I just had what should have been a terrible week. Why am I not depressed?
On Monday I had to get up at 4:30 am and take a friend to the airport. Not a big deal but it pretty much blew my day since I did not get to bed until 1 am. Not a big deal but it was just the warm up for what my week would become.
Tuesday I lost my Iphone because I placed it on our car roof and forgot it there. Replacing my phone would cost 400 dollars. And all my current messages and numbers were lost.
Wednesday I found out that fixing my boat would cost $1500 dollars.
Thursday I found out that over the winter that some stole all the batteries out of my boat. Another 200 dollars to replace plus the idea that someone stole from me.
Friday was a day when no matter what I tried I could not get it to work. We were stuck all day waiting for UPS to deliver the boat parts.
Basically a pretty bad week. I could lump all that together and feel clumsy, tired, forgetful, violated and frustrated. Some would say that is completely justified. But here I sit in Saturday morning just fine. I did feel all of those things at one time or another throughout the week. The difference is that they did not stick.
I have a friend who whines about everything. He is one of those guys who taints every conversation with crap. When he reviews what is happening he piles it up until he has a great story to justify feeling like crap. Then he lives his life through the filter of that story. He is no fun to be around.
This is one place in your life that you can make a huge impact. You can focus on all the crap in life or you can realize something else. Those who deal with stress and anxiety well all seem to have some things in common.
1 they realize that life is not always easy.
2 things happen because they do. There is no other meaning in it.
3 they do not dwell on what they cannot control.
4 they take action on what they can control
5 they have a moving timeline that does not get stuck in past success or failure
These 5 things allow them to keep focused on what is happening now and what has to happen next so they have no time to gather evidence of success or failure. They don’t need it. Success feels good for a while and failure feels bad for a while. That is normal and keeps them moving.
I know what you are thinking. “ They don’t focus on success? All self improvement books say you should. Tom are you nuts?”
Yes I am nuts but that has nothing to do with what I am talking about now. The success trap is sticky. Getting stuck in your one success and using that to validate feeling good can make you stop moving just as easily as focusing on failure. We have all met that annoying guy who insists on constantly talking about how great they were in the past. Some even have a trophy room of all their past accomplishments so they can remind themselves that they are happy.
For me is was not a great week but I also did not let things pile up. I decided to wait on a new phone and just activate one I had laying around. I ordered the parts for the boat. I need to get new batteries and will do that next week. While I was stuck at home I got some things done around the house.
Now I have a clean fresh weekend to play around with. Was I happy the whole time? Hell no. I had some tough moments last week. That is OK.
Yes I could still be whining about what a crap week I had but that would get in the way of my enjoyment of this weekend. It might not go smoothly but I can handle it because this last week won’t be holding me back.
What kind of week are you going to have?
Tom Vizzini
Follow me!
https://www.essential-skills.com/3dmind
Facebook http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=558615057
Twitter http://twitter.com/tomvizzini
I do appreciate your insights on the inanity of focusing upon past’success’ or ‘failure’, both of which are focuses upon outcome, rather than process.
Focus upon outcomes that have happened or upon those which you are anticipating/hoping/dreading may happen are always either in the past or the future . . . . and I am rather certain that no one ever lived a moment of their lives at any other time than the present moment.
Sorry you had a few less than positive experiences this week, but each of those was an isolated incident, each of which has already happened.
Those too are part of the past, and there may even be lessons or insights or knowledge to be found in them. But allowing them to ruin an entire week – or even a part of week or an hour – is a form of reliving them over and over again.
The pathway out is to become aware of one’s experiences in the moment and simply accept it for what it is, which incidentally makes it a lot easier to simply see the way forward from the current situation.
All of the skills you teach by the way are best applied in the present and require that one’s awareness be centered and activated upon what is happening within the right now.
Ah, and if I could, I’d get a new Palm Pre instead the iPhone!
Great advice.
I like the idea of not focusing that much into success also. It could account for obssesive behavoir
I feel overall in this post the oriental philosophy of letting life pass with aceptance and not resisting those things you can’t change.
This is like living in meditation. Are you meditating frequently Tom?