VALUING WHAT IS ACTUALLY OF NO VALUE
AND SPENDING YOUR LIFE TRYING TO GET THE VALUE FROM IT
tba
However, running your life based on the wrong values can waste your life, plus be a frustrating experience.
Thusly, this is an area where you should use the Carpenter's Rule: Measure Twice, Cut Once. Really the rule means make sure that you decide very, very well what you are going to value before you start living your life based on it. Check it until you are sure, at least in the vital elements. Whether a hobby is of true value or not is not a matter of great consequence, as you can change that as soon as you see it is not benefitting you. Bout other things can have alot less clarity and simplicity. We will often believe there is a benefit when there is none or when the cheese is no longer at the end of the tunnel.
It is said that rats are smarter than people, because when there is no cheese at the end of the tunnel they stop going down that tunnel. Somehow humans get stuck in believing if I do x enough times somehow I will eventually to get what I want.
We misvalue some "values" and we often think that something is of value when it actually has no real value. Yes, we can go through our "values" list and have an emotional hit that has us valuing certain items, but they can be based on wrong assumptions, wrong facts, and wrong reasoning.
Often, not just sometimes, we misestimate the actual value to us by just taking what the primitive brains cough up plus the level of emotions we feel that are not actually relective of true value.
THE EXCITEMENT IN ANTICIPATING "SOLVING" AN ISSUE
For instance, in Harville Hendrix's "Imago" concept, Person A may be attracted to Person B because the latter has some of the undesirable traits of a caregiver, but the primitive brain "thinks" that it is exciting to have the opportunity to finally solve those traits and to get rid of the residual dilemma of the past. (This is referred to in the "What Is Exciting (Stimulating)" section in "Being Neurotic" - Overwhelmed With Concerns That Are Of No Consequence - where we need to learn a few "distinctions".) The problem is that it is very, very, very unlikely that Person A will end up solving that problem (and especially not changing Person's B's traits!). This "attraction", if followed up on, will, in fact, produce a negative value, not a positive value. However, people interpret these emotions wrongly and rely on their "feelings" on an intutive basis - a basis that may involve all the error in the shortcut of intuitiveness. (Read and understand Intuition - Useful But "Not Always" Accurate.)
In very important matters that come up before a person has really learned enough to make a good judgment, it is vital that they at least check out with a qualified person what is realistic and true.
The overall category that this appears to fall in is in "chasing rainbows", where we are motivated because we think we'll get a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but have no chance of doing it.
Another example might be a fellow who was never adequately acknowledged or loved by his father so he may seek out "father figures" in the form of authority figures - and then do all he can to ingratiate himself with that figure, including being obsequious and super-pleasing. He might even work his heart out to make an impression. And he probably would do a good job. But he can never seem to really get enough acknowledgement. Plus he will often set himself up for his boss to take advantage of him in other ways, like taking credit for his subordinate's ideas and work without giving any credit to his subordinate. While being in this position can result in getting some insights on how to function better perhaps, just from wrestling with the problem, it is unlikely that it will work out with many gains and even insights. There tends to be a blind spot, or actually several, that the fellow has - so, that means that it is necessary that he get the outside counsel of a qualified person to help him psychologically to solve his "residual problem" from his past and to help him seek better bosses and work circumstances that are more suitable for his happiness and progress.
GETTING NOWHERE ON A TREADMILL IN LIFE
If we hang on to the old childhood (or cultural?) idea that we must get approval and love to know that we are ok and safe, we can keep on being run by this for our lives - with no real gain. However, it is an "intermittently rewarding" process that provides reinforcement, even though the payoffs are worth far less than the cost. And I would say that they are "faux" payoffs. (This is discussed from another view in The Great Motivator: Believed Payoffs, But At What Cost?)
We no longer (and perhaps never did) need to get approval of "peripheral" people. Those are people whose approval actually means nothing in terms of benefits to us in terms of what they might do for us. We might only get a temporary respite from a neurotic need for people to like us. (Neurotic - Highly concerned with matters of no consequence, but being "run" by them.)
