{"id":46717,"date":"2022-05-11T12:00:31","date_gmt":"2022-05-11T12:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/?p=46717"},"modified":"2022-05-11T12:00:35","modified_gmt":"2022-05-11T12:00:35","slug":"spiritual-groundhog-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/2022\/05\/11\/spiritual-groundhog-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Spiritual Groundhog Day."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Let\u2019s say I post a blog about a 5 Step Process to Happiness.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I throw in some ancient Greek knowledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I add some cutting-edge scientific insights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And there I go, sharing this little self-help gem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now what happens with you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What happens if you like what I offer?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, probably nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe you\u2019ll get excited while reading it, and forget about it half a minute later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe you\u2019ll get excited and bookmark it, and it becomes part of your vast collection of self-improvement blueprints.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe you\u2019ll get excited, bookmark it, and look at it every day for a week, before you forget about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe you\u2019ll get SO excited that you even stick to the 5 Steps for a while, only to discover that they\u2019re not much different from all the previous 5 steps, or 3 steps, or 7 steps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And also not a lot changes in your life, if anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So much for the blog.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now I\u2019m not trying to be a cynic here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is how we operate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jumping from one tile of hope to the next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Feeling excited while reading and studying, mentally basking in the shining presence of our future self, maybe even for a while.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes a specific method or worldview or spiritual niche can even become part of our personality and how we show up in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But most of the time nothing happens, you simply forget about it, and the whole excitement thing repeats itself when you stumble across the next blog or video or book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You could call it Spiritual Groundhog Day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not EXACTLY the same, but the principle is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018This is the one, this time is different!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve done this (and I still do, at least somewhat).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve lived this lifestyle of short bursts of excitement and peaks of possibility, only to see all of it vanish again, swallowed up by life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over and over again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I even wrote blogs and a book with a method.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then I started to slow down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sort of at least.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Doing the same thing again and again stopped making sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Slowly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Change is absolutely awesome, growth is really cool, but just thinking about it all day long is extremely frustrating and fairly stupid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We fall for the Big Promise because we feel stuck so very often, and this thing might finally do the trick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At least that’s the idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then the next thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And we become more and more disillusioned, tired, grumpy, and fed up with how we handle life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Until the next blog with a 4-Step Approach To Divine Liberation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Generously spiced up with some tribal knowledge and a bit of cutting-edge scientific study.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can keep doing that forever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fall for the promising premises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or you could stop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I can guarantee you one thing:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You won’t be getting it from me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

—<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Photo by @guernseyphotographerl, for Unsplash)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s say I post a blog about a 5 Step Process to Happiness. I throw in some ancient Greek knowledge. I add some cutting-edge scientific insights. And there I go, sharing this little self-help gem. Now what happens with you? What happens if you like what I offer? Well, probably nothing. Maybe you\u2019ll get excited […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46718,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[99,102,97,117,100,116,113,103,112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-verslaving","category-angst","category-wakkerworden","category-english","category-inzichten","category-persoonlijk","category-zingeving","category-spiritualiteit","category-eigenwijs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46717"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46719,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46717\/revisions\/46719"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}