clouding my eyes to what can or should be appearing in front of me. It says "go listen to this recording so you can have better ideas to write" when the reality is I have all I need right now in me. It says "go for a walk instead." It says "go refill your coffee." All ideas that sound reasonable. I can turn back, out of the fog, and settle into a nice cozy chair by the fire.
I can walk down the street and gaze out at over the bay.
But then I would not be writing.
I would be willfully avoiding flow state where all of this comes with an unnatural ease, all because I seek the relief.
As I explore this thought I look back on the last year and wonder ... for all these microsteps and soft offense I've taken, have I given into the impulse for relief and NOT used good decision making by cutting aspects of work I've done?
I feel like I've cultivated a reasonable awareness about this impulse in myself, because given the opportunity to do less, my natural inclination is to take that (aka, I'm lazy ... I'll find the most efficient path towards doing things typically because my inclination is to do less).
Moving myself into a specific space of focus and awareness helps me lose perception of that voice. In that space I can write for hours it seems, and have no desire for relief because I'm doing exactly what I want - there is nothing to relieve. If I can get there. If I can stay there. If I can recognize the whispers of the impulse and let them slide by.
But what is this all really about?
Getting what we want in life and NOT being pulled off track or distracted by basic human impulses.
I’d say, anyway.
How do we live day to day in those dynamics?
We can't shut off our biology.
But we CAN be aware of it ...
Exploitation of the Impulse
I started off this writing with that little bit from Mad Men about advertising, because that world (of marketing and advertising) is a fascinating enclosed system that heavily leverages the natural human impulse for relief.
We can learn about ourselves and our inclinations by seeing how they are exploited, and hopefully in that way cultivate an awareness.
You may not be able to stop the impulse (I don't believe that's possible). But you can be aware of when that impulse strikes you and use it as a moment to pause.
"Is my desire for relief driving this decision?"
Even if that's true, you gain power in the awareness.
In a broad sense, all marketing and copy swirls around the context of 'what you want to have happen' and 'what you don't want to have happen.'
Desires and Fears.
More often playing on fears ...
Because we'll work much harder to avoid losing something than we will to gain something.
It says, "if you keep going down that path you might DIE ... but here, it's comfy and safe ... with this cupcake and this beer and this cozy chair ... just have a seat ... don't worry about all that ... you're fine, you deserve this, you can stop doing that."
Metaphorically of course.
Anytime you are being sold something, chances are there's some angle of relief built into it.
"Finally, I'm going to have the answers I need to get what I want."
"Finally, someone is going to solve my problem."
"Finally, I don't have to worry about that thing anymore."
How many times have you spent money like this because ultimately you sought relief? From the unknown, from failure, etc.
Before we get into ways to think through and protect ourselves from the impact of this impulse, let me give you a noodle bender:
How many times have you stopped doing something that was hard, or seemed like it wasn't working, because you were driven by the need for relief?
THEN
How many times have you pushed through something that would have been more appropriate to end because you were afraid of giving into the need for relief? Because you didn't want to "give up." Because every time you see someone talk about success it involves pushing and never giving up?
Those familiar with slowing down, restraint, taking the next best step, raising the floor, will all recognize that sometimes stopping is the right decision.
Just because we need relief doesn't mean we are giving into the impulse.
Which is why I think the power here is in awareness and not avoidance.
We could look at this all from a resource allocation perspective.
If you are ending one thing in order to make space for other things you are doing, then you aren't necessarily giving into relief so much as reallocating your limited resources ... unless, perhaps, the thing you are giving up on is objectively the best next step towards where you want to be going ... a constraint you need to resolve.
It's all too situational, personal, and unique to "solve" the dynamic.
I can't tell you how to relate to your own impulse for relief.
But I believe I can tie in some frameworks you're familiar with, to help you establish a foundation which will likely lesson the strength and frequency of that impulse.
Explore and Exploit.
Almost all of the decisions we are talking about, the dynamics of figuring out what we want and taking actions in life to get there, revolve around doing things to affect an outcome.
Conceptually there are two ways to do things to affect an outcome.
You can do things to affect an outcome in a way which you know from historical data you can do and will happen in a certain way (Exploit).
You can do things to affect an outcome in a way you haven't done before, it is new, and so there is an element of experimentation and uncertainty (Explore).2
Personally I find, in my decision making through all things, that my susceptibility towards the impulse for relief and my challenge in decision making to chose the right path through microstepping and soft offense are all made more difficult when I have a fundamental need for a specific outcome and I have yet been able to achieve that specific outcome.
Easy example,
Let's say I need to make another $15k in the next 6 months. Until I solve how to do that, I am going to be under the pressures of not having done that and perhaps even not knowing how to do that. The more pressure I am under, the greater the impulse for relief.
If I'm in that state and I'm exploring, trying something new, the addition of uncertainty for me appears to enhance that voice of the impulse. Makes it louder, makes it more frequent.
As soon as I solve that problem and my base needs are met, when I'm exploring and there is uncertainty in that, the lack of threat to the need seems to reduce the likelihood of the impulse for relief.
Perhaps it all centers around that tension.
Around need.
Around perceive likelihood of meeting that need.
Back to fear and desire.
If I'm thirsty and there's no water nearby or available to me in the moment, the first water that comes along is going to drive a very strong impulse to have that relief. Now I'm not thirsty. Notably this may drive me into detriment if that water is not safe to drink.
Our lives are not so black and white.
Every decision we make is shades of grey and with varying opacity and all of those dynamics are shaped and colored by our preferences, interests, and needs.
AND
This brings us to your most immediate constraint.
What are you trying to get or do right now?
Knowing that requires knowing where you want to be going so you can identify reasonable steps along the way and find the next step you can take.
And then all we need to focus on is what is keeping us from taking that step.
So if you are focused on your most immediate constraint, or figuring out your most immediate constraint I believe you give yourself further innoculation against that basic human impulse - or perhaps it even becomes a reframing. **The relief you end up seeking is behind that constraint and so all of your being gets focused on taking down that most immediate constraint.**
What do I need right now?
Is it a lump sum of money? A higher level of ongoing income? Is it a client? Is it less time spent on what I'm doing? More time or ability to spend time with my kids?
What is keeping me from getting that right now?
and then of course ...
We end up back at the beginning, considering who we really are and what we really want.
If we can serve our base needs - figure out ENOUGH3 to reliably keep going - and then focus on our most immediate constraints and moving through those step by step ...
I believe the impulse for relief becomes less intense, less frequent, and easier to discern. There's less noise clouding that voice. And when we have that feeling we can more easily say "am I just tired of doing this? Is this still the right thing? Is this still going to help solve my most immediate constraint?"
How are YOU being driven by the impulse for relief?
When you are making your decisions, are you doing so because of this impulse?
And have you put yourself in a position (exploring when you ought to be exploiting) to perhaps be more vulnerable toward that impulse?
Have those questions in your mind when you make decisions, and I reckon you'll make decisions better, and find you are less moved and impacted by the impulse for relief overall.
Be Useful. Be Present. Love the Journey.
Joseph Robertson, CMO The Guardian Academy
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Super-interesting perspective! I've always viewed "relief" as primarily an energetic thing. If I'm tired, I'll be less focused and more prone to seek relief. If I have energy, I can stay on-task/on-goal. But this certainly deepens what's really going on.
Thanks You.