TLDR:
- Ask yourself well into the night, “must I do it?” (it being what it is you want to do). Make sure to ask why you want to do it, and if you were no longer able to do it, would you have to die?
- Asking yourself such questions deep into the night allows you to tap deeply into your id, superego, and ego, a form of psychoanalysis originated from the psychoanalytic theory, pioneered by Sigmund Freud (he’s a fraud, but this does serve as a good extension to understand the psychological intricacies of the human mind)
- When you’re trying to fall asleep, you often reach a state of high vulnerability (also referred to as heightened sensitivity), so it’s easier to answer such questions in a raw manner.
- You’d not only realize what has been holding you back all this time but even if you don’t conclude that you “must do this”, it wouldn’t have been for nothing. Instead, this exercise may very well make you realize the other problems you have in your life that you must work on instead.
Digging deep into your internal self for the answer
Yesterday, I came across a tweet of Jeremy Giffon retweeted by David Perell, talking about how to ask yourself whether or not you should write well into the night, and to find the answer, go deep within the realms of your being.
The contents of the tweet are an excerpt from the book “Letters to a Young Poet” by Rainer Maria Rilke, with 3 images attached to the entire paragraph of both excerpts are a part of.
It’s pretty obvious why you should ask yourself this at night provided you have that level of curiosity, for when we’re trying to sleep, our thoughts are wandering all over the place most of the time, like unpredictable currents in the ocean.
I found myself soul-searching that night, and certainly, I must write, for it is my duty as Kevin Kelly would say.
But I don’t think this should be limited to just writing.
I believe the two biggest principles Rilke talks about in those paragraphs are easily transferrable over any domain to truly find your raison d'ĂŞtre, that being:
- What is the reason you want to do it?
- If you were to lose the privilege to do that, would you have to die?
From my understanding, answering these questions in the night allows you to tap deeply into your id, superego, and ego, a form of psychoanalysis branched off the psychoanalytic school of thought, pioneered by none other than Sigmund Freud.
Though Freud’s findings are anything but scientifically valid (there’s a reason he’s often called Sigmund Fraud), some of them can serve well as a function as metaphors or shorthand to understand the intricacies of the brain at a psychological level and continue to have some degree of influence in the field.
The id is meant to be your primitive and instinctive behaviors, the superego your moral conscience, and the ego serves as a mediator between the two; the voice of reason.
If you look at this exercise from that perspective, it’s a self-therapy session you’re having with yourself and your fleeting thoughts as you look to fall asleep, which by then you’re often in a state of high vulnerability (more formally referred to heightened sensitivity), making it easier to truthfully answer these questions.
It’s like the epiphany Ali Abdaal talked about in yesterday’s episode of “How I Write” while being interviewed by Lewis Howes for the School of Greatness podcast.
You’d not only realize what has been holding you back all this time but even if you don’t conclude that you “must do this”, it wouldn’t have been for nothing.
In fact, you’ll probably realize that you have other problems in your life that exist that only you can solve, so you must do that instead.
That’ll be how you reach the true answer of “must you do it?”