Understand These 3 Concepts And Move On From Anything
Sometimes you just take a beating.
It’s not always because of anything you can control—it’s just part of operating in a world with other sentient beings and physical forces.
Pretending it didn’t hurt or avoiding the process of understanding where the pain comes from just makes it worse later on.
What’s difficult is spending your whole life converting the operations around you into processes you can control, being successful at it, and then facing something painful and uncontrollable.
Learning to let things go and move on is just one of those things that takes a lifetime to which to adjust.
Sure there are some skills we can master while we’re here, but there’s really no end point.
The only "point of arrival" is the end of life, really.
- You can get in shape, but you can’t ever finish eating healthily.
- You can work nights to pay for college, but you can’t ever spend enough on your kid’s education.
- You can become a race car driver, but you can still get rear-ended at a stop sign.
The goal then, shouldn’t just be to take control of everything, but to understand what we can and can’t achieve—and then spend our resources moving toward those achievable goals.
In the meantime, while we’re moving, it’s good to remember that we sometimes take a beating regardless of how reasonable the goal is.
In fact, we might get beat up just sitting at home where we thought it was safe.
So, it’s not useful to drop out when it hurts. Pain just doesn’t have a good enough correlation with circumstance to be the only factor in our decision.
It also helps, while we’re moving, to remember that adjusting to pain isn’t like flipping a light switch. It takes time and the amount of time it takes varies based on circumstance, personal experience, and predisposition.
Some lessons to take away from this:
- Pain feels like an indication that we should change direction or hide but that’s not always the case.
- Staying at home or avoiding risk can still lead to pain, so you might as well work hard to achieve what you want.
- Being at peace with an imperfect world doesn’t mean you are eternally and outwardly happy, it just means you accept the often unfair pains of life.
2 Minute Action
Reach out to someone who is in pain and let them know you’re on their team.
Take a risk (it can be a small one) that you have been considering or avoiding.
Execute a small and possibly random act of kindness.
I promise you don’t need more than 2 minutes to do any of these.
That part is all in your head.
Today is up to you and you can completely transform your outlook and chances of success in 2 minutes or less.
8 Things School Didn't Teach You That You Need To Know
The skills you were taught in school are mostly not that useful anymore.
- You don't need to know that the Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.
- You don't need to know that Neptune is a gas planet.
- You don't need to know that an isoscolese triangle has two sides of equal length.
What you DO need to know is now up to you.
Until we change what we teach in schools, no one else is going to teach you what you actually need to know.Here are 8 examples to get started:
- History has been written by the winners, and you can either sit still or help the rest of us re-write it.
- Good guys think they are the good guys and bad guys think they are the good guys, so it's up to you to question authority and question yourself.
- There is a 0% return on investment for complaining, so you'd better turn that into motivation or you'll be stuck.
- A spreadsheet is simple and incredibly useful--you need to know how to use one effectively.
- Heart disease is the most common (1 in 4) causes of death in the U.S.--so, yeah, learning to cook and eat healthily is a life-changer.
- The most common regret of the dying is "not having the courage to live a life true to themselves," so maybe you should figure out what that means and how to get it.
- There are a lot of different personalities out there and you're going to have to work with them, so you'd better learn to negotiate and operate alongside them.
- It's hard to know when to put yourself first and when to put others first, but with some practice, you can figure it out.
This is just a quick list of things that have been on my mind.These "soft" skills are so critical in our world and they're not part of any curriculum I've seen.Until they're taught in schools, it's up to you to teach yourself (and those around you).
2 Minute Action
Pick one from the list that is resonating with you.I want you to take real action this time--not self-reflection or setting up bigger tasks for later.Ask yourself right now what you can do to move closer to your goal in 2 minutes.It's okay if it's small, in fact, that's the point.Everyone has 2 minutes.Let me know what your action is in the comments or if you have any other life-skills that should be added to this list.
This Bothered Me So Much . . . I Had To Share It
I’m up at night thinking about it.I’m working all day thinking about it.I can’t stop myself from talking to others about it.It’s the one factor that matters more than anything else.
It matters more than hard work, aptitude, attitude, or background.
It’s how much you care.It’s my life’s work to help people care more.If people like you just care about other people and the way you spend your time, everything else has the potential to fall into place.Caring means treating others with respect even when they disrespect you.Caring means creating or discovering a mission and working toward achieving it.Caring means doing the right thing even when others around you disagree or reject you.
2 Minute Action
Take your pick. Any of these 2-minute actions will get you started on exhibiting the #1 sign of a person who cares . . . Action.- Do a quick time audit of your day and cut out something non-essential. This is harder than it sounds.- Call/Email/Text someone you haven’t gotten along with recently. Reach out with empathy and gratitude. Refrain from expressing your side and just listen to understand.- Write down some of your goals and ask how these will help others. If they don’t inherently help people, how can you make it so that you both get what you want?