You're falling in love with the idea of you (it's ruining your life)
The difference between who you are and who you want to be
One common thing you hear in the dating scene (or anything to do with interpersonal matters) nowadays is the phrase, ‘falling in love with the idea of someone’.
To do that, essentially, is to become infatuated with a version of someone that you’ve made up in your head (usually while trying to fill in the blanks about that person of which you don’t know) rather than who that person is in reality.
A key ‘event’ here is that at one point, the line that separates the two gets blurry and you start to believe your made-up version is who that person truly is, even when any evidence of it does not exist. In fact, any evidence that does exist to contradict your fantasy is promptly ignored.
It’s dangerous because you ignore all the ways their actions do not align with your vision. You distract yourself from the shameful truth: that you deserve better.
Fortunately, it’s been a while since I’ve been subjected to something like this (though my love life, or the lack thereof, is a completely separate discussion).
But then one day I was in the shower, daydreaming again. In it, I’m a writer of multiple bestselling books. One’s being adapted into a film, maybe. I’m heavily involved in casting and maybe a little bit of production—it’s all very Jenny Han of me. I’m back and forth between an apartment in New York and a Tudor-style house in a country with cobblestone. Maybe I ride horses in my spare time, and read books on electrical engineering or behavioral psychology because it’s good to take a break from creative projects. The people who know me know that there are dimensions to who I am, not a single identity that they could tie me to. I picture myself coming home for the holidays and relatives either ask me a million questions about my unfamiliar life, or none at all because they know I’m doing just fine.
It’s only when I turn off the shower and that subtle, yet familiar pang of disappointment hits, that I finally realize…
I’ve been doing it to myself!
I’ve been indulging in this version of myself that I’ve dreamt up, materialized from a future that does not exist and is not guaranteed. Indulging in a potential best version of me—one where I’ve finally done the thing, or achieved that other thing.
I have fallen in love with the idea of myself.
How has this affected my life?
It has made me comfortable with my inaction
I read once that you shouldn’t tell people your plans and your goals because the act of sharing it ‘triggers a dopamine response that tricks your brain into thinking you’ve already achieved it’.
But lately I’ve been wondering… Does telling yourself count?
Does it also release that same dopamine response? Cause you to confuse yourself between someone who intends to do the thing and someone who’s already done it?
Thinking back to all those nights in the shower, or in between mindless scrolling and long commutes—absorbed in the imaginary life I’ve brazenly created for myself with no followthrough—I’d be inclined to agree. I do it because it makes me feel good, right? It’s as if I’ve lived it and milked every ounce of psychological reward I could get from having achieved the thing. And because I’ve already received that (imaginary) prize, what more does my brain and body need to do, except stay exactly as I am?
I have been caught up in the comfort of staying in my own head, of lulling myself idle with dreams and false fantasies, but at the end of the day, I’ve got nothing to show for it. I’ve just been reaping the ‘emotional’ rewards without having worked for any of it.
Then the next time I feel bad about not having actualized any of the things I dreamt about, I grasp at the quickest thing I can do to make myself feel better and to feel aligned with the way I’ve always envisioned myself. How?
Ding ding ding! That’s right—back into my head I go.
It has stopped me from being honest about who I am today
I’m generally not a jealous person. I understand that everyone’s in their own paths and that we’ll all have our turn, you know? But every once in a while I’ll have a conversation with someone, or stalk someone on the internet a little too long and I can’t help but think: What an impressive accomplishment. What a cool and intentional life they lead. All of a sudden, I feel so little next to them. Then I find myself grasping at the quickest way to reassure myself, to re-center myself.
Images of my envisioned future—an alternate reality—flash through my mind and I tell myself that ‘it’s okay, because someday I’m gonna be all that’…
But you’re not all that. That’s the exact point!
Each time, I succumb to the superficial (and temporary) fix to a fleeting moment of jealousy. And come to think of it, what a subconsciously damaging pattern of rejecting my current life! Of invalidating the stage I am in right now.
I’m trying to reclaim my self-esteem, not by recounting my present virtues and endeavors, but by imagining a version of myself that I am not. I tie my worth to a future that is not mine yet (or ever, at the rate I’m going).
But I ignore the fact that who I am now is just as important. It serves a purpose, and it reminds me of all the things I can still achieve. Besides, how can I ever begin to strive for the things I dream about if I’m not honest about the person I am today?
What needs to change?
“You don't set out to build a wall. You don't say 'I'm going to build the biggest, baddest, greatest wall that's ever been built.' You don't start there. You say, 'I'm gonna lay this brick as perfectly as a brick can be laid.' You do that every single day, and soon you have a wall.” - Will Smith
I know what I want. It’s a feeling that’s embedded in my heart, a destination so vivid when I close my eyes that I feel like I could just reach out and touch it. That dream—that destination—is not going anywhere. It’ll stay as unattainable or as within reach as I let it. It’s me that has to move.
But I cannot let that destination shine so bright that it blinds me from seeing the road. I need to be honest about where I am now, so that I can measure the road ahead of me.
So for every vision I dream up in my head, I must counteract it with an action I can do today, at this given moment.
With all that’s been said, I don’t think I can ever stop dreaming. After all, it’s in our wildest dreams that we find the courage to try and better ourselves. It’s in our craziest ideas and what-ifs that we are inspired to make new choices.
It’s after the dream—after that spark—that we must keep going. Brick by brick, it’s up to us to pave the road that’ll take us where we’re meant to be.
Don’t ignore all the ways your actions do not align with your vision.
You deserve better!