Simply Improving Our Lives
“It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested. But when it is wasted in heedless luxury and spent on no good activity, we are forced at last by death’s final constraint to realize that it has passed away before we knew it was passing.”
-We can stop being Our biggest critics
I remember being extremely hard on myself when I was young. I would beat myself up about a mistake I made or something I said that wasn’t socially acceptable for days.
I remember being anxious before going to school and while I was in school. The only time I wasn’t uncomfortable is when I was finally at home, in my room, being left alone. I could breathe, I could be myself. Throughout my childhood years people would tell me, “you’re being too hard on yourself,” but then the same people would also say, “you’re a weird person,” with expressions of vexation on their faces. I didn’t want to upset others, I didn’t want to be weird, so I learned to act “normal.”
Playing a part is exhausting, especially if that part isn’t true to who we are. I was always afraid of being “found out” being publicly outed as a “weird person.” If I had thoughts that didn’t align with the common conception of “normal” I would remain silent for fear of being discovered. I was quickly labeled as being a “shy” person which is also looked down upon in our highly extroverted society but it’s not as bad as being labeled a “weird person.”
Eventually, as I got older and wiser I stopped caring about what a lot of people think, first off, because it was exhausting being so “normal” all the time, and second, because what people think of me says more about them than it does me.
It is extremely freeing to just be ourselves!
Some people may like us and some people may not, and that’s okay.
Being free to be ourselves is a basic right that everyone should have, so let’s stop being so critical of ourselves and just exist as we are!
-We can stop comparing Ourselves to others
When I was in high school, so many years ago, I remember it was Homecoming weekend. I was working at a t-shirt shop on Main Street and the varsity basketball team drove by yelling and honking their horns. People smiled, shook their heads, and waved as they drove by in their cacophonous convoy of nice, new, trucks, Jeeps, and cars that their parents bought them on their sixteenth birthdays. I remember feeling a slight sting as I watched them from outside the shop. I had wanted to join the basketball team but I had to work to pay for food, clothing, and my fifteen year old crappy car, which incidentally I loved, and my insurance. I remember seeing them in their nice suits and ties with their pretty girlfriends at their side and wondering why I couldn’t have what they had.
Fast forward to sophomore year at University, I was working at the local bagel shop near campus to help pay for my tuition and food, and a gaggle of fraternity guys and their sorority girls stumbled into to shop. I felt that familiar sting as the Ralph Lauren wearing leader of the group shouted, “Hey! Bagel Boy! We require Bagels!”
I have many similar stories from my younger years and each time I used to feel the sting of envy I would also forget to feel the gratitude for what I did have.
Truthfully I have been one of the luckiest people on this planet. I grew up in a beautiful mountain town in Colorado, where I could hike, bike, ski, and snowboard. I got to go to an amazing liberal arts college in Connecticut where I got to compete on the crew team and received an incredible education.
Working for what I have has actually given me a real appreciation for what I have!
When I was younger and I used to compare myself to these individuals, that I believed to be extremely fortunate, was like comparing apples and oranges. You can’t compare apples to oranges because they’re entirely different types of fruit. An orange shouldn’t feel bad that it can’t become apple juice.
When I stopped comparing myself to others and stopped trying to “keep up with the Joneses” it freed me to not only be happy to be myself but also to be grateful for all that I have.
There’s always something to be grateful for!
Let’s feel gratitude for this crazy miracle we call life!
-We can stop worrying about our future
“Right now is the moment I worried about yesterday, and it’s really not that bad,” is a quote I always remember when I find myself worrying about a hypothetical future that doesn’t even exist yet and may never exist.
Sometimes I get really bad anxiety and become overwhelmed when I think about some possible catastrophic future that the present may or may not turn into.
The truth is we as human beings really don’t have control over a lot of the infinite amount of forces that can effect our lives. We can make good choices in the moment, but our choices never guarantee perfect outcomes, so the best thing to do is just try to enjoy the ride, because someday the ride will be over. We don’t want to get to the end of the ride and realize that we worried our way through the whole thing.
A little worrying is healthy, but continual none stop worrying just gets in the way of truly living!
So let’s enjoy the ride for what it is, while we still can!
-We can stop ruminating about our past
After my back surgery was not successful I slipped into a major depression. I found myself continually thinking how I could have done things differently in life so that I wouldn’t have ended up in my predicament. I would spend hours thinking about how my life would have turned out if I didn’t join the military. Then I would spend hours feeling guilty about having those thoughts because if I never joined the military I would probably have never met my Wife, fallen in love, got married and had our beautiful Daughter.
I love my Wife and Daughter more than anything in this world!
Thoughts of never having a life with my Wife and Daughter just pushed me further into depression. It was not helpful or productive thinking.
Ruminating about my past has never been healthy or helpful. I’ve learned and grown as an individual from my experiences, but wishing I did things differently has never been a good use of my time.
All we can do is make better choices in the future and maybe even try to help others from making similar mistakes, but only if they want help of course.
We must leave the past in the past and learn from our experiences so that our future selves will be proud of what we are doing right now in the present!
-We can stop expecting too much of others
One of my favorite sayings is, “you can’t change the people around you, but you can change the people around you.” Basically, the point of this saying is to convey that it isn’t up to us to change others.
In fact, if a person doesn’t want to change it’s basically impossible to make them change.
If there is a toxic person in our lives telling them to stop their toxic behaviors won’t make them do it.
We can only show people the door, they have to decide to walk through.
That being said, we can change who we are friends with, and we can choose people that have similar values. I’m not saying all of our friends should be like us. You can hold very different beliefs than a person but still have the same core values.
Sometimes we have toxic people in our families, because we don’t get to choose our families. It’s extremely important to set up good boundaries with family members that are not healthy to be around, because chances are they will probably not change.
I’m not saying people don’t change, because I’ve changed considerably throughout my life. I’m a much wiser, kinder, and all around better person now than I was as a naive kid.
People have to come to their own realizations in their own time not in ours. We can live and let live, but possibly from afar!
So we’re off the hook! All we have to care about is ourselves and our own growth and development!
A Leopard Can’t Change Its Spots, But It Can Change How It Sees Its Spots!
Thoughts are extremely powerful and it is entirely possible to change our habitual negative thinking patterns.
It does take a lot of conscious control in the beginning, but it becomes easier and easier the more we do it.
I still find myself slipping into negativity sometimes, the trick is to change the narrative as soon as we notice that it is becoming unhealthy or unhelpful.
Just remember that if we never give up we’ll never fail!
Stop doing these five things and Our quality of life will greatly improve.
It’s possible to exist fully in the present, being Mindful not Mind Full!
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