Dr. Paul Conti

I want the world to feel good about what I'm doing.

Like some of that is legitimate and healthy and some of it goes a little bit too far.

Um, so it can be a slippery slope and I have a tendency to, you know, to, to, to push to places where I want that approval and, and then I kind of feel good enough until the next thing comes up.

Now, that being said, there was a time in life where I didn't even understand that, you know, that I was anything other than the, you know, than the boxes or achievements I could, that I could check.

And I think it shows how working on ourselves is a lifelong, it is a lifelong challenge.

We're lifelong projects and that's okay.

I don't feel that, you know, because I'm 57 years old now and I've had therapy for, you know, how many decades now and I do this for a living and I'm moderately down that road.

You know, I can look at that and say, that doesn't sound great, right?

Or I could say, no, like this is an okay place to be.

When I hadn't made progress, that was not okay.

an okay place to be and like all of us I'm a work in progress and you know if someone figures out how we all live to be 400 years old I'm going to be working on that at year 390 you know and that's okay because I'm I'm working on it and and

By doing that and by being intentional and circumspect, by bringing compassionate curiosity to myself, I feel good about the life that I'm leading.

I mean, there's stresses and disappointments and fears and all of that, but I feel good about the life that I'm leading.

I feel good enough.

There's a classic sense where we can feel good enough, which doesn't mean limp over the line.

It's just solid approval where like, hey, you're good, good enough.

And we need to be able to tell ourselves that.

And if we're doing that, we're doing pretty well.

Yeah, yeah.

I think to make this distinction, there's a difference between strivings, right?