Yesterday I said at the end of my post that Mark Manson had written that "Staying Positive" is also a shitty value, I totally agree," and then I dropped it. Now I am picking it back up.
It isn't that there isn't any value in positive thinking, of course, there is! It's good to have a positive, hopeful outlook on life, it helps you get through things. But too much of it can be denial and avoidance that keeps you from tackling and solving problems. Here's Mark: "When we force ourselves to stay positive at all times, we deny the existence of our life's problems. And when we deny our problems, we rob ourselves of the chance to solve them and create happiness. Problems add a sense of meaning and importance to our life. Thus to duck our problems is to lead a meaningless (even if supposedly pleasant) existence. Me again: This is something I have been realizing more and more as I move through life. We feel it's joys in contrast to its sadness, happiness in contrast to depression, etc. if we did not have the dark side, we could not have the light side, at least not nearly as fully. I am not saying that we have to have life's worst to have it's best, but we do need something of a contrast or it will all just be blah. And do we really want blah? While paradise, heaven, etc. does sound inviting when you really think about it, not so much. Actually, it is having problems and challenges to solve that really makes life worth living, interesting and yes gives us happiness.
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We all compare ourselves to others, but by what standards, measure, or values do we make these comparisons?
If it's things like pleasure, material success, or always being right, I agree with author Mark Manson, those are shitty values to judge success by. I think our comparison should be are we a decent human being? Are we kind, caring, compassionate, accepting? These are far better values to measure ourselves by. As Mark says: "When people measure themselves not by their behavior, but by the status symbols they're able to collect, then not only are they shallow, but they're probably assholes as well." Spot on. Too many people think more things and more pleasure for themselves, or always being "right" will make them happy, when actually those things can lead to misery and good relationships, helping others, even admitting you are wrong and learning from that can make you far happier. Mark says that "Staying Positive" is also a shitty value, I totally agree, but that's for another post! Thoughts on my morning read of "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck."
"All of this 'every person can be extraordinary and achieve greatness' stuff is basically just jerking off your ego. It's a message that tastes good going down, but in reality is nothing more than empty calories that make you emotionally fat and bloated, the proverbial Big Mac for your heart and brain." This section talks about the fact that even people who are extraordinary at one or a few things are not extraordinary at everything and those things that they are extraordinary at they are because they knew that they weren't so they spent extraordinary amounts of time to improve in an area of life that they cared about and desired to excel in. Plus as Malcolm Gladwell points out in his excellent book Outliers those extraordinary examples of human achievement all had circumstances that had nothing to do with their efforts feed into their achievement as well. So this idea that we can all be extraordinary is bull shit, most of us in simple fact, by the law of averages will be well, average. And you know what? That is OK. It allows us to be free to be who we are without the pressure to be something else. And personally, I like not being in the spotlight with huge numbers of people watching me. I'll take ordinary over that any day, thank you very much! Going back to the book: "And the knowledge and acceptance of your own mundane existence will actually free you to accomplish what you truly wish to accomplish without judgment or lofty expectations." By all means work to make your life better, to be the best you can be, but not what someone else can be, or what society expects you to be. In doing this: "You will have a growing appreciation for life's basic experiences: the pleasures of simple friendship, creating something, helping a person in need, reading a good book, laughing with someone you care about." Reading in my new favorite book again this morning in a section on entitlement and a couple things hit me. #1 how entitled I have seen myself. #2 how Success Books and "Law of Attraction" fed into that.
There is someone I worked with who I hated because I saw him as someone that felt like he deserved success and position just because he was entitled to it, not because he earned it so it was kind of a shock to look in a mirror with the help of this book and see a lot of that in me too! I mean how many times have I started something and not finished because things weren't easy enough for me, that's entitlement! From the book: "Entitlement closes in upon itself in a kind of narcissistic bubble, distorting anything and everything in such a way as to reinforce itself. People who feel entitled view every occurrence in their life as either an affirmation of or a threat to, their own greatness. If something good happens to them, it's because of some amazing feat they accomplished. If something bad happens to them, it's because somebody is jealous and trying to bring them down a notch. Entitlement is impervious. People who are entitled delude themselves into whatever feeds their sense of superiority. They keep their mental facade standing at all costs," For decades I followed Law of Attraction, name it and claim it type beliefs which promoted ideas like all you had to do to achieve great success was just think it. Now I look back at my life and wonder how much damage I have done to myself and others with that kind of delusional thinking. And I don't mean that positive thinking is all bad, it's good to have a positive perspective on things, but life is also hard, and all the positive thoughts in the world ain't going to change that. Sometimes, often, you have to work hard, fail, get up and go at it again. Just thinking does not make it so. I got back to my read this morning and was hit with this question. It's a good question, it's one I have largely avoided my whole life, largely (not totally) taking the easy way with little resistance. To be blunt most of us do that. But does that build anything of value?
As the section I read this morning says: "Because happiness requires struggle. It grows from problems. Joy doesn't just sprout out of the ground like daisies and rainbows. Real, serious, lifelong fulfillment and meaning have to be earned through the choosing and managing of our struggles." So if I want more fulfillment and meaning, if you do, what are we willing to struggle for? It's a good question. It's one I am asking myself more now. I hope you will too. Another insight from the "Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fu*k"
That's all the text I posted with this image, nothing more really needed to be said. Been busy and I haven't been sharing from this awesome book as I read, as I had intended. So I will take a moment to do so now.
"We suffer for the simple reason that suffering is biologically useful. It is nature's preferred agent for inspiring change. We have evolved to always live with a certain degree of dissatisfaction and insecurity, because it's the mildly dissatisfied and insecure creature that's going to do the most work to innovate and survive." I could share the rest of the paragraph but I am going to leave you mildly dissatisfied and recommend that you get this book! I think we often dream of having a perfect life, I know I do. But when I think about it, the point here is very valid, If everything was great I wouldn't strive to make things better. In part that sounds like it would be a good thing, it would be great if things were always great, but on the other hand, it would also be awfully boring! And then we'd have to strive to make it not boring! A couple more quotes that I wanted to share from what I read yesterday in "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck." that have been on my mind.
"But when you stop and really think about it, conventional life advice - all the positive and happy self-help stuff we hear all the time - is actually fixating on what you lack." "Ironically, this fixation on the positive - on what's better, what's superior - only serves to remind us over and over again of what we are not, of what we lack, of what we should have been but failed to be. After all, no truly happy person feels the need to stand in front of a mirror and recite that she's happy. She just is." This reminded me of some of what I read in "Throw Away Your Vision Board! by Neil Farber including "Believing you are in control of all facets of your life (including natural phenomena and other people's thoughts and actions) results in lowered self-esteem and excessive self-blame. It decreases the ability to problem-solve, learn from the lack of success, and move toward a better solution." Sure I think it's good to look for the positive in life, in many ways it makes life more enjoyable. But many in the self-help and/or Law of Attraction movement take it MUCH too far and make "everything" that happens in life "your responsibility", so if your life sucks it's your fault, you caused that tornado that destroyed your home and that is clearly wrong. Sometimes life just sucks and sometimes we are victims, not victors, and victims need help, not to be blamed and told it was their fault because they weren't positive enough. And I hate to say this but the reality also is that to enjoy the joys of life we must also have the sorrows, we need the ying and the yang. It's all OK and part of life, even the sucky parts. This morning (Feb 13th 2018) I started reading The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck. by Mark Manson. Already I have to say that for me it's already the best success/personal development book that I have ever read. That's because I simply give too many f*cks. And this book is not about being indifferent it's more like to really give a f*ck about important stuff you got to let the little sh!t go.
Best quote from my read this morning: (I am editing for Facebook, not because I give a f*ck) "And while there's nothing wrong with good business, the problem is that giving too many f*cks is bad for your mental health. It causes you to become overly attached to the superficial and the fake, to dedicate your life to chasing a mirage of happiness and satisfaction. The key to a good life is not giving a f*ck about more: it's giving a f*ck about less, giving a f*ck about only what is true and immediate and important." Takeaways for me this morning I have a good business that I have not been working on because I give too much of a f*ck about what others think of the business model, because to do it in a way that best fit's me and my values I need to do it differently than most do it, because parts of the model/culture I also have issues with. But overall it's a great business, one that I know I can do, that I believe in, that helps people, that does good, so I need to stop giving a f*ck about the superficial parts of it and get to it. Thanks to Tonjie Anderson and Brian Van Gundyand a conversation that motivated me to go ahead and get this book. I know you said that you were going to get me a copy, thanks but you were taking too f'n long! LOL, love you both! I say on this site that I spend most of my time on FB and that seems to be true. Lately I have been reading an excellent book and posting my insights as I read on Facebook but not here. Well I decided that I am really enjoying this, and want to be able to more easily refer back to those posts and have them be more easily found so I am going to share them here as well. For this and other books. So now I will be pulling several over at once and after I will post both places as I go. I should be getting far more use from this blog now.
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