Ironic name. Right?

Satisfaction is never used in a negative context, and yes, I’m openly and shamelessly ignoring Sadistic nature.

I started this post as a way to talk myself out of, rather in my case, type myself out of the creative deadlock. All of you know that I recently posted Why I Started My blog: My Mind and My Heart. That was an anniversary post. I just completed one year of delivering content. And I was feeling quite Satisfied with myself, and I still am, Satisfied that I helped some people, Satisfied that people are happy reading what I put forth and Satisfied that someone relates to what I feel.

I started to write another post, but I couldn’t. So my crazy mind came up with this epiphany. It was this feeling of satisfaction that was blocking my Creative mind. I  didn’t want to stop, but the human mind is truly naive. It perceives happiness as an endpoint of the task. It doesn’t take into account the joy of the journey. It needs to be made aware of the fact that we can get happiness in the small tasks within the big task.

To make my mind aware of this fact, I started this post. And soon, within a few paragraphs, that satisfaction pushed me, instead of being a roadblock.

Satisfaction is every bit as dangerous as failure. This may sound idiotic to a few people, or maybe some may relate to it. I’ll try to express this in 3 possible scenarios.

1. When Satisfaction doesn’t last, it drives us to keep on searching for something else.
2. The second, When Satisfaction blocks our path.
3. And third, When Nothing gives us Satisfaction.

In general practice, the phrase “dealing with something” refers to a coping mechanism that we adopt which helps us to process something negative, something unwanted, some unpleasant thing that may have befallen us.
Dealing with Something refers to accepting the things, processing them and acting appropriately. Acting in such a way that it benefits you. Acting in a manner which will not make the situation worse.

Even the dictionaries give the meaning as
to deal with something: to take action to do something, especially to solve a problem

I’m pretty sure all of us have heard the legendary quote,

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Tell me, What are your interpretations of this quote? I will reveal my interpretation soon below.

I like playing with technology. There’s something some of you didn’t know about me. I like to play around with Custom Roms, alpha/beta testing of apps, new pieces of equipment, taking things apart only to put them back together again among other things.

This may not seem that coherent with my content, but it will; Bear with me.

Over the past few years, there have been incidences where I switched ROMs, almost daily. 

That’s a WhatsApp screenshot, wherein every time I flashed a new ROM, I had to reinstall WhatsApp, and thus the security code changed. (Just a short explanation, in case you don’t understand the purpose of that screenshot) It is not the case that the ROMs I tried were buggy, nor were they bad. I was quite satisfied with them.

However, the satisfaction wasn’t that filling. I used them, tested them. Explored them fully, and then moved on to the next one. This was until I found the one. The one ROM that gave me more happiness than all the other ROMs. And then I was finally satisfied.

This was just one of my personal experiences that I have had with satisfaction. I chose this particular example because it is personal, it tells something about me that you didn’t already know; because this serves point number 1. When Satisfaction doesn’t last, it leaves us always wanting for more. We yearn for that feeling again. And this causes us to wrongly judge the quality of what we have right now. I can now admit that the One ROM that I chose, I had used it before. I misjudged it. And similar to other instances, moved on to the next one. And no, I don’t have commitment issues. Proof? The number 6. Any guesses as to why 6?

Usually, we feel satisfied just for a short while and then we head back out looking for our next fix. We are never content with what we have. We overthink our success, maybe give it more credit than it deserves, just as we might do for our failures.

Moving on point number 2. Have you ever wondered why Google keeps coming up with new Android OS this often? On a technical front, a recent survey shows that the latest Android P (Pie), is not even present with 1% of overall devices. In fact, it’s market share is just 0.1%. Its predecessor, Android O (Oreo) is up to 14%. And as I’ve said before, I love tech.

Even though it’s predecessor hasn’t captured the market completely, Google is ready to push out the latest update. Obviously, this has some internal reasons and other financial aspects, but I won’t be getting into that. I am focusing on the psychological aspect of it all. And this is just my interpretation of it all. When something is published and is out there, and especially in case of something so global like a Google Product, things are pretty much guaranteed to pick up the pace and kick up a storm of appreciation, of course, if the product is worthy of it. However, when this happens, the core developers behind it, feel a wave of satisfaction blow them away.

Being humans, and I am not talking about the developers here, even if it is for just for a while, the satisfactory feeling blocks the creative mind. People start to think, If this work of mine is so spectacular and is generating praises worldwide, then why should I stop basking in the sunshine of my current project and start afresh? What if the next project does not turn out as good as this one. This is just how humans think. Nobody wants to start over, Right? And this is a universal truth. People who say otherwise, are lying, either to themselves, to others, or both to maintain the facade that they have created. However, don’t get confused, taking a break is not the same as suffering from a creative deadlock.

And Number 3. When nothing satisfies us. This is kind of the worst case scenario that can but should never happen to anyone. This might be one of the worst cases of depression. But there is a slight silver lining to this. Nothing satisfying us usually indicates that the person is trying out things to do in order to overcome depression, and that’s pretty much the only positive side of it all.

As for a milder case, many of us have felt extreme boredom at one point in our lives. During that phase, even our dearly beloved things don’t excite us all that much. What do we do then? How do we overcome this? Only one way, Don’t Rage Quit. Pick a task which you like more than the rest of your favorite things and stick to it. Find joy in the little things that you might accomplish doing that task. If its a game, be happy when you complete an objective. Or if it is simply listening to music, be happy when you unearth an old gem that you loved back in the day.

To give a random example, and I’m sorry yet happy to say that I haven’t experienced this. I don’t know how many of you have watched House MD, but therein, in season 6, when House comes back from rehab, the doc offers a piece of advice. He should consider to take up things that will keep him busy, that will keep him mentally satisfied.

However, nothing that he takes up keeps him as satisfied as practicing medicine.

And now, as promised. My interpretation and the relevance of “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish” with this blog post.
Stay Hungry, always hunt for the next big thing, but that doesn’t mean that you should not bask in the glory of your success, you can but just don’t fixate on it. Stay Hungry deals with point number 2, Don’t let it block out your creative mind. And Stay Foolish, signifies the creative nature of one’s mind. Be foolish enough to take bold decisions that no one expects, but exceeds all expectations of performance. Be foolish enough to be creative, to defy the unspoken laws that govern the society, to challenge the status quo, to benefit the parties at hand with your Outlandish and Out of the box, cutting-edge thinking.

What do you think? Did I do well? Did I?

So Dealing with Satisfaction? I personally see satisfaction as a method for evaluating my work. It is a universal truth, irrespective of the lies that you may tell others that we don’t always give our 100% in EVERY task that we do. 

Satisfaction is what will give us inner peace. Whatever task we do, irrespective of whether we give it our 100% or any less, if after its completion, we can be at peace with ourselves regarding what we have put forth, then that is true satisfaction and not the kinds mentioned above.

Always remember, External praise is not something that is constant. People change their minds as a teenage girl prepping for a date changes clothes. Your brainchild might be helpful to one person, but the next person might hate it. So don’t give it more value than it truly deserves.

Sure lot of people loved what you have put forth, but they judge it based on what you are showing them. They don’t judge based on the effort, based on the number of hours that you put into it. 

Make Satisfaction the very spark that drives you. Make sure that its the spark that ignites your fuel and takes you out of this world. But make sure to check that your fuel tank isn’t leaking, or else it will blow you to bits.

All things considered, Satisfaction is needed to make something feel worthwhile. However, it may lead to some sticky times. It is up to us, how do we perceive satisfaction. Is it the end of our future work? Or Is it just another stepping stone?