Adults Hurt Like Children
The real cost of self-abandonment
When a child wants something and doesn't get it, it hurts. This doesn't change with age, only the way we handle the pain changes.
But here's the insight: the pain isn't about not getting what we wanted. It's about something deeper—our authentic needs not being recognized. We feel we deserve something, yet reality denies it. This gap between internal expectations and external outcomes is what actually causes pain.
The Hidden Cost
As adults, when we ignore our desires, we produce pain that commonly stays unexpressed. Our authentic self says YES while our circumstances, and often our own rational mind, say NO.
There's a term for this gap: Self-Abandonment.
Rudolph Steiner's Warning
"Every idea that does not become an ideal for you kills a force in your soul; however, every idea that does become an ideal creates life forces within you."
When you consistently ignore what you genuinely want, you train yourself to disconnect from inspiration and the life force that follows it. It's like losing momentum.
The Cost of Ignoring Your Instincts
This is why the subject of self-loyalty matters more than any single material outcome.
Rather than focusing on the circumstances, you can focus on how you relate to the circumstances. Shifting the focus inward:
- Calms the controlling mind
- Switches to parasympathetic state
- Allows perspective to expand
- Uses energy more efficiently
- Multiplies your ability to perform
Building Focus
I believe that a person's attention is not only their most valuable asset, it's the one thing that makes them different from any other living creature on earth.
The ability to maintain focus is the difference between spreading attention and accomplishing nothing, and focusing on the one thing that really matters and getting it done.
Yet most of us are not managing our focus consciously, and maintaining focus for longer periods is rare in our society.
Benefits of Mastering Your Focus:
- When interrupted, you return your attention to exactly where you stopped
- You sustain longer-term projects instead of unintentionally abandoning them
- You complete what you start, freeing mental load and gaining clarity, presence, and vitality
- The ability to finish spills over—conversations reach completion, messages are fully conveyed, relationships become more harmonious
The child's pain and the adult's are the same. The medicine is conscious focus on what truly matters—starting with yourself.
A Simple Practice
Train Your Focus
Each morning, pick a simple object (a pencil). Think about it for 5 minutes—shapes, colors, texture, uses, manufacturing. When your mind wanders, bring it back.
Investing just 5 minutes per day for a month will change your life.