How to flip your shitty negative outlook on life
Ludo learns a lesson
Last Friday, I went to a bar to meet a mentor of mine who had just finished up giving a talk at a UX conference that was taking place. I had a lot on my mind and she was also one to offer her guidance and perspective on things and so I happily went to meet her after work to talk things out.
Of course being a Friday night in a bar nestled in a co-working space, it was pretty busy and the evening subsequently became pretty boozy. We spoke at length between us and also managed to meet a few other really cool, ambitious makers and creators from the tech scene.
I left the bar pretty optimistic what my next moves were going to be that evening. Though my actual physical movements were a bit all over the place.
The next morning (after about 4 hours of terrible alcohol-induced sleep) I began my research into what we had spoken about to get the ball rolling. I was feeling pretty inspired and ready to go.
The next pieces of the puzzle were coming together, as they do when you get those little spotlights of clarity from speaking with people or even just getting out of your own head for a while.
And it felt amazing!
But, I was exhausted and couldn’t concentrate properly so I decided to take advantage of the comfort of my aunt’s house to sleep and recover for the night.
I’ll start tomorrow…
That night, I slept for 9.5 hours (tracked with Sleep Cycle of course) and woke up in bliss.
I woke up with fresh energy and the motivation to continue my research.
After a nights sleep like this, I could do anything I wanted today!
But then, after a gentle stretch, a small muscle in my neck decided to take an indefinite hiatus from its job of holding my head up and generally just being chill.
“What the hell is this,” I thought to myself, eyes-wide-open now.
All of a sudden, I could hardly move without stabbing pain in my neck.
Head and arm movements were suddenly a much a bigger deal than they were just 20-seconds before. The only thing that happened was that I did a pretty benign in-bed stretch as anyone would do.
The pain was only made worse by my own embarrassed frustration of being incapacitated by my own body in such a simple way that I felt like an 80-year-old man with an ageing body.
But I’m in my 20’s and workout regularly. There was no rational or logical reason for this injury.
Instantly and inevitably, I asked myself and the world,
“Why the hell has this happened to me? Why are all my simple movement now so much harder now? What is the reason for this sudden handicap?”
Granted, in the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t really a big deal. But the frustration was real.
My weeks are planned pretty meticulously so I hit all my goals and this threw a massive spanner in the works of it all.
I was pissed.
So I did what anyone would do.
I popped some painkillers to get me through the day, hoping that it would resolve itself if I ignored it and see what Monday morning would bring.
But Monday morning came and it took about 15 minutes of psyching myself up to get through the pain of getting out of bed. Again made worse only by my non-acceptance of the situation and my continued frustration of the new geriatric identity I had been bestowed.
This is the point of the story
It was easy for me to get frustrated with the situation that seemed to have come from nowhere.
I felt like I didn’t deserve it.
I had to put a stop to my usual plans of getting up and going to the gym before work and made the rest of my day even more difficult to deal with.
I had just gained some important clarity on my next moves in the project that meant a lot to me and was keen to jump into the work.
I felt like fate had betrayed me and my new found plans right when I needed her the most.
Summed up, we experience it as…
Me, me, me. I, I, I.
So I realised, they actually came from the same place.
It wasn’t that I gained this clarity of the work I should be doing and then fate then came down and bitch-slapped me.
It was that she who granted me the opportunity to actually put into action those same plans by effectively putting a stop to my physical movements to inhibit me from doing anything else.
Fate hadn’t made things worse for me, she had made things better. The Universe had prescribed this to me.
It was simply that I was looking at it negatively as opposed to seeing the opportunity it brought.
I was looking at what was taken away from me instead of what was given to me.
Fate said,
“Ite bro, you found what you’re supposed to be doing and you know how much it means to you. I’ve given you a day of fucking about in your hangover but it’s time to get shit done. HIYA!”
Pow. Neck done.
It’s a simple, but sometimes not easy, mind shift of seeing the opportunity in the circumstance, even when it seems to be negative.
Lol. Eyeroll, amirite?
Think this is all a bit of a stretch? Thinking I’m reaching too much into it?
Well ask yourself this then:
What’s the alternative?
To lie in anguish and be pissed off about what happened?
To feel sorry for yourself and do nothing because of the physical pain?
Let your life continue to slip and slide on by while you hit ‘S’ for ‘Skip Intro’ again?
Or to practice seeing past things and search for the lesson to learn.
Because here’s the kicker:
There’s always a lesson to learn.
You’ll need to keep an open mind of course.
But having an open-mind is a virtue that one should be practicing and cultivating anyway, so you’ll be doing this already. Especially if you keep reading this blog. #plug
You can change your perspective.
When something seemingly bad or negative happens to most people, they will fight against it and decide that fate has brought them this. Whereas when something good or favourable happens in their life, they will say that luck is on their side and has decided it’s their turn to win the luck-lottery.
This is a shitty, low-energy way to live as you are simply reacting to what life brings you, never consciously looking beyond the immediate circumstances and how you could learn from it.
On top of that, you’re consciously giving away the direction of your life to outside forces. Letting yourself be constantly influenced by external things to you.
- Living a reactive life instead of a proactive life.
- Placing blame instead of taking responsibility.
- Letting emotions take over instead of rationality.
Sounds good, right? No, it fucking doesn’t.
Your pants. Your rules.
So next time something seemingly bad happens to you or unfavourable circumstances arrives at your life’s doorstep, don’t jump to the conclusion that fate has come down for no reason just to pull down your pants.
Instead, look at it as a prescription from the doctor for the work you need to be doing.
Often times, the obstacles that appear in your way signals the path you must go down. The difficulties that arise are exactly the things you should be focused on. The Universe is showing you where to go and direct your efforts.
And for this, you can only be grateful.
Anyway, I’ve been writing about the situation instead of actually doing what I’ve been writing about so I’m gonna go now to actually do the work I said I would do instead of writing about doing the work I’m supposed to be doing. Get me?
(And buy some stronger painkillers when the shops open.)
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