5 Dangers of Leveling Up
…is it worth it?
There are thousands of articles, books, and videos published about how to “level up”. Self improvement is a hot topic, as it should be. There are a multitude of ways to improve yourself and increase your intelligence. What a lot of people don’t talk about, however, is what happens once you do. The moments of loneliness and regret you’ll experience as you leave behind the world you once knew and grew comfortable in, forever sealing shut the path leading you from your old perspective(s).
Focusing on yourself, on self improvement, and on continuously learning/growing has a greater effect than you might expect. Using the terminology of “leveling up” is super appropriate for this phenomenon. Once you learn something, you cannot unlearn it. You therefore inevitably end up differentiating yourself from the group of people who have yet to learn it.
Moments of Regret
Before learning something new, I can’t say I’ve ever had moments where I hesitate on whether or not to learn this new subject matter. But the more you do learn, the harder it is to relate to people who don’t strive to learn. You find yourself forcing conversations and slowing down your brain and your explanations to ensure that you can carry a simple conversation… and it sucks. I miss being able to carelessly talk about nothing and everything all at once. Gone are the days of gossiping. Carrying out actions or conversations that lead to drama have all but dissipated from life. You quickly come to understand what you can and cannot talk about to different groups of people in your life. You also realise there are very few people who you can chat to that actually hit that tier of conversation that you’ve been desperate for.
Loneliness
Which bring us to loneliness. I would be lying if I didn’t say that making friends comes quite naturally to me. I’ve lived in a few different countries and multiple cities now and have never had a hard time finding people to spend time with. But more and more, I have come to realise that even though I can spend a lovely evening with most people, the evening will end up being a bit anticlimactic. It will usually be pleasant but will usually just stay on the surface level, when all I want is to dig deep and have conversations about anything but reality. Let’s dig into our different perceptions, WHY we feel the way we feel. Let’s talk about space, stars, atoms, quantum mechanics and how insignificant our lives really are… and be ok with it. I long for these types of insightful conversations and have become noticeably (internally, for now) more and more cynical towards people who aren’t able to carry conversations about anything more than day to day drama, celebrities, and the news.
You can still see your past level(s)
The worst part, is you can clearly still see into that life that you used to live, the old level that you used to live comfortably in. When I try to imagine my life and the goals I’ve attained and the direction I’m heading, I see it in my mind as multiple levels separated by glass floors/ceilings (see Stephen Hawking’s show “Genius” depiction of 4 dimensional space and time). There’s a moment after you’ve learned something, that you feel a shift. It can be hard to place exactly what happened or when it happened but you know that you are no longer in the place you used to be. You’ve “leveled up.” And yet, you can “look down” and still clearly see the people who were at that previous level and know there is now something dividing you from them, something that you cannot put into words and that you cannot remove.
You can’t bring anyone with you
Fortunately and unfortunately, there’s no way to break this glass divide separating you from your old world and perspective, where everything you once knew lived and most people you know exist on. There are days I resent it and there are days I appreciate it. A life without learning to me, is no life at all. To learn IS to live. Once you learn something, it is impossible to unlearn it. You’ll begin to deeply desire to share this information with everyone that you know. You want everyone around you to understand it and level up with you, but that is simply impossible. That proverbial adage that you can bring a horse to water but you cannot make it drink holds true in this case as well. As much as you want to bring your closest friends and relatives with you to this new level — it cannot be forced. They need to develop that thirst for knowledge on their own. You’ll eventually come to terms with the fact that for many people, this will never happen.
Envy
This feeling was one of the hardest things for me to come to terms with, understand, and accept. You’ll see people living a simple life and you’ll try to understand it and them. You will have moments where you envy this simple life… but don’t confuse this with jealousy. You don’t want that life but you envy it because you wish you did and you wish that it would be enough. I look at people from my hometown, who have chosen to stay and who would never dream of leaving that area for one reason or another. They buy a house, they start a family, and they stay in their chosen careers and are blissfully unaware of anything that goes on outside of that perfect bubble. They are simply content with what they have. This, I envy beyond words. What I wouldn’t give to be able to “settle down” and be content to stay. I wish I resonated with this feeling and wonder if one day I will reach a point where I say this is enough. Once you start leveling up, stagnation becomes a real fear. Once you start learning incredible things, you just want to learn more. It will never be enough.
Is it worth it?
The short and simple answer is… I don’t know.
What would young Vincent Van Gogh say if he were able to see his future self? Would the difficult years at the end be worth it to create these works of arts that we today are so fond of, knowing his art will live on as his legacy for years and years to come? Would he willingly sacrifice his sanity for the sake of great art? There are pros and cons to living a simple life and to living an extraordinary life, and the decision is ours to make.
I will tell you one thing for certain… I know that without a shadow of doubt, when my time comes, I will take my last breath knowing I lived my life to the fullest, without any regrets, and that I did it my way.
