Self-Assesment: Digging Deeper Into Dissatisfaction

If I take a look, I can find quite a bit to be dissatisfied about:

I want to weigh less than 200 pounds and I weight 285. I want to have written a CD's worth of really good music and I've only written one top-notch song. I want a committed intimate relationship with a true match and what I've got is a string of occasional girlfriends. I want to build a house in Hawaii, but am making less than 1/5 of the income I need to accomplish that. I have notebooks full of plans I've neither completed nor dropped. I want to spend a year in Europe but can't currently afford it in terms of time and money.

So far, this is a list of things that I want, but don't have. There is another layer to it, which is what I tell myself about myself as a consequence of not being the sort of person who has what they want.

There is an odd sort of edge to this inquiry, because in a certain sense, who I am and what I have exactly reflects what I'll settle for, so in a sense, it's what I want. There is also the notion that if I estimate myself on the basis of my achievements, I am selling myself out for the sake of externals.

Beyond all that, it seems that what is missing is a sense of ease and well-suitedness. Instead there is is a sense of struggle and lack. Where does that sense of struggle and lack come from? I would speculate that it comes from the combined weight of all the undertakings that were neither completed nor dropped, and if I were to inventory and prioritize in light of my essential self, the path would be obvious.

Exercise:

1. List projects that were neither completed nor dropped.
2. List what's most important in life
3. Schedule or drop whatever is on the list
4. Notice when you don't follow your schedule and consider dropping items that you don't complete.