The Hard Truths of Life

It’s easy to get caught up in the hustle of day-to-day life. With so much going on in our professional and personal lives, we are so consumed by what is right in front of us. We’re so immersed in what we are doing, and it is as if we are on autopilot. We’re going down a dangerous path when we operate like this. It’s easy for weeks, months, or years to go by where you’re on autopilot, and the moment you stop, you look back and wonder where all that precious time went that you are never going to get back. It’s important to pause from time to time to remind ourselves of the hard truths of life so that we can stop living on autopilot and control where we want to go:

Truth #1:

We will all die, and it might be much sooner than you expect and much less pleasant than you wish. Don’t think anything in your future is guaranteed, not even the next hour.

Truth #2:

Everyone around you, everyone you love or hate, is also going to die, and it also might be sooner than you expect.

Truth #3:

Everything is temporary, whether it be people or possessions. Death will take everything you have accumulated, but things can be taken from you much sooner than that, no matter how hard you worked or how much you love it. It’s yours, but it is also not. It is borrowed, and you must eventually return it, potentially without any advance notice.

Truth #4:

You can enjoy what you’ve been given (family, friends, success, fame, fortune, possessions), but again, remember it can and will be taken away from you (or you from it). Attaching yourself to it or refusing to let go will only cause you to suffer.

Truth #5: We operate under a logic (e.g., we do good, good will happen to us. We work hard, we will be rewarded), but this logic is false. There may be a logic that exists, but it’s not something we can necessarily comprehend or understand.

Accepting these truths and moving forward:

Acknowledging these truths can be extremely crippling (because you realize how little you control) or extremely liberating (because you realize how little you control). If you find it crippling, you’re riding against (or trying to control) the waves of life. If you find it liberating, you realize that you can’t control the ocean, so instead, you go with the ups and downs of life, accept both the calm and turbulent moments, and learn how to surf and go with the flow.

It can be easy to reject these truths for those who are externally thriving and have fame, fortune, or status because our ego gets in the way. Furthermore, we’re afraid and don’t want to accept that we may lose everything we have. For those struggling, this can provide solace as we remember that our suffering is temporary and that no one is above these laws. Furthermore, we can provide our egos some comfort knowing that the universe operates under a different logic than we are used to, which means that our inability to thrive externally may not be our fault.

Final words…

As you go about your day, think about these truths. How do they fit into your life? If you’re thriving, don’t attach yourself to this feeling — it will pass. If you’re struggling, don’t lose hope — this too shall pass. We only have a finite amount of time in this world, so be careful what you do with it.

Declaring war on your anxiety

For those of us that struggle with anxiety, we know far too well that it can have devastating effects on your day-to-day life. At its worst, it can consume you all day and induce a state of mild paralysis where you feel that you can’t take action. What I’m referring to is not necessarily the type of anxiety you feel before giving a presentation (although it could be), but it’s when you wake up in the morning and feel tense and afraid. You’re subconsciously wondering, how am I going to survive the day? What’s going to trigger my anxiety? And oddly enough, sometimes just the fear of getting anxiety starts to cause anxiety.

A simple trick that I uncovered a few days ago to help me navigate my anxiety is to declare war on it. I woke up one morning, was waiting for my coffee to finish brewing, and despite feeling groggy, my mind started to run a million miles an hour, hoping that I wouldn’t feel anxious today. That very thought started to make me anxious. I don’t know what triggered this thought in my head, but I just got a bit fed up. I’m tired of this. Enough is enough. Today, I’m not going to let my anxiety control me. I took a deep breath, grabbed my coffee, went to my room, and proceeded on with my day as if my anxiety did not exist.

Did the anxiety disappear for the rest of the day? No. But for some reason, it wasn’t crippling or paralyzing. It was just something my body was doing on autopilot (e.g., getting tense, heart rate elevating). Sure my mind would still go down rabbit holes of anxious thinking, but there was a detachment from those thoughts. Luckily enough, things weren’t too bad from midday onward, and towards the end of the day, those thoughts significantly reduced.

Since then, I’ve made a conscious effort each morning to declare war on my anxiety. There’s no wow factor to this. It’s nothing magical. But making this affirmation, especially when I can emotionally get behind it, seems to make a difference.You have to bring this intention to not let your anxiety rule over you to your conscious awareness by saying it out loud (or in your head) in the morning. The anxious thoughts come and go, but it doesn’t define me, and therefore, it shouldn’t dictate my day or get in the way of me pursuing other things.

Not sure what to do? Do nothing

Worrying is like a rocking chair; it gives you something to do, but it gets you nowhere.

When something is not working, when we feel lost, or when we don’t know what to be doing in the present moment, our mind nudges us into action. It could be seeking a solution, talking to someone about our stressors, or just distracting ourselves with a TV show or food. Through some mechanism over time, our mind has developed this strong belief that doing is always the solution. However, as we have experienced over and over again, action does not fix everything. Watching TV doesn’t always cure boredom, and venting doesn’t heal anger. If we’re lucky, we may achieve temporary relief, but the root of the problem remains – we always feel the need to control things, and as a result, we feel the need to always do something.

The Art of Non-Doing

Yesterday, when feeling a bit restless and in a rut, I wrote a journal entry/note on my phone:

I gave in today and tried to logically get myself out of the rut that I’m feeling regarding my monotonous day-to-day routine. I googled for ideas, I went on Reddit, I listened to talks, I tried reading, and quite honestly, none of it worked. Had I not stressed over this, I could have least enjoyed the past two hours. It wouldn’t change anything, but it may have been relaxing, and that might have helped.

I experienced a challenging emotion (restlessness), but no amount of doing was able to fix this. As a matter of fact, it may have made things worse because I felt tired and like I had lost valuable time on my day off, and I had nothing to show for it. When we feel unpleasant emotions, we feel the need to get rid of them. What we fail to recognize and admit to ourselves is that it is okay, and it is human, to experience negative emotions. Not every negative moment or feeling has to be a crisis.

We do not know how to sit with our feelings. The art of non-doing is recognizing that it is okay to not try to fix everything. It is okay to feel bad and let ourselves feel that way. Oddly enough, this acknowledgment in and of itself is empowering and a mood lifter. Does this mean give up or stop trying? Absolutely not! It means learning to distinguish between what you can control and what you cannot control and being okay with what you cannot control.

Non-doing simply means letting go, letting things be the way that they are, and letting them unfold the way they are intended.

Practicing Non-Doing

“When we spend some time each day in non-doing, resting in awareness, observing the flow of the breath and the activity of our mind and body without getting caught up in that activity, we are cultivating calmness and mindfulness hand in hand”
~Jon Kabat-Zinn

Meditation, at its core, is an exercise of non-doing. However, it is not the only way to practice non-doing. I have found that non-doing is about absorbing what is happening in the present moment as it shifts into the next moment. It is also about making a conscious decision not to be pulled in several directions by our feelings, desires, or external pressure. Non-doing can also manifest through effortless action (i.e., things that induce a state of flow). This could be listening to music, going for a walk, or swimming. The key here is intentionality. Is movement enabling your ability to be aware and present, or is it just another thing you are doing?

More than anything, non-doing is something that results through the decisions we make in our day-to-day. When you’re bored, do you automatically grab your smartphone and scroll through social media, or do you sit with it and be okay being bored? When someone messages you from work in the evening, do you immediately respond or put it aside and respond during regular working hours?

Final words…

“Now and then it’s good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy”
~ Guillaume Apollinaire

If there’s a takeaway I can give from this post, it is this – the next time you’re in a rut, or you feel stuck, rather than jumping into action, take a moment to pause. Take just two minutes. Take a handful of deep breathes, analyze what is happening around you, recite a mantra to ground you, and/or ask yourself this question – do I need to be doing something right now and will it fix how I am feeling?

The Problem With Gratitude

Over the past few years, gratitude has become a popular topic in the positive psychology and self-help space. Many researchers and coaches talk about the benefits of gratitude and why we should set aside time each day to be grateful for the things in our lives. We’re told to be optimistic, say thank you to the important people in our lives, and keep gratitude journals.

These are all great ideas and great things, but the problem is that many people treat gratitude as an activity or something you do once in a while. You write three things you’re grateful for every night, or you send a thank you letter to an old friend. You participate in the activity, and that’s it. If we wish to unlock the benefits and power of gratitude, we need to think of it as a lifestyle, not as an exercise.

Temporary things will only give you temporary joy.

Have you noticed how most of the things that give us joy in life are all temporary? Whether it is a meal, a movie, or a vacation – it is temporary, and therefore, the pleasure it provides is momentary. Similar to how a good meal gives only temporary joy, gratitude as an activity will only have short-term benefits.

Gratitude as a lifestyle is about appreciating what you have at every moment.

As people, we have this odd tendency to always be looking to the future or looking back in the past. Think about vacations. When you’re planning a vacation, you’re getting joy out of what is to come. As you get closer and closer to that vacation, work, and even life become more and more agonizing, and it’s as if you cannot enjoy anything until you reach that vacation. You want time to pass so that you can be hiking in California or sitting on a beach in Hawaii. When the vacation is over, you struggle to enjoy the present moment. Instead, you reflect and get sad that you are not there anymore, so you now shift your attention to your next vacation or time off. Unfortunately, even when we’re on vacation or experiencing that thing that is supposed to give us joy, we’re still longing for more. You’re dreading that there are only two days left before you go back home, or you’re upset that the lousy weather derailed some of your plans.

In moments like this, when we are stuck in the rat race of life or in this rut of continually wanting more, it’s in these precise moments where you need to remind yourself to be grateful. Each moment is a gift. Acknowledge and accept that what you have now is enough. Getting more of something is only going to give you temporary joy, if that.

People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child—our own two eyes. All is a miracle.
Thich Nhat Hanh

Our false sense of control inhibits our ability to be grateful.

Too often, we feel that we have more control over our lives than we do. To be clear, we do have some control over our lives, and I am a strong advocate of taking charge of the things we can control. However, the universe is just so complex, and there are an infinite number of things that we cannot control (COVID-19 is a perfect example). Despite this, we often still try to control things. We can’t seem to let go. This constant need to control is what results in always being hungry for more and being unable to enjoy the present moment. This is why we still feel like something is missing in even the happiest moments of our lives. We always think that things can be better, and we try to think of how we can control the situation and reach this ideal that doesn’t even exist. As a result, we completely take away the focus from just appreciating what we already have. If you let go of this false sense of control, you will more easily be able to enjoy what you do have.

Happiness doesn’t come from getting more, but from letting go.

Final words…

We need to shift from the mentality of gratitude being an activity to the mindset that gratitude is a way of living. When you find yourself struggling to be happy in the moment, it’s important to ask yourself, why am I feeling this way? What is this doing for me? Why am I looking for more? When you take a closer look at each moment in your life, you realize that you don’t need more. You have everything that you need and more. What a great feeling.

Here’s how your thinking might be flawed…

As we all know, most of our thoughts and reactions are automatic. Think of all the times when you’re watching TV and your mind randomly drifts into that project you haven’t finished at work, or think of when you instantly get annoyed at that driver who isn’t moving when the traffic light turns green. The good thing about this process is that we don’t get overwhelmed by the amount of information our mind is processing. The bad thing, however, is that this process has some hiccups. According to David Burns’ book on mood therapy, there are ten cognitive distortions that many of us suffer from:

All-or-Nothing Thinking. This flawed type of thinking is when we see things as black and white. Either you succeeded or you failed, nothing in between. You’ve succeeded if you got a 4.0 GPA, but anything less and you’ve failed. All-or-nothing thinkers are perfectionists. The slightest mistake or flaw and they assume the worst of themselves or their performance. These thinkers are too hard on themselves (and possibly others as well). Their expectations are unrealistic, and as a result, they’re almost always going to fail to meet their expectations.
Overgeneralization. This flawed type of thinking is when you treat a singular occurrence as a common occurrence. For example, you’re working on a project on your computer when the computer randomly restarts. You lost your work as you did not save it and say “This always happens to me! I’m always unlucky!” In actuality, this may have been the first time that it ever happened to you, or maybe it happened once before. It’s not an every day occurrence but you are treating it as if it is. When a friend doesn’t respond back to your text message, you might say “she never responds back” even though it was a rare occurrence for your friend to not respond to your message.
Dwelling on the negative. This is when you identify a negative detail from a situation or occurrence and you dwell on it. For example, you have your performance review at work and get heavily praised, but are given one small piece of criticism. Rather than appreciating that you did so well, you dwell on that negative piece. As a result, you question how you messed up, or maybe you get annoyed at your supervisor because you felt that piece of criticism was unfair. Either way, you fail to put the situation into perspective because all you can focus on is the negative.
Disqualifying the positive. This is when you take a positive situation and either fail to acknowledge that it’s positive or you disqualify it. For example, if someone gives you a compliment, rather than believing it, you might say “They’re just being nice” or “anyone could have done it.” If you do something well, you might say “I was just lucky.” This could be perceived as humility as well, however, what matters is the intent behind it. A humble person would say “I did well, but I acknowledge that there were other factors involved too and I was fortunate to be in the right situation at the right time” whereas someone who is disqualifying the positive would say “Anyone could have done it. I was just lucky.”
Jumping to conclusions. This is when you make assumptions that are not justifiable by any type of facts or information. For example, if you’re talking with a friend who seems disengaged, you assume that you’re boring him, when in actuality he might just be stressed or tired and is finding it difficult to concentrate. Burns refers to this as a “mind reading” error. Another type of thinking error in the realm of jumping to conclusions is the “fortune teller error.” This is when you make an assumption by predicting something that is unrealistic. For example, if your left arm is hurting, you say to yourself that you must be having a heart attack even though you’ve had left arm pains before and it was never a heart attack.
Magnification and minimization. You catastrophize small negative occurrences whereas you minimize positive occurrences. You make a small mistake at work and think that you’re going to get fired, or maybe you get into a small argument with your girlfriend and think she’ll never forgive you. Magnification and minimization is sometimes also called ‘unfavorable comparisons’ because this type of distorting thinking often happens when comparing yourself against others. For example, you might think “John’s so successful because he’s a lawyer (magnifying another’s strengths) whereas I’m not because I’m just an accountant (minimizing your own strengths).”
Emotional Reasoning. This is when you think your emotions are the ultimate truth. This is when you say “I feel stupid, so I must be stupid” or “I feel guilty, so I must have done something bad.” You might think that you do not do this because the examples I have shown are a bit extreme, but ever think that you can’t solve a problem because you’re feeling overwhelmed? That’s an emotional reasoning flaw. “I feel overwhelmed so I must not be able to solve this problem.”
Should/Must Statements. This can be either self-directed or other-directed. When it’s self-directed, you assume that you should or must do something and add pressure on yourself. You say “I must go to the gym” or “many people have it harder than I do so I should be happy and not sad.” Alternatively, when it is other-directed, you make assumptions as to how others should behave. You might say “He’s already overweight, he shouldn’t have eaten that brownie” or “she should’ve been here five minutes ago.” As you see here, you create somewhat of a faulty logic for yourself and others and operate under the assumption that you know what is right and how things should be done for yourself and/or others.
Labeling. Burns states that labeling is an extreme form of overgeneralization. It’s when a negative occurrence happens and you label yourself for it. It’s when you say you are a certain why because of something you did. You don’t get the job and say to yourself “I’m a failure.” The labels are generally oversimplified and just wrong.
Personalization. What defines this distortion is guilt. This is when you blame yourself or conclude that a negative occurrence resulted because of you. Your child got detention because he yelled at this teacher and you think to yourself that it’s your fault because you are the parent. In this circumstance, you’re operating under the assumption that you control others and other situations. You can influence others, but you cannot control them.

Final words…

In all of these distortions, you’ll notice some overlap. For example, most of these distortions are a result of faulty assumptions, false logic, and based on no real evidence. Furthermore, most of these have a tendency to either (a) fixate on the negative or (b) negate/ignore the positive. What Burns and most psychologists don’t usually talk about is individuals who have a tendency to do the opposite. These individuals are those who generally are overconfident with possibly an overinflated ego and are those who (a) assume everything they do is positive or (b) everything others do is negative. Either way, cognitive distortions exist and we are all guilty of them.

Which ones are you guilty of?

Optimism wins

Way too many people out there have this belief that optimism is synonymous with delusion and/or being unrealistic. I hear it all the time that optimists are just sunshine, rainbows, and flowers. They don’t see or acknowledge the hurt and pain that’s out there in the world. They are optimistic because their life is good. Their reality is distorted. One individual on Fox News went so far to say that optimism was at fault for why a US soldier killed 16 Afghan civilians because “soldiers are actually taught to deny stress and trauma, and false bravado is actually encouraged.”

But did you ever stop to think that maybe optimists are the realists? Maybe their life is good BECAUSE they are optimistic? The truth is that optimism and positivity wins. A mild dose of pessimism has its utility, and extremism of anything is unhealthy, but by and large, optimism wins. According to the research shared in Martin Seligman’s book on optimism, on average, optimists have better physical and mental health, and they are better achievers than pessimists. It’s just a fact.

That being said, optimism is not necessarily what you’ve been fed by other people. It’s not just turning everything negative into something positive, and nor is it something you can experience by just having a positive pep talk with yourself while standing in front of a mirror. Ultimately, the way you distinguish an optimist from a pessimist is based on how an individual explains to themselves the bad things that happen to them in their life.

Optimists vs. Pessimists:

When something bad happens, an optimist WILL feel bad. Of course they will. They’re human. It’s not just that their glass is half full. They’re not delusional. However, the difference between them and the pessimist is that the optimists’ feelings of helplessness are temporary and they are more likely to contextualize the bad event. The pessimist, on the other hand, views bad events as more permanent and a general occurrence in their life that is inevitable and unavoidable.

The pessimist is very passive and helpless. The pessimist accepts the inevitable doom of his or her life, and a bad event is just a reflection of that. The pessimist feels they cannot really do anything about the situation. The optimist is also passive and helpless, but that’s very short lived. Soon the optimist realizes that:

The bad event is not a reflection of my life; it happened because of X, Y, and Z. Maybe I can’t do anything about this situation, but I can do A, B, and C to move forward.
Bad things happen, and they suck, but that will not stop me from growing, getting better, and achieving my goals. Just because I feel bad about this doesn’t mean I need to feel terrible about my entire life.
I have the power to move on and not feel terrible anymore.

On average, both the optimist and the pessimist experience the same bad events. Furthermore, they feel equally as bad when bad things happen to them. However, the difference is that soon after, the pessimist enables the helplessness whereas the optimist suppresses it. The pessimist feels a lack of control while the optimist takes control. The pessimist becomes passive while the optimist becomes active. Optimists forgive themselves and the negative events in their lives whereas pessimists hold a grudge.

When it comes to how we perceive the good things that happen to ourselves in life, we see almost the exact opposite thing happen. Optimists view the good events as more permanent and a general occurrence of their life whereas pessimists view good events as more temporary and are more likely to contextualize or think it is a fluke. An optimist takes a good event, savors it, and then is motivated to replicate the good event (they feel a sense of control). A pessimist, on the other hand, sours some of the good feelings by thinking this occurrence is not sustainable and is a result of luck or chance.

Final words…

Both optimism and pessimism are habits. The good news is that optimism can be learned and pessimism can be unlearned. Again, it’s not to say that all optimism is good and all pessimism is bad (that’s a conversations for another day). Also, it doesn’t mean that optimists can’t have pessimistic moments or vice versa. A bad event is a bad event and everyone is going to feel bad about it. The difference, however, as Seligman states in his book, is that “in optimists, a failure produces only brief demoralization” (p.76). It’s short-lived. Optimists rebound faster and take control of their situation. This is why they are generally healthier, happier, and higher-achievers.

Optimism wins.

If you’re excited about Friday, something might be wrong…

Friday is great. For most of us, it’s the last day of the workweek and the beginning of the weekend where we can be relax, be lazy if we want, and actually do the things that we enjoy. We can stay at home, or we can go out. We can spend time with family and friends rather than our manager or boss. However, if we’re excited about Friday, and we spend the greater part of our week in anticipation of Friday, then do you wonder that something might be wrong?

Think about it.

We’re happy on Friday night, Saturday, and the greater part of Sunday. Sunday night comes around and we start dealing with the Sunday night blues. We’re dreading the fact that our weekend, our mini-vacation, is over. We come to the realization that we now need to start preparing for the worst part of the week – Monday. On Sunday night, we’re sad that the good part of the week is over and now the bad part of the week is about to begin. Then comes Monday and we try to survive. On Tuesday it’s a little easier to survive. On Wednesday, we’re somewhat adjusted to the week and feeling okay because it’s hump day and half the work week is over. Thursday is also okay because it’s almost Friday, but Friday needs to get here soon! On Friday, we jump for joy because it is FINALLY Friday!

Our whole work week revolves around waiting for Friday night. However, is 57-71% of our week so bad that we’re just waiting and waiting for the moment to arrive where that part of the week is over? And we expect to live 40+ years like this where from Sunday night to Thursday we’re just waiting for Friday? Here’s an excerpt from a few talks by Gary Vaynerchuk that describe the problem with Friday:

To live your life where you love Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday, and despise Monday through Thursday or Friday morning… it’s devastating to me because you’re wasting too much of your life, and I’m trying to put pressure on the conversation to say if you love Friday that much, then you really need to look at Monday through Thursday

If you start your week being sad, and it progressively gets better, you have a problem. We spend way too much time in our lives doing our jobs. When you’re spending most of your life working, it’s important that that thing is on point. It’s a math game. If you’re spending 83% of your time, 72% of your time, 64% of your time on something you hate, that’s devastating.

We basically live to work. If you’re not happy, where are you going?

Final Words…

Let me say this – being excited about Friday is not necessarily a bad thing. We should be excited to have more time for ourselves, our families, and our non-work related interests. However, if you’re excited about Friday, but you are dreading Monday, then THAT is a problem. If you sleep eight hours a day and work 40 hours a week, you’re spending about 36% of your waking hours at work. You can probably add in an additional 10-15% for overtime, commute, and when you’re not at work but thinking about it. That’s almost half of your waking hours every week.

We’re never going to be in a situation where we’re 100% happy or a 100% satisfied with our work life, and sometimes we might even have to do a job that we do not like. However, if you’re so eager for Friday and not about Monday, I strongly encourage you to find what you love and pursue it, or find a way to transform what you do into something you love (or at least find bearable). If you can do that now and it’s feasible, then do it. If you can’t do it now because it’s not feasible, find a way to make it feasible.

It’s easy to fall into the trap and say to yourself “I just don’t like work” or “I am in a situation where I can’t leave my work and find something else even though I dislike it,” but if you don’t make a change, you’re going to be spending almost half of your waking life for up to 40+ more years miserable and just waiting for Friday. Find a way to make it happen. Either transform your work or find better work.

Happy Friday…!?