Oneitis is a term used in the maculinty blogs to refer to when a man becomes obsessed with one woman. So much that she is seen as the ‘one’ – a special little snow flake, whoses faults are overlooked and spends all his time, energy, effort and money to become their significant other.
Oneitis is a sad story which many men have gone through in there lives. It is negative as when this attitude is prevalent he ignores the potential of other partners – despite the fact his ‘one is not interested.
Reflecting I realised that oneitis can rear its ugly head when pursuing goals. If you do any of the following, you may have oneitis.
- Do you have just the one goal, something that you want to achieve, perhaps even saying you can’t seeing yourself doing anything else except said desired goal.
- Do you have a number of goals, but in order to achieve them relies on achieving one (nearly impossible) uber goal?
- Do you have multiple goals that are seperate, but do them in an inefficient manner of doing one at a time (particularly lethal is goal is long term, or difficult to achieve)
All these methods mean consuming all your life resources into one goal. This is a damaging attitude, because as discussed about when I wanted to be a karate instructor, if you ever get there it may not be so great.
The perfect example is the kid who dreams of being a footballer – he cannot imagine himself doing anything else.
This requires a lot of practice, getting involved in sunday league and school level. This time may be better on a number of more practical goals.
If he does make it to the next level, there are many other hurdles to get through.
If they are good enough – the 0.001% who make it, then the oneitis uber goal is met and they achieve fortunues, fame, security and an endless supply of women.
For the failures who couldn’t get over there tunnel vision, they end up washed up, depressed, uneducated, and struggle through life.
Not their fault, but could have easily been avoided by not having oneitis with their life. Sure by spreading their energy to a number of goals this probably reduces the chances of success in a particular field.
If they looked at the most important factor – the odds, they would have set other goals and not had oneitis about being a footballer.
In ways by having a dozen goals they would increase chances of success, in the same way men who are open in there dating end up having more partners.
Remember the three signs of oneitis, when it comes to your goals:
- The ‘One’ goal
- The ‘Uber’ goal
- The ‘One-at-a-time’ goal
I generally fall into the ‘one-at-time’ goal, I struggle at multi tasking and seperating my time evenly to goals, I have spent years trying to get a better job, but not moving achieving any other goals, this led to me becoming a sadder, less interesting person.
So consider, do you want to be a singer, an actor, an athlete, an academic? Good for you, but don’t shut out other ways of developing your potential.
Work on other goals and take up other opportunities if they are offered to you, that way you won’t develop oneitis.
Perfect Manifesto 