You have been told your life should be painless
You have been told that your life should be stress free
You have been told that your should never be sad
You have been told you should never be depressed
You have been told if any of these things happen that there is something wrong with you and you need help.
Of course they provide an answer for whatever is wrong with you. They can fix you with a pill. They can fix you with a fire walk. They can fix you by selling you a course about how to not have any problems. If you have the right ‘energy’ all will be well.
You have been lied to and you should be pissed.
The bottom line is this:
Life can be hard and all these feelings are normal. You are supposed to have them.
This mindset that life should be some kind of happy painless euphoric fairy tale where unicorns fart rainbows and everyone loves one another is nuts. You are designed to handle these things and avoiding them makes you weaker and weaker.
Have you ever noticed that someone who gets depressed and then uses some method to suddenly be happy…. gets depressed all the time? They end up getting depressed easier and easier. They become more fragile. They depend not and more on whatever pill or avoidance technique they have been sold. Eventually that method fails and they have to face life but by then they are so weak they can’t handle it and their world comes crashing down.
What is the answer? It is simple and I want you to clearly understand this because it is the most important thing I will ever write:
You get through problems by feeling like crap but still doing things anyway.
You don’t wait until you are in the mood.
You don’t pump yourself up so high you can overpower any bad feeling
You don’t take some mind numbing pill
You don’t sit and vegetate until you feel nothing.
The reason is simple. You brain does not work that way. You have to basic parts of the brain when it comes to behavior. One part reacts to emotional survival triggers. The other adapts to situations and solves problems. If you numb the emotions then you don’t move. If you numb the emotions you don’t trigger the adaptive brain to find a solution. In other words…. any of the solutions that I mention above short cut that you brain is designed to do and you end up sitting like a lump in your unicorn laced cocoon. The bad news is when you come out all your problems will still be there. Then you will run back in so you can feel good again. Because that is how you have been told you should feel.
And you get weaker. You feel bad easier. It takes less to make you crumble. You get more sensitive to any bad feeling.
So what can you do?
The first step is to redefine the goal. Change your goal from being in a state of life long bliss and BS to something more realistic. Your goal should be that you don’t feel great but can still get things done anyway.
Your life was never meant to be painless. That should never be a goal.
The next time you read about some drug or some method that will get you to the promised land of unicorns and happiness remember this… They are lying to you. They are incompetent. They are most likely more screwed up than you are.
RUN
Realize that discomfort is normal. It will pass on its own most of the time. It is your ability to deal with pain and discomfort that will dictate what level of success you have in any part of your life.
Read that last paragraph again. It will change your life.