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Break Free from Mimetic Desire: How to Stop Copying and Start Living

🧠 Episode Description:

In a world obsessed with imitation, how do you stay true to yourself? In this episode, Jonathan Doyle explores the hidden risks of mimetic desire—the unconscious pull to want what others want and live how others live. But you weren’t made to copy someone else’s life. You were created with a unique combination of gifts, talents, and potential.

Discover why the most important task you face is not to conform, but to cultivate what is uniquely yours. If you’re ready to break free from comparison, reclaim your individuality, and unlock the deeper purpose you were meant to live, this one’s for you.

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Transcript
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Welcome to the Daily Podcast with Jonathan Doyle.

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It's time for your daily dose of inspiration and encouragement.

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It's time to liberate your potential and take another step forward toward a bigger

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life of contribution and personal growth.

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If you're ready to move the needle in life, relationships, career and

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more then you're in the right place.

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Welcome aboard and let's get it done!

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Well, hello there, my friend Jonathan Doyle with you once again.

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Uh, welcome aboard to the Daily Podcast.

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Regular listeners.

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You're probably wondering where I've been.

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I've been doing stuff, I've been training and just, uh, keeping really busy

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reading, learning, thinking, and growing.

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Just like you, no doubt.

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Try to do each day.

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Uh, new listeners, welcome aboard.

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Today I want to share with you a really interesting idea that has been

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kicking around inside my head for.

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Quite a little bit of time.

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I wanna talk to you about something called mimetic desire.

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Mimetic desire comes from the Greek word esis, which means imitation.

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And I just wanna give you the idea simply and then I wanna sort of share with

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you how this could be useful to you.

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Mimetic desire or mimetic cultures, a culture's based on imitation.

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It's basically this idea that we.

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Want to be very much like others.

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We see what others have, we desire, what others desire.

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It's a culture based on imitation of other people.

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Now, I think if you spend more than just a few seconds on social media, you

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will be very aware how this operates.

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Now, of course, we all deny that we struggle with it.

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We, we, we consistently assume that it is other people suffering

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and struggling with this.

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We talk about young people getting sucked into social media.

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Friends, I think we can agree.

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Well, the way I explain it to my own kids is that some of the greatest, uh,

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intellects on the planet are employed to make sure that social media and other

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platforms are highly attractive to us.

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And they're not gonna do that if they didn't have some insight into the kinds of

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things that would attract our attention.

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And one of these things is esis is this desire to imitate that we see other people

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having amazing holidays or businesses or possessions, or they look amazing.

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And there's something innate to this human experience where we

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desire to be very much like them.

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Now stay with me because I'm gonna explain the way that we might want to get out of

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this and why that would be a good idea.

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But I'll give you some key features first of a mimetic imitation based culture.

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So the first thing we've got is imitative desire.

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So people want them because other people want them.

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We actually like to tell ourselves that a lot of the time, the things that we are.

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Desiring or chasing after are things that we want for our own deep internal reasons.

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Now, that's partially true, but I guess this philosophy of mimetic desire would

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suggest that we actually want them because we see other people desiring them.

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So I guess sometimes you'll see this in primates, right?

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You'll see primates, gorillas, monkeys.

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They're there.

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They'll be in a social setting and they'll suddenly notice

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that one of them has something.

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Now the minute they see that the other primate has it, you can

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often, you know, probably seen this in documentaries, right?

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There's this flurry of activity where they're suddenly desiring

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to get the other thing because the other primate has the other thing.

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So it's almost as if there's a anthropological dimension.

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In terms of evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology to mimetic desire.

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Next thing is social comparison.

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We evaluate ourselves relative to others.

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Now, of course you don't do this.

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I'm speaking to people who would never do such a thing like this.

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Look, we all do it, right?

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I mean, it's, of course we do.

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We'd like to tell ourselves we don't.

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But when we see our friends or family members or.

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It's just people on social media that have certain things.

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Um, we, we evaluate ourselves against them.

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And, you know, your regular listeners will remember for a long time.

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I've spoken about one of my favorite quotes from the Scholastic

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philosopher John Dunn's scotus.

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And this quote's really powerful.

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I've shared it many times.

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He said that all human comparison is essentially diabolical.

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All human comparison is essentially diabolical by which he means

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literally satanic all human desire.

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To compare ourselves to others is Satanic.

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That's a very strong language, right?

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What does he mean?

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Well, I guess he would say that God creates all of us as individuals, right?

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God creates all of us with this unique patterning of capacities

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and abilities, but the degree to which we concern ourselves with

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comparing ourselves to others.

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Is as hard as this is to admit to ourselves, it's almost rejecting

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the givenness of our own nature.

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The the what, you know, God creates us with these amazing individual natures,

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but we spend so much of our time thinking we'd be happier if we had what somebody

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else has, if we were like someone else.

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So that's what he means by all human comparison is essentially diabolical.

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So what have we got?

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Imitative desire.

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We want what others want because they want it.

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Social comparison.

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We compare ourselves to others.

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And then this leads to number three, which is conformity.

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We often tend to conform some of our choices and behaviors to what

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others are doing or possessing rather than what's most important to us.

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Step four leads to conflict because it leads to rivalry and envy.

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I think this is where Karl Marx obviously, I guess, got his, um, epistemological

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foothold in human history by recognizing the disparity at times between classes

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and that leads to rivalry and envy, and then you can eventually fan

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that into the flame of revolution.

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Go back to 1917 in Russia for that one.

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Friends, is it not true that we often get frustrated that we can't

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get our lives to look, uh, and seem like some other people's lives?

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Now look, I'm not saying you're doing this all the time, but I'm

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just trying to put these elements out there because I think they do play

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out in culture and to some degree.

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Um, we all have some degree of this going on inside ourselves.

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Now let's land this plane.

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The reason I wanted to share all of this with you is because

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here's what I'm thinking.

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I think the culture that we have emerged into being so mimetic and

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training us to desire what other people have to compare ourselves.

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Means that we spend a great deal, deal of time.

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At least I have, uh, and maybe you have too, wanting to be very, very different.

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And the narrative that we can develop in our own minds is, well,

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my life would be much better.

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I would be much happier if I just had what this person had, or I looked

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like what this person looked like.

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I'm gonna be really honest with you.

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I saw a video the other day from 1994.

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In 1994.

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I was doing a gap year in England and it was the best time.

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I had a, I had a fantastic year, uh, working at a school over there, and I was,

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I think I was about 19 or 20 years of age.

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And in the video I. I have this thick, wavy hair.

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It is thick, it is lustrous, it is just magnificent.

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And I don't have that hair anymore for whatever reason.

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I, uh, my hair decided to check out things relatively early.

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Luckily I was, you know, um, married to a, a fantastic,

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extraordinary woman by that stage.

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Um, and so I look back at this video and I'm like, oh, I've only, I had.

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Thick lustrous hair once.

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This is like, you're all listening to me going, I think Jonathan's

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trans transferring something here.

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Um, but I look back at things and you know, I think, oh, wouldn't

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my luffy better if I had this?

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I had that.

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And then the other place I've really figured this out recently is.

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You know, I'm 51 years of age and I trained a lot, as many of you

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know, and I've been back in the gym and I've been training very hard.

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I've actually put on close to 15 kilos of body mass from, um, power lifting.

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And, you know, I'm in there all the time and I look at, you know, other

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people and I look at, you know what, I want to be different about my training.

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And I, I had this thing going, why?

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Why aren't I lifting heavier here?

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Why can't I do this?

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And then I was trying to, you know, the difference between bulking and cutting.

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And I was like, frustrated.

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And I had this realization a few weeks ago, which is really the essence of

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what I'm gonna share with you now as we finish, is what I finally discovered

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was that I can't be someone else.

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And the invitation that is offered to me is simply to make the best

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of what has been given to me.

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You see, in a mimetic culture, we spend all this time looking at everybody

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else wanting to be radically different.

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And what we fail to do is answer the correct question.

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And the correct question is, how do I maximize what I have?

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And that's the essence of today's message.

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I want you to start thinking about the maximization of what you have.

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Do you wish you were different?

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You probably do.

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If you're really honest, almost everybody listening to this would at

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some point say to themselves, yeah, my life would be better if I had X or I

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looked like X, or I could, you know, if I earned X or did X, it's it's human.

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I get it.

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But what is in fact.

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Really important is that we show gratitude for what we have been given.

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You know, look at a guy like Nick Vukovich.

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I dunno if you've ever come across him, like Nick, Nick was born without

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arms or legs and has gone on to be one of the most successful, you

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know, amazing motivational speakers.

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You know, takes the whole thing about, you know, uh, what's that

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sort of thing I'm talking about here?

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Where, you know, the, the, the victim mentality, he just

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blows that apart, you know?

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So here's a guy who's gone.

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I don't have arms, I don't have legs.

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But what I do have, I'm gonna make the absolute most out of, I'm not gonna

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be mimetic, I'm not gonna spend my time doom scrolling through social

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media wanting to be something else.

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So that's my question for you today.

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Have you thought about this?

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Have you thought about what the real task is?

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You know, the real task for me, like for example, in the gym, is just to

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become the best that I can reasonably come with what I've been given under

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the parameters that I operate under.

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And.

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We are all called to develop our skills and talents and abilities.

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But here's the tip, develop yours.

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Don't worry about what you don't have, and don't waste a moment of

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intellectual, spiritual energy thinking about if you had something else,

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you would be remarkably different.

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Yeah, you would, but it's probably not gonna happen, right?

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My hair's not growing back.

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I often joke, you know, I'm about five foot eight.

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And, uh, you know, we're not the tallest family.

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You know, professional basketball has been ruled out for us, and I'm

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like, I'm waiting for a growth spurt.

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It ain't coming.

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It's not coming.

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So I gotta work with what I got.

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I gotta be who I am.

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And I think there's a freedom in that, don't you think?

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Don't you think that if we as a culture, if everybody just went

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to work on themselves, there's so much rage, there's so much anger.

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We want everything to be different and everyone to be different.

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And we want, uh, everyone to agree with our politics and

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our way of seeing the world.

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But just go to work on yourself, my friend.

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Go to work on what you've been given and accept what you have been given

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with gratitude and do what you can every day reasonably to make it better.

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And I play golf probably four times a week, and golf is a spiritual game, and

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my son plays with me now almost every day.

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And you know, I just do.

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I wish I was like playing off scratch.

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Sure do.

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But uh, some days I'm playing really well.

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Some days less so, but I'm always just trying to improve what I can improve.

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'cause I don't have somebody else's arms core strength swing patterns.

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I have mine and I've gotta go to work on that.

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So that's it for today.

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What I want you to do is abandon an imitation.

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Uh, abandon thinking that life would be perfect for you if you could have

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something that other people have, because you're not really gonna get that option.

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The only option that's gonna face you today and tomorrow and the day after

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is how do you, my friend, make the very best of what you've been given?

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Okay, that's it for me today.

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I hope that's given you something to think about.

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Uh, if you wanna book me to speak live, uh, corporate events, organizational

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events, you can do that through the website, Jonathan Doyle dot co.co.

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And uh, if I'm on Instagram, you can find me at j doyle speaks.

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J Doyle speaks.

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You wanna send me a message?

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You can do that through the website.

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God bless you my friend.

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I hope it's useful.

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If you're not a regular listener, please subscribe and I look forward to sharing

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something else with you tomorrow.

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