##### 🔑 Make aligned and compassionate decisions > “*When a person can't find a deep sense of meaning, they distract themselves with pleasure.*” > ― [[Viktor Frankl]] Many of us feel directionless because we’re drifting through life, avoiding pain and seeking pleasure, our attention pin-balling around with whatever algorithm, and it leaves us feeling empty. [[🔑 Pain and difficulty cannot be avoided|🔑 We ultimately can’t avoid pain and difficulty]], so rather than trying to, we love ourselves and each other through them. We aren’t here just to avoid pain and seek pleasure, we’re here to [[⭐️ Self-Becoming|⭐️ bloom and to play our part]] in the symphonic song of all-that-is. We want to navigate life not on the axis of pain and pleasure, but the axis of value, meaning, service, purpose, and resonance. A crucial aspect of [[🕯️ Self-Stewardship]] is learning to guide ourselves away from pointless, unnecessary pain, suffering, and low-nurturance experience and toward meaningful, nurturing, aligned pleasure. We also want to move toward meaningful, value-aligned, instructive, **necessary** pain[^1] and avoid pointless, vacuous, empty, mindless, compulsive pleasure. This is similar to releasing optional tension in the body. Unnecessary pain doesn't serve us. We let go of what we can, and accept and learn from what stays. We let go of what we can’t control, and focus on our agency. [[🔑 We have no obligation to cope with what we can change]]. When we uncover, clarify, orient to, and make choices in alignment with our [[💡 Desires|Desires]], [[⭐️ Needs]], and [[⭐ Values]], we find a sense of direction and get un-stuck. Without these things, we find ourselves navigating life on the pain-pleasure axis. It’s easier to do difficult and painful things when the hardness of the things is secondary to their importance; and it’s easier to say no to pleasurable things when we realize they don’t mean very much to us and thus won’t be all that fulfilling. - We want to avoid the pain of abusive or loveless relationships, and move toward the pain of having hard conversations or even a [[🕯️ Generative Conflict|conflict]] with those we love. - We want to avoid the pleasure of constant scrolling where everything is candy, and toward the pleasure of following our intrinsic interests. - We want to avoid the pain of internet voids that keep us preoccupied with entertainment and move toward the pain of meaningful, joyful hard work. - We want to avoid pain of healthy but strict and unnecessarily bland food and toward the pleasure of healthy, delicious, and enlivening recipes. Our [[⭐️ Inner-Compass]] is how we stop drifting, it’s the key to escaping our prison of pleasure. Walking this line is challenging for probably everyone at least some of the time, and that’s okay — those are [[💡 Trailheads|trailheads]] to be explored. [[⭐️ Community Care#🦮 How to know when you need help, and how to ask|🦮 Ask for help]] if you struggle. Reach out to a friend or community, or [[🧘 Practice With Me]]. - [[🕯️ Journaling]] gives us a reliable way to talk to ourselves at a moment’s notice. Think of it like a Captain’s Log. It can be a sketchbook, it can be poetry, it can be painting, it can be dance. There’s a good reason we often say to find the meaning and value in our experiences, even the difficult, painful, overwhelming ones. Finding the value brings us towards acceptance and helps us grow. ###### Related - [[🔑 Be mindful of anti-North Stars]]. - [[🕯️ Tending to feelings]] as we make these choices - [[Loving Action]] [^1]: “Necessary” is a key word here. I do not advocate physical or emotional self-harm for the sake of learning or “growth”. Life will teach us some lessons in its own time.