How much do these two things affect who we are and the lives we live?
When you get something challenging to do, instead of thinking, ‘Damn this is hard…’, is it possible to think, ‘Great! This is hard’?
How much greatness has come out of doing easy things?
Same thing goes when it’s raining or you miss the bus. One little word can totally change the chemistry in your brain and whether you’re content or miserable.
Even if missing the bus means you’ll be a bit late, thinking, ‘Excellent! I missed the bus!’ Can not only make you smile, but also really illustrates that all you did was miss the bus, and really, in the grand scheme of things, ‘It’s a bus. You missed it. Who gives a shit?’
Psychologists or similar over-analysing people might call this ‘delusion’, but isn’t life just a serious of delusions? A family living in a tiny village in southern Italy, that goes hunting for rabbits all day, and then comes home and spends the night just talking at the dinner table (every single day of their lives)… are they deluding themselves because their life isn’t as glamorous as someone living in Hollywood, snorting coke and banging prostitutes?
The dude in Hollywood may actually be happy, but so are the southern Italian family. You can make yourself happy in any situation. The mind is an incredible tool and we use so little of its capability.
Same thing goes for white lies. I’m experimenting with zero complaining and telling zero white lies, with a little bit of radical honesty thrown in. I’m not saying everything that’s on my mind, but if my wife tells me, ‘I love you’ and I’m not feeling I love her at that moment, I say, ‘Okay.’ or nothing. But If I am feeling something positive about her, I tell her.
Our friend Donna asked us over for drinks the other night and I didn’t feel like it, so I rolled my eyes and said, ‘I’m pretty tired.’ It was the truth. My wife said I should’ve hidden my objection better because apparently I made it clear I couldn’t be fucked. Which I mostly couldn’t. Donna responded with, ‘Don’t do me any favours,’ Excellent! Mission accomplished – we have now landed on planet Honest Communication.
We get sucked into so many things we don’t want to do, and give other people so much of the one thing that we can’t get back – time. We also waste so much energy on being negative, especially on things we have no control over. Stopping white lies and complaining might help that.