You Don’t Have to Choose

Maria-Christina Stewart (: 00:04

Welcome back to Meaning vs. Merit. I'm Dr. Maria Christina Stewart, your today we're going to be thinking about one of the questions that sits at the heart of this podcast, whether we're meant to choose between a life of or merit, or whether that tension itself is part of the problem. We often talk about meaning and merit as if they're in opposition.

as if you can either pursue success, stability, and recognition, or you can pursue purpose, fulfillment, and authenticity, but not both in tandem. And for many people, that doesn't just feel like a philosophical question. It feels like a daily lived pressure. Do I take the job that pays well or the one that feels meaningful? Do I prioritize productivity or presence, security or self-expression?

But what if that framing is too narrow? In this episode, my esteemed colleague, Dr. Lance Linke, is back with us and we're going to explore this and challenge the idea that meaning and merit are inherently in conflict. we'll talk about what it might look like to approach them dialectically, to hold both at once without collapsing into one or the other. Because when we feel forced to choose,

Something important happens psychologically. We simplify, we polarize. We tell ourselves a story that one side is right and the other is wrong. And in doing so, we may actually lose access to a fuller, more integrated way of living. So today we're asking, what happens when we stop trying to resolve the tension instead learn how to hold them together?

we get started, if this podcast or topic resonates with you, please take a moment to rate, review, and share it with a friend. Your support makes a huge difference in helping us help others. So let's dive in Lance.

Lance (: 02:02

as a beautiful frame to a question and my goodness, there's a lot of ways to approach it, gets to the heart of many of the world's spiritual and religious traditions. Here's what I mean by that, meaning and merit. Some people will notice that dichotomy, That a spiritual side that you can achieve in the physical world.

And again, we don't have to use this religious frame solely, right? Or the spiritual frame. That's just interesting in your introduction, I noticed how...

throughout recorded history this question has been asked. Because some people will say follow your heart and spiritually and then you can't achieve that kingdom in this realm. And you know if you pursue the worldly things you untether yourself from, I'll just use the shorthand spirit and then.

Maria-Christina Stewart (: 02:33

Yeah.

Mm. Mm. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Lance (: 02:53

What a beautiful question that you ask is, is there a possibility to hold those in a manner that provides non-dichotomous

Maria-Christina Stewart (: 02:59

Mm-hmm.

I love that. I have never thought about it in that way. And I'm so glad that you're bringing that up, because yes, it is a question that's been asked across time. It is a dialectic and perhaps a tension

that we hold as humans, There are so many things for us to do. There are various things that are bringing us meaning, What's the value? Where do you want to?

focus, what do you want to focus on in your life? And there can just be this tension between what is being asked of us in life where, like what we're called to do, so to speak, not called necessarily by our heart, but even called by the bills that we have to pay, Versus perhaps the calling of the heart. Yeah, that's a great point.

Lance (: 03:33

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah yes to everything you said I

I feel that there's something you said earlier before you started, and you just mentioned it here again.

there are demands placed on us. And I think there's utility in being hyper practical. It's just one of the ways that I like to talk about things and the pragmatics of our daily life. So we can do the philosophical view and the pragmatic view so we can certainly get into.

very specific examples of where we feel this tension daily. if we zoom out a little bit to the philosophical view, think we oftentimes say science versus spirituality is one frame that we could use. And I've held for a long time and believe that there's a possibility to synthesize those two, that those aren't science and its most fundamental even sense of materialism may not be entirely distinct from the ways we sometimes conceptualize spirituality.

Maria-Christina Stewart (: 04:49

Mm-hmm.

Lance (: 04:49

But I don't

know if it's most germane to enter it from that philosophical side or more you said, how do we reconcile something very pragmatic like I've got bills to pay and yet I want to draw with charcoal. Not that you can't make money drawing with charcoal, but I'm called to a more ⁓ meaningful or, yeah.

Maria-Christina Stewart (: 05:10

Right, right, right. And

I think that there's overlap, in both of them. They look like different layers of the same thing, right? And I think very often we'll say, see if you can find the meaning.

in the practical things we have to do. For example, a way to pay the bills in a way that's meaningful. And that's beautiful. And some people are able to achieve that. I think there are two tensions that come up. Partly, one is I think that's a privilege for a lot of people. They just don't have access to that. So that seems like a very privileged recommendation, suggestion.

Lance (: 05:35

Yeah.

Yeah.

Maria-Christina Stewart (: 05:59

And then the second is, even if people are able to access that, it doesn't mean that the attention isn't there on a daily basis, because they may be pursuing something that does bring them meaning and pays the bills. And yet, for example, we were just talking about this right before the conversation. ⁓ my gosh, it's so apropos. That,

they want to continue doing the thing that brings them meaning. And to do that means playing a game so that they can get accolades and perhaps a promotion or not get fired. And now ⁓ they are perhaps in this moment acting in a way that is not aligned with their values so that they can do the thing that overall is aligned with other values. And so I think this tension is just there constantly.

Lance (: 06:31

Exactly.

Maria-Christina Stewart (: 06:46

presents itself constantly, and I wonder about how we can hold them together.

Lance (: 06:50

Yeah, it's a great question.

it seems like in some ways, we might say meaning is a psychological internal congruence or resonance. I feel like I'm aligned. I feel like meaning can come from.

almost like structure, Like internally I'm structured. I feel like I know what is my guiding factor, whether that be God or family or money. And then that's got to comport or like link up with the external world, which is like how people are going to create merit for it. You know what mean? that's gonna like, so that internal,

Maria-Christina Stewart (: 07:14

Mm-hmm.

Lance (: 07:28

structure almost needs to kind of match up with the external structure. can think of the numerous permutations where that clicks in. I'm an artist and people like my songs so it blows up on the Twitter or the YouTube. And then also places where it's like, hey, I'm Van Gogh, I'm painting, but like people are like, I don't need to buy a seven year old's art.

Maria-Christina Stewart (: 07:32

Right, right, right,

Great.

Lance (: 07:53

They probably didn't say

that about Van Gogh. the notion of where it does or does not match up with the external world, which is probably an extension of other people's internal psychology and stuff like that. It's just like now there's billions of it. when you, billions of people, and merit is created when those social systems create resonance with your internal meaning, so to speak.

Maria-Christina Stewart (: 08:19

Yeah, I think that's beautifully said. And I'm going to add a third example, where what is meaningful for us and where we are aligned does not line up with the thing that brings merit. So I came up with an example for myself. I am not a fan of social media.

Lance (: 08:19

makes sense.

Yeah.

Yes. Yes.

Maria-Christina Stewart (: 08:39

And not only conceptually, I know all the problems with it, but I mean that when I go on it, I feel like my soul is being sucked out of me. It is the most challenging experience for me, not the most, but one of the most. And as a result, I have not, for example, promoted this podcast on social media. I am aware that that would be useful.

Lance (: 09:03

Mm-hmm. Right.

Maria-Christina Stewart (: 09:08

I am aware that I would probably achieve more merit and accolades if I were to do it. I have attempted to. I cannot get myself to stick with it for more than like 30 minutes because I don't have it in me. It's sucking my soul, right? Exactly.

Lance (: 09:18

Once.

Yeah, well, it's sucking your soul. That's a long time to have your soul sucked on. So ⁓ yeah,

you would probably find that aversive and, yeah, would discontinue that behavior. Yeah.

Maria-Christina Stewart (: 09:28

Exactly. So there's

that there's an example of this, this tension and I wonder about dialectics and how it might help us to hold it in a different way together.

Lance (: 09:35

Yes.

Yeah.

Absolutely, because here now arises, if you can see those both, we would maybe look toward.

you resting in the intent of your psychological congruence about the veracity and the importance of the work you're doing recording this. And then almost simultaneously recognizing what is the soul suck and how those two forces play and how much they attend to each other. This is very interesting question because I believe it gets out of the...

Maria-Christina Stewart (: 09:59

Mm-hmm.

Lance (: 10:15

prefrontal cortex conceptuality and also moves into the body, is interestingly a topic that I was interested to talk with you about the kind of the biological facet of the dialectic too. And I mean that by introducing the feeling orientation of, know, what would it be like for Maria Christina to hold her intent about the importance of the work of recording and sharing a message that's meaningful, the meaning part obviously. And then,

Maria-Christina Stewart (: 10:41

Mm-hmm.

Lance (: 10:42

beginning to write a review or a promotion or be in the merit-based part in social media and start to experience the pushback on the brain, the pushback on the body. Does this make sense?

Maria-Christina Stewart (: 10:57

Yeah, you hold both of them, you feel them, and then...

Lance (: 11:01

Feel them.

And then we see what happens. And I'm not being vague nebulous because we don't know. That's the alchemical process, so to speak. It's what happens. I'm very interested. think the dialectic has this inherent quality. I don't want to speak too much about it because it may not be for everybody. And I haven't ventured too much into this. Curiosity. And to feel what happens when you hold your meaning and bring it into.

Maria-Christina Stewart (: 11:12

you

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Lance (: 11:28

merit part. You it would be very interesting if run this experiment and we could even talk after you do it. What is it like to be in the soul-sucking social media with the intent to share a meaningful message and what pulls on you? Do you frustrated viscerally? Are you feeling scared? Are you mad? Are you feeling like, I don't want to deal with this BS of the social media. It's...

Maria-Christina Stewart (: 11:29

Mm-hmm.

Lance (: 11:53

eroding the meaningfulness and the pureness, those would be questions that we could ask to, again, the dialectic is meant almost as a container to hold these oppositions to feel or examine what arises in that perceived dichotomy.

Maria-Christina Stewart (: 12:02

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. I love it. I'm going to add something. like to talk about with emotions when they come up, what message are they bringing? And what I hear you saying is that if you can hold these two instead of trying to select one or the other, you're holding them and you are listening for what

Lance (: 12:14

Please.

Yeah.

Maria-Christina Stewart (: 12:33

all these different sides that are simultaneously arising, what they are saying and what they have to teach. The feelings, the thoughts that arise, they all have these messages.

Lance (: 12:41

yes yes yeah yep

I couldn't agree more. And the listening is what a key facet that you've lifted out of here. And the dialectic facilitates that listening process, because I'll just slip this in. I have feathered this in here. You're so right. It's not about thesis or antithesis finding logically constructing one of those answers. The synthesis is.

something new that's going to arise from those perceived dichotomy. And that's what I hear you describing. It's like, it's not going to be one or the other. When I have the container to listen to what arises out of that amalgam, that might be something new of antecedents, if that makes sense. Yeah, but please, I'd like to hear your, yeah.

Maria-Christina Stewart (: 13:26

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, beautiful, beautiful. think this

is so powerful because when I think of my own experience holding these, which I have done, and I know the emotions, the physiological sensations that arise, a lot of it is, you know, I feel flushed in my body, I get warm, my heart is racing, there's anger, frustration, I feel trapped, forced, all of these things.

Lance (: 13:46

Yes.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Maria-Christina Stewart (: 14:00

I have identified one of the reasons, I think the main reason I don't like it is because the way that I like to share these messages, any messages that are important to me is socially in person or even via video or audio, but I am interacting with people as opposed to just sort of sending a message out into the ether.

Lance (: 14:15

Yeah.

Yes.

Maria-Christina Stewart (: 14:25

And

so what I can learn from that, and I think what I have learned in those moments is it's not promotion of this that's difficult for are other ways to do it. So for example, I love giving talks. That's a great way for me. Am I going to reach as many people? No, unless, for example, I give a talk and I upload it, which I'm comfortable doing, right? Or maybe hire somebody else to do that part. ⁓

Lance (: 14:37

Yes, right.

Here we go. we're... Yep, yep.

Maria-Christina Stewart (: 14:50

And I know I can hire someone to do social media and it's interesting that I still have not chosen to do that because you still have to oversee it. There's something, there's like this block. And so what you're saying is rather than pick one of those, either just suck it up and do this thing that brings you merit or do something that's meaningful, it's really holding those and seeing what you can learn about yourself from.

Lance (: 15:09

Mm-hmm.

Maria-Christina Stewart (: 15:14

holding them in whatever comes up in terms of feelings and thoughts and so forth. And then see if in tandem they can help guide your next move, the direction that you want to go in.

Lance (: 15:26

100%, yeah. The resonance with words like you're saying, listening, holding, learning, yes, exactly. And there's going to be challenges probably, like distress tolerance may be part of holding a dialectic, right? Because the brain may want to switch out of it or default to it, because it might be a whole, but those are, then we can scaffold that process and discuss it. It's almost like you're saying,

that space in which we can listen longer to maybe attune to additional layers of the complexities of what's I'll say biopsychosocially.

Maria-Christina Stewart (: 16:03

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Lance (: 16:05

and to

attune and maybe even create in some senses more awareness around that to see if there's more degrees of freedom that we could notice now than before. that notion of the dialectic as a facilitation of expanding degrees of freedom is.

Maria-Christina Stewart (: 16:22

When you

say degrees of freedom, what do you mean?

Lance (: 16:25

Yeah, great, thanks. Fundamentally, I'm almost using it in the sense of Alex Missner-Grohs' description of, mathematical description of intelligence. Fundamentally, what I mean is noticing more possible pathways. Listening and calm can oftentimes give us more...

Maria-Christina Stewart (: 16:39

Mm-hmm.

Lance (: 16:45

possible roads to travel. know, stress can, for a variety of biological and evolutionary reasons, constrains, you know, like we get into more default settings. the more stress we get, for example, these are very broad strokes, the less options are available to our brain. And so defaults are the constraints, the more seemingly calm,

Maria-Christina Stewart (: 17:01

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Lance (: 17:07

creative we get, the more different opportunities, pathways, possibilities tend to open. And that's what I mean by degrees of freedom, if that makes sense.

Maria-Christina Stewart (: 17:16

you

So if we are holding the dialectic of these two things that may seem like they're in opposition in the moment, but actually are not, if we can be curious about them instead of trying to decide between them and getting in struggle mode, then that curiosity may allow us to be calmer and increase the

pathways that we may consider as options to move through it, forward it, that hold both the meaning and the merit for us in each moment.

Lance (: 17:56

That's exactly

it, yeah, because it's no longer do I have to be an artist or do I have to be a business person? It's noticing whether there's more fluidity, fluctuation, possibility that is not all or nothing in there. Precisely

That's the utility, the functional utility of a dialectic.

Maria-Christina Stewart (: 18:15

that sounds like a daily minute to minute practice that is going to take a long time to kind of get skilled at. So, you know, as we wrap up, what I'm thinking is, I wonder if we could have you back. We're so grateful for your time and expertise on this dialectic. And I wonder if we could explore

Lance (: 18:19

Minute to minute breath. Moment to moment.

Maria-Christina Stewart (: 18:37

some other specific examples of how we can implement this in our life the dialectic in general, and especially when it comes to us holding this meaning and merit and figuring how to balance both of them, how we can do the things that are important to us and also

pursue the areas that we may want to where we aim for excellence and how to do those without them competing with one another.

Lance (: 19:04

Yes, sounds excellent and it may start with you promoting this on social media and seeing what happens and us discussing it. ⁓

Maria-Christina Stewart (: 19:08

You

That's hilarious. Well,

in my outro, I've often talked about audience members, feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn, because it's the only social media that is more palatable to me that I've been able to sort of end your being on. So I

Lance (: 19:21

Right.

Yeah, well, this is

exactly it. This is how we start, and this is how we become curious, and this is how we try and experiment and edge in on it. So let's explore together.

Maria-Christina Stewart (: 19:32

That's how we start.

Yeah.

That's awesome. Thank you so much again for being with us. Dr. Lance, Linke you too. And as we close this conversation, I want to leave all of you with a question to sit with. Where in your life are you treating meaning and merit as an either or? And what might shift if instead of choosing, you allowed both to exist, even if it feels uncomfortable, even if it slows you down?

Lance (: 19:43

I appreciate you.

Maria-Christina Stewart (: 20:07

Dialectical thinking doesn't give us easy answers. In fact, it often asks more of us. It asks us to tolerate uncertainty, to hold competing truths, and to resist the pull towards simple definitive conclusions. And in return, it may offer something we're all searching for, a way to live with more flexibility, more clarity, and perhaps a little more peace.

If this episode resonated with you, I hope you'll take a moment to reflect, share it with someone, and continue the conversation, See you next time.