When Life Feels Tasteless
A common ailment among many people in today's society is Chronic Dissatisfaction Syndrome. Individuals whose living conditions are considered optimal yet do not feel fulfilled or happy. This inability to appreciate and enjoy disconnects them from themselves and others. Many feel guilty for having everything yet feeling bad. They are troubled by not knowing what is happening to them or where this deep feeling of inner discontent comes from. Dealing with this confusion isn't easy, and one may feel that life is passing by, unable to feel vitality or enjoy what there is because something is always missing, but it's unclear what or where to search for what would fill that hard-to-fill void…
Living in complaint and lamentation is one of the vices that reinforce discomfort and aggravate dissatisfaction. Keeping ourselves in a grey tune and reminding ourselves in internal dialogues of the dissatisfaction with our lives only sets us in a mood of affliction and hopelessness.
Two Perspectives on Chronic Dissatisfaction
There are two stances on how to manage the feeling of dissatisfaction:
- One perspective encourages us to work on accepting things as they are, to value the existing, and to be thankful. Dissatisfaction is reduced to a mere question of attitude, and therefore, we must learn to be happy with what there is, appreciating the good side of each circumstance.
- On the other hand, an approach asserts with absolute determination that if you feel dissatisfied with yourself and your circumstances, it is in your hands to change it. Setting goals and working hard to achieve them is the promise of reaching a state of well-being and personal satisfaction.
However, integrating these two approaches offers much more than when they are separated. The key to addressing chronic dissatisfaction is a mix of both approaches combined. Generally, chronic dissatisfaction has two deep roots: on one hand, the resistance to accept the reality of what is, and on the other, not working committedly to change that reality we continuously complain and lament about. Doing one without the other leaves us halfway or worsens the emotional situation.
On one side, if we only practice radical acceptance despite having things in our life that we clearly don't like and could be better with our active participation, we fall into resignation and get used to aiming low when we could fly higher. Here, acceptance, far from contributing to our personal development, numbs the healthy ambition to seek improvement and move forward. From passive acceptance, we can continue for years in a job we don't like, with a boss who mistreats us, with a dysfunctional partner, in a country we don't want to be in, or with a body that could improve if we put in the effort.
Resigning ourselves to what we don't like under the guise of false acceptance increases the feeling of dissatisfaction.
With this attitude, it's likely we'll end up feeling like a ship adrift, convinced we can't control absolutely anything in our lives. It's crucial to understand that acceptance and victimisation are very different things.
Healthy Acceptance
Acceptance is a tremendously powerful tool, but only when applied in these two cases:
- As a starting point to initiate any change process. That is, to change, we first need to accept what needs to be modified. If we don't acknowledge the problem, we'll unlikely do anything to solve it.
- As a way to assimilate what we cannot change. For instance, we can't change a certain person, but we do have the power to decide whether or not to interact with them.
On the other hand, if we rush to change what we consider the source of our discomfort without any reflection, without accepting our part of the responsibility in the problem we aim to solve, we miss the opportunity to learn from those circumstances to avoid repeating the same mistake or relational patterns. It's likely the situation changes, and after a while, we find ourselves back in the same place we escaped from without acceptance. For example, we leave a job because we don't get along with our colleagues, and a few months later, we complain about the mistreatment of new colleagues. We haven't accepted that we likely have a part of the responsibility for how we relate to others.
When the same thing repeats, it's never a coincidence. Maturing means assuming our part of the responsibility.
How can we start addressing chronic dissatisfaction?
The solution depends on our ability to combine the two previous strategies.
To work on our well-being in a realistic way, it is necessary to encourage ourselves to look at our own lives with total honesty and accept our circumstances as they are at the present moment.
We need to evaluate what is in our hands to change and what is not and take the portion in which we can intervene to actively work on modifying what displeases us and is a cause of internal discontent. The part that we can change has the power to modify everything else.
We cannot change our boss, but we can look for another job.
It is not in our hands to change the country's situation but we can look for another place to live.
It is not in our hands to change our partner, but we can end the relationship.
I know, "easier said than done". However, in the face of what displeases us, we can always DO something, and if the fear of change is greater than our dissatisfaction… then, we have not yet become saturated enough to take charge. Continuing to remind ourselves how dissatisfied we are and not being willing to change, is a habit that keeps us trapped in the vicious cycle of discomfort.
Accepting and then actively working on what we want to change leads to learning from the experience and to getting out of complaint mode.
Optimal dissatisfaction
Not all dissatisfaction should be seen as a concern. A certain degree of dissatisfaction helps us to keep going and advancing in this life. Like in a pyramidal movement, when we reach one level we want to ascend to the next and so on. Optimal dissatisfaction is what triggers our personal growth process. Here, the challenge is to enjoy the journey, to feel grateful for each step we take. With our eyes on the horizon and our feet firmly in the present moment, which is the only one that exists. Dissatisfaction, like desire, drives us to completion.
Imagine something as simple as feeling satisfied after eating, if that situation continues and we do not feel hungry again, we will die for not feeding ourselves. In the same way, if we do not feel any kind of ambition in life, if we do not experience a hunger for things to live, we lose enthusiasm and die even though we keep breathing.
Dissatisfaction as a precursor to the evolution of consciousness
There are people who do not know why they feel dissatisfied. They feel an inner emptiness that has nothing to do with the external reality. In these cases, more than a change, an inner transformation is necessary. This dissatisfaction may be demanding a further step in our evolution. It leads us to search beyond the material world, to ask questions, to reflect on the meaning of existence. It is a dissatisfaction that motivates a search and an encounter with our deepest spirituality. Expanding our view, searching within ourselves, finding like-minded people, tuning in with silence and with the essence that lies behind personality, are resources that help us overcome this deeper-rooted dissatisfaction.
It is an opportunity to expand consciousness and awaken our spirituality.
If we deny this inner call, we may think that if everything is fine around us and we are not well, there is no solution to that feeling of dissatisfaction. We fail to realize that it is not about getting more but about doing differently with what there is. A therapeutic process that considers spirituality as a fundamental aspect of human fulfillment can help us channel this dissatisfaction into an act of overcoming and inner evolution.
It is not about getting more but about doing differently with what there is.
A therapist can help discern when it is a blessed dissatisfaction and when it is a silent case of depression.
When nothing fills us, it is because there is no container or that container has leaks. That is why it is necessary to first know ourselves, recognise and accept what type of container we are, then empty it of everything that does not make us happy, clean our container well and then, be very cautious when starting to fill it again. It is a finite space, if the container contains more of what displeases us than what we like, we will feel full but empty inside.
Therefore, there are different types of dissatisfactions, each person must analyze their own and choose the best path to address it. Some will need to accept and act, others to start a journey back to themselves, there will be those who need to discard depression and those who need to learn to surf an optimal dissatisfaction that can distract us from the present moment by always looking at what comes next.