No BS: This fantasy gets people into trouble  

No B.S Friday: Our primitive systems are a bit glitchy sometimes.  

Nothing is ever sorted.  

Not forever. There is nothing in your life that you can just say, “there, did it,” and never think about it again.  

But we still, weirdly, believe it can happen.  

It’s this weird quirk in the human brain. We believe that “sorted” is possible. It dangles in front of us like a carrot.  

And so we believe that if we put enough work into the yard and garden, we won’t need to think about it again. The gutters won’t need cleaning again if we do it now. The walls won’t need to be repainted.   

And we believe that if we find the right person, we’ll never need to work on our relationship again. We believed them when they told us that Prince Charming and Princess Peach lived happily ever after.  

Or if we find the right job, our need for meaning and purpose will be sorted, and we’ll never need to explore our passions and drives any further.  

Or if we just added that one little-known super-food to our diet (doctors hate this!), then we’ll be shredded and bikini-ready at any moment.  

Sorted.  

It’s such a strange thing.  

When you turn your rational mind to it, it falls apart like a wet paper towel. We know that everything requires upkeep and continual investment.  

But this is not an idea that lives in the rational mind.  

It’s somewhere deeper than that.  

It’s part of our primal motivation and reward circuitry.  

We have to have the illusion that we can sort something forever, otherwise we would be very unmotivated.  

Our motivation relies on us believing the lie, “If I could just do X or get Y, then I’d be happy.”  

I mean compare the two. How motivating is, “If I could get a hot partner, then I’d be happy forever,” vs. “If I could get a hot partner, I could maybe improve my baseline level of happiness a little, while signing up for a lifetime of constantly investing in my relationship.”  

Right? Why bother? 

Our most basic motivation is built on forever – on done and sorted.  

But that is not the world we live in. 

And it’s why I think a lot of us feel like Sisyphus – pushing shit up hill all day, only to wake up the next day and find that we have to do it all again.  

We never feel like we’re getting anywhere.  

And at our worst, we start to blame ourselves. Why does sorted never come? What am I doing wrong? 

We burn out.  

No, I think we need to meet the myth of sorted head-on.  

We need to recognise that it’s part of our primal motivation circuitry, but when we’re moving in the world, we need to slow down and come into our rational minds.  

And from there, we need to see that impermanence is just part of the deal. Everything falls apart. That’s by design.  

And whatever we want to create in the world – and whatever we want to have – requires at least some schedule of upkeep and investment.  

That can – and should – change the way you relate to your objects of desires. But that’s a good thing.  

Everything costs more than the ticket price. That’s life.  

And that’s where we need to be motivated from.  

JG.