A quote by Alex Haley recently caught my attention: “To be a writer… you’ve got to want to write, not want to be a writer.” It captures a hard truth—we often chase identities or goals that sound good but feel bad in practice.
Psychology offers a helpful framework here: the experiencing self and the remembering self. The experiencing self lives in the moment; the remembering self reflects on the past and tells the story. Sometimes the most memorable experiences are painful while happening—like a polar bear dip—but satisfying to recall. Other times, pleasant moments—like lounging on a beach—fade quickly if there's no story or memory attached.
Imagine two offers:
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A polar bear dip that you and everyone else will forget entirely—would you still do it?
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A tropical vacation, also forgotten forever—would you still pay as much?
Most people would skip both. That’s because we often value experiences not just as they happen, but for how they’ll be remembered. We live for the story.
But there’s another layer: the perceived self—the version of ourselves we want others to see. It drives decisions based on image and external validation. As Kurt Vonnegut put it: “We are what we pretend to be.”
The takeaway? Life gets out of balance when we prioritize one self over the others. Fulfilling decisions need to satisfy the experiencing self in the moment, offer meaning to the remembering self in hindsight, and align with the perceived self in context.
True purpose isn’t just about how things look or how they’ll be remembered—it’s about how they feel, in the here and now.
