Getting Through Bad Moments and Leaving Space for Good Ones

We all have good days and bad days, or even good mornings and bad afternoons. And when things are going well, we get lost in the moment, and sometimes when things are going badly, we can't escape from it no matter what we do. And clearly, in both of these cases, there are times when things are out of our control.

Events are happening that we have nothing to do with, and they are what is making us have fun or be miserable. But at other times, what is happening IS dependent on what we are doing and on what we are choosing. So, it makes sense that we could do things differently or choose different things, and situations would turn out differently.

But nobody is perfect, and we can't predict what results our actions will cause as we go through a regular day. And of course, we don't want to change anything when things are going well, but we would all like to change the times that are going badly. And it is possible.

But only if we can recognize when things are starting to go wrong. Usually, the red flags of this are people's reactions, or we suddenly feel stressed or panicked. These are early warning signs and the signal to take action and not follow the course that we are on, which will pull us further into a bad situation.

But what action do we need to take? Well, we can turn things around by quickly throwing ourselves into any task that keeps us busy for a while. So, during our day, if we feel that things are starting to turn on us either with the people around us or with the thing we are doing, we should always look for something that can mentally or physically engage us.

Usually, this means doing something alone, and the simpler and more repetitive it is, the better. By doing this, we haven't exactly escaped from what is happening, but we are doing something very important. Difficult periods can only last for a certain amount of time.

They are all time-dependent, and when that amount of time has run out, the difficult period ends. So, by keeping ourselves busy with something unrelated, we are running down the clock, and although we can still feel the tension of it, we are not taking part in it and making it worse for ourselves. And by the time we have stopped doing whatever we chose to do, we'll find that we have sidestepped the bad time that we were starting to have.

So that's the difficult times, but what about the good times? How can we maximize the times when we can have fun? The answer to this is all in the planning.

When we plan to do anything for fun, we should always leave space for the unknown to happen. And the way to do this is by not planning all of the details of what we are going to do. And the reason for this is that we experience fun when we do something spontaneously.

So if we leave space in our plan, it allows these spontaneous things to happen. Another thing to be careful of is if the planning is starting to get too complicated. If it is, then it's best to give it up and do something else.

We always need to read what's possible at the time because forcing something to happen will never turn out to be fun for anyone, least of all ourselves.

How Life Shows You What Will Happen Next

Some people think that the future is yet to be written and we have the free will to change what will happen, and some people think that it was written long before we arrived here. One thing is for sure, nobody really knows, and it doesn't really matter. What is important is how we feel about this unknown future that we're moving towards.

The future can be scary and unpredictable. We can fear it and have anxiety about it or we can be excited about it. And although some people profess to be able to predict the future, the majority of us can't.

What we can do though is to start looking at the patterns that our lives are following. And in our own way, we can start understanding and feeling better about where our futures are going. So what are these patterns?

Well, the patterns are the repeated ways that the situations in our lives follow. From time to time, we find ourselves in a situation that feels familiar. A type of situation that we've been in before.

This type of situation could be a bad thing that we don't want to happen or something that we don't want to do in the future. They are things that we are not looking forward to and things that will disrupt our lives in some way. But after worrying about this thing constantly and dreading the day it happens, we always reach a point where this thing just goes away.

Something always comes up so that this thing is not going to happen anymore. And then we think, why was I worrying? It's not going to happen.

But , the worrying is the most important part about it. We don't also need the pain of going through it as well. So we move on with our lives and then sure enough, somewhere down the road, another bad thing that we don't want to happen comes up.

Is it going to happen? We just have to wait and see. But when we get there, most importantly, we need to remember that this next thing also didn't happen.

Now we are building the evidence and starting to trust the pattern. So as I said before, we don't know if the future is written or if we create it but one thing is for sure, the future is not random. If it was, there wouldn't be any patterns.

So if we pay attention to the patterns and the way things turn out, we will have a better idea of what will happen. And most importantly, we can stop worrying so much and trust that this time, as it was last time, everything will turn out fine. Another pattern that happens to us is when we're in a situation that goes comically wrong.

These are situations that don't have any repercussions for our future; they are just stand-alone stupid situations. At these times, we are trying our best but we make a mistake, or we miss something or someone misunderstands us. And there's no way we can save the situation.

No matter how hard we try. The main theme of these situations is feeling embarrassed. Being embarrassed is very important for us because it keeps us humble.

When It Feels Worse Than It Should - Regain Balance

Our own lives are undoubtedly the most important thing to all of us. How we feel in every waking second of every day is experienced by each of us and is personal to us. We spend every moment with ourselves, and those small details make up the fabric of our lives.

And it’s the small details that are important to me. But I don’t think I was always THIS sensitive. I feel like the volume has been turned all the way up on the seemingly trivial things that happen in my life.

The small things mean a lot to me. Sometimes someone will say something to me, and my mind just keeps replaying it over and over. It’s usually something that doesn’t sit well with me.

Something that feels wrong, that just grates against my mind and leaves a sore spot. Or something will happen at work, and I just can’t forget about it. Again, something that rubs me the wrong way.

And it’s usually when someone is trying to manipulate a situation to their own ends or when they have misunderstood a situation. Of course, I can’t control what thoughts pop into my head, so it’s like my mind is beating me into submission by replaying these things over and over again. And when it feels like I’ve had enough, it stops.

And again, these are small problems that are made more important and annoying because of the constant repetition of them in my mind. And a lot of the things that give me the most stress are things that I’m sure someone on the outside looking in would think are trivial. Even I think sometimes that if I’m stressing about this small thing, then my life must be pretty good.

But the level of that stress is so disproportionately high that it’s like some torture. At certain times, my life somehow feels much worse than it should feel. Because of this magnification of the small things, I’m constantly micromanaging my life and making sure I pay close attention to all the small details because if I don’t, then it brings even more trouble for me.

Another part of my life where the dials are turned up is on social arrangements. I will turn down invitations to things which are most likely going to be fun because, for no rational reason, I feel strongly that I don’t want to do it. Of course, nobody truly knows why they like one thing and not another, or why they prefer to do this thing over that thing.

But the feeling I have is not exactly that I wouldn’t like to do it. When I get invited to something, I don’t want to do it because it feels wrong, like something I shouldn’t do, or it would be better if I didn’t do it. And until I deal with it and decline the offer, it will keep coming back to my thoughts again and again until I’m sick of thinking about it.

Fortunately, though, there is another way because often the thing that feels wrong will be canceled and will just go away by itself. So through my own actions and through things that happen outside of my control, I am able to always do the things that I should do and not do anything that I shouldn’t.

Why I Stopped Trying to Convince People

One thing I never do anymore is try to convince people that I'm right about something. In fact, I've spent the last few years not even telling people what I think about anything, really, or sharing anything about my life. Until now.

I just reached a point where I thought it wasn't worth it and there wasn't any point to it. And of course, this didn't lead to any close relationships because you have to share part of yourself with people to make friends, and I just wasn't willing to do that. As I was looking at and listening to the people around me, I often heard them sharing their opinions and ideas about things, but not really listening to each other and then going away with exactly the same ideas that they had at the start.

And I realized that that was okay. One person's ideas weren't necessarily better or worse than another person's, so it didn't really matter. One thing that did get under my skin, though, was when people argued strongly about something.

Of course, everyone thinks that they are right, but these arguments were caused by one or usually both of the people trying to push their ideas onto the other person and convince them that they were right. And it's that part that I always had a problem with. Trying to force someone to think like me is fundamentally wrong, and it never works.

And that's why I never shared any part of myself. I didn't care if the people around me knew what I thought, thought how I thought, or agreed with what I thought. And even when I didn't agree with what they were saying or how they thought, I would always just let it go.

I don't feel any need to try to change their opinion or make them see "the truth" according to me. But I want to make a distinction here. There are things in the world that most people would agree are wrong, but what I'm talking about are the less serious issues.

So with that in mind, it's okay to let things go; however, sometimes it is very difficult. Human nature kicks in, and I want to win. I want to be right.

I want to show the other person how wrong they are and how they should think like me. Then we can both be right. But I found that this isn't really necessary at all.

Doing that doesn't make MY life better. So if it's a work situation, then I'll let it go, I'll try it their way, even if I think it will fail. And once I've committed to it, I'll give it my all.

I'll give it a chance to succeed because I'm the one who's chosen it. So for a long time, I haven't argued with anybody. I call it "winning without winning." I get to keep thinking I'm right, and I don't have to convince anybody else of it.

But that doesn't mean that I don't tell people what I think about something. Sometimes, like in a work situation, it's necessary to have an opinion. But that's all it is.

I'm not about to go to war over it. And that doesn't mean I don't care about the outcome or that I don't want the best result; it's just that it might be possible that I don't know what the best outcome is.

See Your Experiences Differently and Grow on Purpose

When I'm in the shower or engaged in a task that doesn't demand my full concentration, I sometimes find myself dwelling on unpleasant events that occurred earlier in the day or week. Upon realizing this, I consciously choose to stop ruminating on those matters. They're already in the past, so there's no need to continue tormenting myself over them.

However, later on, I catch myself revisiting those thoughts, and I'm unsure how long I've been caught up in them. These thoughts become a recurring loop, and despite my best efforts, I can't prevent myself from falling back into that pattern. Another involuntary tendency of mine is to reflect on different periods from my past.

Occasionally, these memories are positive, but more often than not, they are less-than-pleasant experiences. They usually involve moments of embarrassment, stress, shock, or pain. Nevertheless, they hold significance in my life.

What unifies all these experiences is the presence of regret. They are situations that I regret, and while in some cases, I couldn't prevent them from occurring, I regret my actions or the choices I made within those circumstances. Reviewing these experiences is essentially a subtle way for me to replay events I have already lived through.

Repetition undeniably plays a crucial role in my life. Additionally, when I find myself trapped in this cycle of reflection, I'm able to perceive the experiences differently from how I initially saw them. Naturally, with age, I now have a broader perspective than I did ten or twenty years ago.

However, it's not just about that. Looking back, I see the situation for what it truly was and confront the unfiltered truth of my own role in it. This can be unsettling, but detached from the emotions associated with it, observing my actions objectively proves beneficial.

Another loop I find myself stuck in pertains to the future, rather than the past. These are thoughts tied to strong urges, scenarios where I envision myself saying or doing something specific to a particular person. These thoughts circulate repeatedly in my mind, and I remain trapped in the loop until I express those words or carry out the necessary action.