The whole world of mindset and self-development is full of so many contradictions.
You can get perspectives that seem to be exact opposites of each other, and they both can be helpful in one circumstance or another.
And one example is this idea of how we look at our lives.
For many people, we’re just not satisfied, no matter what, and we are missing seeing the goodness in little, basic things in our lives.
And of course, because it’s so easy to focus on the negative, focus on problems, we can miss all those little positive things that are happening in our lives every day.
So that can be useful advice.
But that can also be taken too far, to this idea of if you’re not happy, you just have to change your perspective, look at all the good things in your life, and you can realize that everything is OK.
So, you know, you’re concerned with this and that problem, but really, everything’s OK.
You just have to see that it’s OK, and you’ll be fine.
And especially when it comes to matters of self-esteem and how I judge myself.
You know, if maybe there’s something about myself I’m not happy with, you know, a common teaching, a common advice, would be you have to accept yourself, be who you are, you’re wonderful, and you need to let yourself see that.
Let yourself see all the good things about yourself.
And no matter what, you’re OK.
So this can also be valuable advice, and I think in many ways it is true, and it can be useful.
But this, again, can be taken too far, to the point where everything has to be OK.
And we all know those people and those interactions where everything has to be OK.
If there’s anything wrong, it has to be immediately reinterpreted as oh, no no no, that’s not really a problem, because, you know, here’s the bright side, and here everything’s gonna be OK.
It’s like you hear a problem, something comes up, a potential problem threatening this equilibrium of complete OKness, and then oh, no, it’s all OK, here’s why it’s all fine.
And again, this has its merits.
But there’s also a merit on the other side, of being able to say it’s not OK.
Being OK with not being OK.
To be able to say not good enough.
And, yeah, I could reinterpret the situation and say, well, and of course it could be worse.
It can always be worse.
You can always imagine a worse situation, no matter what.
And, you know, maybe compared to some average you’re doing OK, compared to some expectation you’re doing OK, but it’s OK to be able to say “I am not satisfied.
This is not good enough.
I want something better.” I remember, you know, I used to be unknowingly part of this “everything’s OK” camp, just with this kind of laid-back- I guess you could say zen, but not in a technical zen sense, but just a sense like oh, it’s all good, go with the flow kind of mentality.
And, you know, I figured my life is OK.
And then a few years ago, I just remember hearing something, hearing somebody say “If your life is OK, it’s not good enough.
Your life should be awesome.
Life can be awesome, and so if your life is just OK, there’s something missing.” And that kind of bugged me, because I realized that I believed that statement, and that I knew that there were other ways to be, there were better ways, that I could be living my life better.
And the life that I was living, I felt like it was OK, it was all right.
It can always compare to worse lives, and I’m happy that, you know, I’m in the position that I am.
I’m doing OK.
But when I compare it to this idea of having an awesome life, it hit me that I was not having an awesome life, not a life that I considered to be awesome.
And it was at the time when I really decided that having an OK life is not good enough, and I want something better.
The first thing that happened it, felt uncomfortable.
It was like oh, wow, I kind of- I envy people that can have a better life.
But it also gave me fuel.
It led to the beginning of me making changes, even realizing that change was necessary, that I started to imagine and think about ways that I could bend my life more towards this living an awesome life end.
And a big part of it seemed to be meaning: spending my time on meaningful things.
Not spending my time on things that seem to be empty and wasteful, such as working jobs that I don’t consider to be meaningful and passing time with entertainment that I consider to be wasting time.
These things were taking me away from what could be an awesome life.
And I started to really investigate how I could make my life better.
But it wouldn’t have happened if I was just OK with being OK, OK with having everything at this mediocre level, just telling myself that it’s OK, that it could be worse.
In order to get the fuel, the hunger, the drive to change, I needed to have some of that uncomfortable, unhappy feeling that I was missing something in my life. […]