Your guide to a healthier perspective of life
“A man is what he thinks about all day long.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Protect your thoughts. If you let negativity seep in, you will become a negative person. Be conscious of your thoughts and if they are what you do NOT want to become, change your way of thinking.
“The world’s apparent chaos is only a reflection of our own inner turmoil.” – Michael Gerber
The problem isn’t the world. It’s us. Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it. Are you going to react poorly? Are you going to let your emotions get the best of you? Control yourself. Control your responses. If you can’t do that, you are just a grown up, older child. Be mature and don’t act on impulse.
When things don’t go as planned, you can either look at it as a negative or spin it into a positive. For example:
When you’re sore from a workout, it allows you to be grateful for everyday when you feel “normal.”
When you’re sick, it allows you to be grateful for when you’re healthy.
When you got a bad night of sleep, it allows you to be grateful for when you sleep really well (or even moderately well).
We can go on and on with the examples. The point is that things won’t always go your way in life. You may have a plan, but there’s little reason to believe that everything will go exactly according to that plan. You can either pout when that happens and get down on your luck, or you can spin the narrative. Use it to your advantage and learn to really embrace the things we often take for granted.
Just remember, when you’re feeling sick, or tired, or sore, it’s only temporary. What about those who are chronically sick, tired, or sore? What about those people who have it way worse than you – who don’t have access to medicine, to a bed or proper shelter to sleep/live in, or who are physically or mentally handicapped?
It’s easy to make yourself the center of your world, because you’re always with yourself and you’re always aware of how you’re feeling. But once you reframe you’re perspective and start thinking about other people and their situations, you can begin feeling more grateful for even your “bad” days.
Equality of outcome is not possible, nor should it be desired. We should be striving for equality of opportunity. Everyone should be afforded the same opportunity and then they can choose whether they want to take those opportunities or not. Opportunity will never equal outcome because other factors still play a large part in determining the result. You can affect the result through hardworking, working efficiently, working creatively, working collaboratively, etc. You can get better at networking or delegating. You can get better at doing. And you can always run into good luck or bad luck.
People should be compensated based on their production, results, and merit, but that’s not always going to happen. Because unlike playing sports where you have the same objective and many ways to track results with tangible numbers, we can’t always quantify the value of a team member. And then there is the human, team morale, and leadership aspect to consider too. How can you quantify what that is worth?
We should always strive to be better – for ourselves, our family, friends, co-workers/team, company, city, state, nation, and world. We should strive for a more equal playing field and never stop striving for it. But the best way to start change is to start with yourself. Control what you can control, try to influence what/who you can influence, and realize that nothing is perfect.
Don’t play the victim card. It may be true that you have been victimized. But until recent times, not many people cared and even less people offered to help.
It’s up to you to make your life better – not your family, not your friends, and not the government. If, by some chance, you are fortunate enough to have somebody care and help you out, that’s icing on the cake. But don’t expect that to happen. Nobody owes you anything, especially if they are not the ones who directly harmed you.
If you feel bad about something that has happened, that’s ok. I’m not saying you should be a robot. But I am saying that what’s done is done and you need to move on. Wasting time, energy, and thought on feeling bad for yourself isn’t going to help you moving forward. How can you make your life better starting today?