Raising the bar...

Several weeks ago, someone asked me: "Why do you keep raising the bar?" And I didn't have an answer. I just felt I had to do it. I didn't know for what. I didn't know what the heck it was that drives some of us to never be satisfied. Enough is never enough. There is always more. There is always better. And along with it there is always this sense of failure. This sense of inadequacy.

I didn't know how to answer that question. Because rationally I could see the argument aht we are our own worst enemy as we are never satisfied with what we've done or what we can do because as soon as we've done it, we start thinking that whatever we've achieved is not enough and eventually make ourselves miserable all over again. But as I've mulled over this question now for several weeks and seen myself push things to the limit, I think I may have an answer to why we do it... or at least to why *I* do it.

Victor Frankl in his book, Man's Search for Meaning made several astute observations. You'll find a whole lot of them documented in the Eavesdropped! section. One of the key observation he made was: "It is a peculiarity of man that he can only live by looking to the future -- sub specie aeterniatis. And this is his salvation in the most difficult moments of his existence, although he sometimes has to force his mind to the task."

What Victor Frankl said is basically that the reason why we raise the bar is because we need something to look forward too. It is part of our search for meaning. It's the need to have markers which when we cross we can say we got there. It is something to keep us from thinking about the futility and pointlessness of life otherwise in the absence of these markers. It's our reason. And yes, though we may make things difficlut for ourselves by moving the end marker up each time... we do it so that we can keep going.

I had to create my own new marker. I needed a new marker. And hence I had to raise the bar. I just don't know how to do it any other way. And if someone does, I wish I could learn from them. because otherwise there is no rest.