Scars
What Happens
What happens is important, but let’s talk about how you deal with what happens to you. It’s an old saying. It can go back to religions, schools of thought, but ultimately what is being said is you’re not in control. The world’s going to do what it’s going to do. Oh, you think you can be in some control and maybe you can. Maybe you can choose the color of your next car. Maybe you can choose whether your steak is well done or medium-rare.
You Just Don’t Have Control
The point is that there’s a lot of stuff in life that you just don’t have control over. Let’s take a moment and point to the Coronavirus, the topic of the day, the week, the month and who knows how long. There is a myriad of reactions to this.
Now a lot of the people that I follow on social media, have taken a deep dive into their discipline. Some of you are doing some fantastic things. Losing weight, spending time in meditation, all sorts of different things. It’s exciting to see that.
Becoming Resigned
Then there’s also becoming resigned to this, which is disturbing to me. It’s not very comfortable. I don’t like it because what I see is people who have decided that this is a chance to let themselves go. I had to go to the store and the hodgepodge of disarray I saw was extraordinary. One gentleman stunk so bad I couldn’t follow him down the aisle. Basic hygiene had gone by the wayside with him.
The Bohemian that was standing in front of me in line, clearly his clothes hadn’t been washed in some time. Buying a bottle of whiskey and some food. You know that kind of thing. It was amazing how many people were, for lack of a better phrase, letting themselves go. It’s as if a moment of societal disarray was a moment to let their qualities fly to flinders.
If that’s the way you’re going to treat yourself I can’t imagine you of many benefits to anybody else. As I rage against these people that see this virus as an opportunity to slip into disarray, do what they want to do on their terms. Well fine go right ahead.
Clean Clothes And A Purposeful Walk
But as I was walking out of the store a small gentle lady was coming my way up the parking lot, she had her purse on her elbow. She had a list in her hand, her hair was done the clothes were clean and pressed and she walked with purpose.
As she walked past me, I thought to myself, “There’s a person who’s seen some life there’s a person that’s experienced some things.” She has decided that she can’t control what happens to her but she can control how she reacts to it.
A Rant?
A little bit of a rage a little bit of a rant? Quite possibly. But if you’ve chosen to go down that path and I doubt many of my listeners have gone that way. Make the change now, get in the shower, press your clothes, clean them, shave, cut your hair, use your comb. Put on a little Cologne if you like to be positive and set yourself up for success.
Because this thing is going to end and you need to be ready to seize the day when it does.
Familiar with Stoicism?: 60 Stoic Quotes that will Strengthen your Perspective on Life
Uncertainty is what is happening now. Here are 3 more minutes on: Uncertainty
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Loss and Change
Loss and change can be horrible. It can be traumatic and it can be soul-crushing. Think of the greatest loss you could experience in your world. The permanent painful loss. Now step back from that moment because thus the laws and change I can’t address and I wouldn’t try.
However, a wet finger to the wind says that the majority of our losses, the ones we have on a day-to-day basis are not in this catastrophic category. They sting and make no doubt about it they fall on a spectrum. Some are little things and others are much larger. It’s difficult to take them in, categorize them, to easily put them up on the shelf, even order to sort them.
Smaller Losses
But these smaller losses are change. Their often unexpected and loss and change are a package deal. You can’t have one without the other. They are a set. It’s like when you talk to the salesperson in the store and you say I would just like this and the response is sorry can’t break the set-up. It has to be sold together.
The fruit farmers prune their trees. The goal is to enhance the amount of sunlight that the fruit receives. To create space for the large fruit and a cutaway dead or unproductive wood. To the untrained eye, it doesn’t make much sense. More limbs will it equal more opportunity to grow fruit, that would be a logical assumption.
But in this example, it’s not true. The resulting fruit is small, it doesn’t sell at the market well. And usually, the fruit is distorted because it doesn’t have room to grow.
Pruning Is Healthy
The tree becomes more robust, the fruit larger, it colors better, and it fetches a higher price at the market. Loss can be traumatic. Most loss is just a string. But it’s that opportunity for change. Simply put loss and change go hand-in-glove.
A way to shape loss as an opportunity for change. Not a random laissez-faire approach to the change, to let the chips fall where they may. but just like the farmer and the tree to have thoughtful change towards a goal. Thoughtful action based on loss makes for a greater experience.
Easier Said
That’s easier said than done absolutely. It’s a challenge no question. But one of perspective and framing and to step back from a loss one that stings. To take a look at it as an opportunity for change is well worth the undertaking.
The Formula Is Small
The formula is simple that stinging loss has occurred step back for a moment. Try to shape it in a way that is going to allow you to move forward. To do exactly what the farmer does. Allow that loss to be a change for growth. As one of my old martial arts instructors used to say we need to prune for growth. Well, there is that opportunity.
This is about far more serious forms of loss: How to Cope with Loss and Pain
Common specialness is wonderful. 3-min podcast on the topic: Common Specialness
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Grateful For
Grateful for can be a pattern. The human brain focuses on problems. Abnormalities, broken patterns, it’s a built-in system, it’s a mechanism that has allowed us to become the most successful species that we can imagine. You could call this the nature side of the brain, the animal, the pre-loaded functions, a pattern. Or you can call it a tool, and this is helpful. But what happens when the tool drives you? What happens is that you succumb to negativity and this negativity is not attractive.
Not Good Enough
Things become not good enough, “This was cold.” “That’s not good policy.” “That was poor service.” “It’s not what I envisioned.” All of these sorts of terms. And it’s not a good look. It’s hard to be around and it’s a downer as the hippies used to say. Being a Pollyanna a person with the irrepressible optimism in seeing the good in everything, well, it’s not very realistic. I have to say that I kind of find it annoying, having a cheerleader in the room just, “Yea guys!” “Hey gals,” “You can do it, come on put your muscle to it.” No thanks. But in the back of your mind, there is a place for that cheerleader to be a resident.
And it sounds odd having just dismissed the entire idea of a cheerleader but balance is the key. We naturally orient towards the negative. It’s with clenched teeth that I say we need a little more cheerleader in our lives.
Orientation and Viewpoint
It’s about orientation and viewpoint. The negative is a difficult thing to be around, the effusive cheerleader it’s pretty annoying. So how do we break this dichotomy? Well, it appears difficult but it’s not. It’s based in gratitude. Yeah, the simple act of gratitude, and there is always something for which to be grateful. If you can’t find something for which to grateful, you’re not looking well.
Here Is What You Can Do
Here’s a little drill. All you need do is take the next few minutes and be grateful for what is around you. You can insert the air conditioning; you can insert the running water. The simplest things. And your perspective, your world will shift. Other changes will happen in the moments and minutes as you practice a simple act of gratitude and acknowledgment.
You become better at it the more you practice. It will become institutionalized in your thought process. It will begin to color your world, and the change you experience will be for the better.
Step Out Of The Dual Choice
To recap don’t be engaged in the negative don’t be engaged in the overtly positive but strike the balance and not a 50% mark but sidestep the dichotomy. Sidestep this loop of either-or, and shift into gratitude to watch the color of your world change.
Practicing gratitude can be a game-changer: How to Practice Gratitude
A Native American story about the choices you make: Cherokee Story
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IDK
IDK (I Don’t Know) as it’s said in the text world.
I Don’t Know Can Be A Statement of Honesty
I don’t know can be a statement of honesty. “I don’t know where the increase in the budget is going to come from.” In the context of business and as a tool, yes it’s an important statement to simply be able to say, “I don’t know.” But when it comes to the motions and the behaviors of people, “I don’t know,” (IDK) is not a good thing. The first version of course, “I don’t know,” explains that we simply don’t have all of the information. “My experience doesn’t allow me to see that,” or “I don’t have the budget numbers.”
Safety Value
When we get to the behavioral and emotional, I don’t know acts as a safety valve. I have a friend that used to tell his kids that, “I don’t know, means that you’re not mature enough to be in the conversation.” Now that works with kids when they are trapped in the back seat of the car they’ve got nowhere to go. They have to ruminate about this. But of course, you can see that’s pretty straight between the eyes. Not a lot of wiggle room. It’s simply saying grow up use your thought process and use your words.
In the setting of adults and emotional and behavioral. “I don’t knows,” (IDK) that is not a good thing. It often indicates a willing hiding. Hiding is burying your head in the sand;
you know as the old story goes. It’s refusing to address, it’s refusing to see, or to grow. The pain of growing, seeing, and addressing is measured as potentially more painful than the growth itself. The other reason could be that we’re a lazy person, that the person who said I don’t know is lazy, and it’s a nice sideways move to not have to address any of the issues.
No Thank You
“I don’t want to look at it.” “I don’t want to get up off the couch.” The metaphorical mental and emotional couch. It takes work, it’s hard, it’s unlikely that you would get a positive reaction should you call a person out on this. It works with a father with kids trapped in a car but it doesn’t work with adults. Or maybe it should? If you were to take a person and say to them that their response of, “I don’t know,” means they are too immature to be in the conversation. Or that they become blind well, you’re calling them out for not being very smart, or being lazy. Either is not a positive thing. So instead of meddling with other people’s lives and emotions and blind spots let’s let that go.
But let’s call it on ourselves. When you feel the inclination to use, “I don’t know.” take a quick sort, is it a business spreadsheets sort of I don’t know, or that is an emotional obfuscation.
Take A Pause
Let’s take a pause and take a quick look and see what we chose as our reaction. Use a very simple phrase, you needn’t speak out loud, but it is “I don’t know but I’m going to find out.” and then set about to do it.
A Pro Tip
Here’s a pro tip and this has been my experience. Usually, most answers to the question that you asked come early and they come easy. It just takes a thoughtful moment. A moment or two and poof, you’re no longer using the, “I don’t know.” You’re engaging with yourself and others at a higher level all at your own hand.
Here is a link to another post that maybe interesting These stories can be a good thing or they could be lies: Stories We Tell
A link from Elite Daily: Why Do We Avoid Confrontation?
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