Lately, it seems like a lot of my posts begin with 'I've been thinking'...but it's true. I like to think, I spend a lot of time thinking about the world and about people. Maybe too much at times, but hey, there's so many people out there who aren't thinking about anything much at all (ever) so someone's gotta make up for them.
So, I've been thinking about the mind and about how we view different experiences. I believe that a big part of who we are is how we understand things, how we react to the events unfolding around us. That's why two people can't ever be the exact same, because they have differing reactions.
It's also why we try not to judge and compare, although it's in our nature. To say stuff like 'there's people who are suffering hardship far worse than you'. We often say that. Parents say that to their children. The infamous argument that not eating your vegetables is selfish and mean, because there are children in the third world who have no food at all is essentially wrong. Because your child is not in the third world and he is reacting to the food and to the whole situation based on his life, not on the other one's experiences. He can't judge and react based on some other child's life, it's absurd to expect him to.
We all have different circumstances and different immune systems, so to speak, different tolerance levels in the face of adversity.
I believe this to be true and yet, also wrong. It's the excuse used by most first world people to justify their problems. We are seeing critical rises in depression and mental health issues. Many in people who have no real reason to suffer or to be upset. And then we invoke the argument that there's people who have real issues to deal with like war, disease, poverty etc.
Looking at it like that, your issues seem to pale. But then, we all react differently. Using my earlier logic, it would be absurd to judge someone by someone else's conditions and reactions. This argument is a magnificent loophole, I think. Because it is true, I can't claim it is not true or that it doesn't make sense. And yet, at the same time, it's irritating and somehow also wrong.
Because you're right in saying you have different circumstances and that you react differently, but I am also write in making the comparison. And I'll tell you to eat your vegetables because there's people dying of hunger and you'll tell me that yes, but you're not among them, and so obviously you appreciate things differently. And we're at a sort of stale mate, because both our arguments kinda hold.
This is where perspective comes in. You've heard the saying 'it's all a matter of perspective'. Well, it is. The more I look around, the more I see how true this saying is. And the more I see people filling themselves with negativity, with bad thoughts. It's a luxury and yet, extremely common in our modern world.
Most people want to have a problem, to have something to hold your attention. It's in our nature. We like to think we've evolved from the child going 'mommy, mommy, look at me', but we haven't really. We're just doing it on a different scale. As an adult, that childish tactic no longer works, and so you find a different, subtler one.
So, we complain. No one can get on your case for complaining.
'How was the trip?'
'Well, nice, but the food wasn't so great.'
'How's the new school?'
'Well, it's good, but there are some bad kids around.'
If you would have replied at the above questions with 'great' or 'excellent', you would already be happier, because our words and our thoughts define our lives. As CW Longnecker wrote,
If you think you're beaten, you are.
If you tell everyone the trip sucked or that the school sucks (or whatever, some people always find reason to complain), then it did. You convince yourself slowly that your life sucks, although it does not. Likewise, if you speak with joy and tell everyone how great things are, then you're convincing yourself of that. (Obviously, you could be lying and hiding something, but that's not what I'm talking about)
I'm talking about what you choose to focus on. You can focus on your kid's naughty classmate or you can focus on that excellent new French teacher. You can focus on the bad or the good, but choose carefully, because it's gonna define everything – the way you view yourself and your life, the way others view you and ultimately, the way your life is. If you see your life in a positive light, you'll be more adventurous, more willing to do new things. If you choose to be negative, that's going to take a toll on you, it will drain you of joy and energy. Until your life actually becomes bad.
Recently, I've been thinking about sickness. And about how easy it is, in this age of the Internet, to become sick. You know, there are all those memes online about going on Google to search up that pesky cough and becoming convinced you have cancer...And they're true. I'm sure you've done this. We all have. We've all had a moment when we've searched up a tummy ache or whatever and become convinced we were suffering some atrocious, rare disease.
But there's something in the back of your head that knows this is all just messing around and that you don't really have that horrible disease. You know it's just your imagination and that it's really just an upset stomach, and so you can afford to kid yourself.
If you look at sick people, at cancer sufferers, for example, you'll see resilience. You'll see strength and an unwillingness to complain. Because you, the healthy person, can afford to say 'yeah, I'm not feeling so great', but they can not. Because they know that if they do, if they let that pain overtake them, then it's really serious.
I went to the extreme, but this is true about all people who've had a health scare or serious illness. They won't go 'yeah well, I'm not feeling that great', because they need to believe that they are feeling great. Because that gives them strength and because they know that if that pain is real, then for them it can be really serious.
And so, they complain less. Sick people complain far less than the healthy person. If your doctor told you that gut pain might mean the operation didn't work, then you do your best to ignore that and you hope that all you were feeling was an upset stomach. Because you really wanted the operation to work.
I'm strong. I'm fine. I can. I'm alive.
It all comes from you, from inside your head.
I'm weak. I'm not fine. I can't. I'm dying.
And that comes from inside your head too. You need to build up resilience, something first world people lack. Someone who's dealt with poverty, war, famine, illness will and should focus on the good things. On what he's got good in his life.
But someone who has not will often make his or her life miserable, because they can afford to. They can afford to say they're not hungry because they know they'll have food on the table tomorrow. They can afford to complain about that tummy ache because they know that's all it is.
You can afford to kick the good things because you know there will be more.
We spend so much time being negative, focusing on the bad things or the imagined bad things that we somehow forget that maybe one day, there will be no more good things. One day, you'll wake up and you'll have a real issue and then you might realize how you should've been happy before.
How was the trip? - War could break out at any second in your country, stopping you from leaving. You might not afford to travel next year, for various reasons.
How's your kid's school? - Your kid could be hit by a car or kidnapped.
Seriously, why is everyone so hell bent on seeing fake bad things? Why are we so incapable of seeing the good?
And most importantly, why do we choose to not see them?
Because it is a choice. It's always a choice – you can see the good and the possibilities in life up to your dying day or you could spend your life complaining. It's all up to you. So why are you making the wrong choice?
