5 lessons I learned so you don't have to
This week in Happiness
I hope you are having a good start to the week, here are some lessons I have learned that may help you.
Someone else's anger doesn't have to be your anger.
Have you ever been around someone who is seething with anger - about traffic, the news, or some minor inconvenience - and suddenly felt your own mood spiral? Emotions are contagious. Psychologists call it emotional contagion, and if you're not careful, other people's negativity can hijack your peace. But here's the thing: Their anger is theirs. You don't have to catch it. You can acknowledge it, empathize with it if necessary, and then let it go. Protect your energy. Feel free to spread other people's joy though, that is good!
Everyone lives their own life with their own problems, don't assume malice.
This one is obvious, but we forget it so often. When someone cuts you off in traffic or forgets to text you back, it's easy to assume the worst. "They don't care," "They're a jerk," etc. This is the basic attribution error-our tendency to assume that other people's actions are based on who they are rather than their circumstances. But when we screw up, we know the context: "I was distracted," "I was stressed." Most people aren't trying to ruin your day-they're just dealing with their own. Remember Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity (or forgetfulness, or stress).
Expecting perfection hinders progress
Expecting perfection, on any level, holds you back, like when I want to start working at a perfectly even time like exactly 10:00 and then 10:00 comes and goes and then I push it back to 10:30 and this goes on and on until the day is over and I am angry with myself. Start in the imperfect moment, start at 10:07, start at 11:53, no matter how disgusting, start now. During the process you will get distracted, you will stop working, this is not a reason to stop and give up, refocus and keep going. Expecting a perfect end product keeps you from finishing and moving on, and is impossible. We are imperfect people, how can something perfect come from something perfect? Perfect is the enemy of good.
Enough
Which brings me to my next point: when is enough enough? When have you done enough? When have you endured enough? The real question is not "What more do I need to do?" but "What really matters? There is all this pressure to do more to make it perfect, but we will die with things on our to-do list, and we often let our to-do list get in the way of our bucket list. So ask yourself, when is enough?
The end of everything as it is is now.
Nothing - good or bad - lasts forever. It's easy to mourn the end of a great moment or stress over a difficult one. But impermanence is liberating. Enjoy the highs while they last, and don't let the lows feel permanent. Everything shifts. Everything changes. The only thing you can do is be present while it's here.
That’s it for this week. What’s a lesson you’ve learned the hard way?
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