Jan 27 2012

Life is not a TV series

When there are problems, life doesn’t stop. Things still happen. Life goes on.

So it turns out that it’s not a good idea to stop everything else and work on just one problem.

That means that even when a really big event happens in life, you can’t just focus on that. The everyday things still happen. You still have to go to school/work, you still have to eat and drink, you still have to do the dishes and laundry, you still have to spend some time every day with friends and family. You can’t ignore any of these ‘tiny’ things just because something ‘big’ happened.

In TV series’, there’s usually only one big problem every episode that the hero needs to fix. He can afford to forget about his daily chores while he figures out how to solve that one thing. Life doesn’t happen like that. Everything else still goes on.

It took me a long time to realize it; that you don’t have to solve the problem before you can get back to your life. This way of thinking is one of the cores of the perfectionist mindset. This mindset was slowly destroying me.

If I don’t complete it, I can’t move on from it, and therefore, I can’t move on with life.

False.

It turns out that any problem can be ignored and life will still go on. It might not go on well, but it will still go on. You can fail exams and life will go on. You can have cancer and life will still go on. Loved ones might die and life will still go on. Your life will go on and the life of everyone around you will go on.

Right at this moment; as you’re reading this; a whole bunch of different thoughts are flying through your head. Most probably you’re disagreeing with what I just said. That’s okay; it’s what I call your ‘first reaction’ to whatever I just said. Catch as many reactions as you can, write them down before you forget. What did your mind say to counter the concepts I just mentioned? Here are some common ones (and by common, I mean what went through my own head):

  1. That’s not fair.
  2. I shouldn’t have to deal with other things when I’m down/vulnerable.
  3. Why isn’t the universe stopping for me? I need time to deal with this heavy stuff.

Life might have its own rules, but I don’t think anyone has figured them out yet. So what makes you think that one of those rules is for life to be fair? What makes you think that when you’re down for the count, the whole boxing match should stop until you fix your life and you get back up? Why does everyone need to be “understanding” of what you went through and treat you specially?

These were the questions that I asked myself when these ideas first occurred to me. This is an example of me “taking the red pill”. Ask the questions that might make you realize that all this time you might have been living your life wrong.

I realized then that I had somehow started believing that I deserved some of these things I just mentioned. That it was somehow a right that the world was obliged to give me. That the world should ‘pause’ for me. And if I didn’t get it, I felt betrayed by… by ‘something’. And I didn’t know why…

When problems happen, we press pause and tell ourselves that we need to fix this issue before we move on.

Pressing “Pause” for the big problems

At this point, you’re probably thinking to yourself,

That’s ridiculous, people don’t try to “pause” life. And even if they do, I never do this kind of thing.

Well, let’s see then. Have you ever crammed for an exam? Crammed to the point where you didn’t bother socializing or doing your laundry or thought about your family for a few days? Then yes, you’re ignoring normal life and expecting it to “pause“. After a few days, you expect to come back to normal life and “un-pause” and just continue on your merry way.

Or have you spent a few weeks working on a big project and ignored everything else in your life during that time? It’s the same thing. You’re “pausing“. You expect to “resume” life later.

Or perhaps you have a family problem where you need to be off from work or school for a while. You expect everyone and everything to let you off, and that you can just forget everything in life while you take care of this problem. You feel that you deserve it because if not life “wouldn’t be fair”. Ok, so let me ask you again:

Do you think you might have “paused” life before?

Now, let me make it clear that I actually agree that it’s great when people make allowances when you have problems. And help you out. Or give you space. But it becomes a problem when you start to expect it and feel that the universe is obliged to pause for you and help you out when you are down.

When we start to feel like this, we start to behave as if life “pauses” for us automatically when we have a problem.

Everyday pausing and procrastinating

We do this on a smaller scale in our everyday life. When a small problem comes, we don’t move away until we deal with it. Then another problem comes and we rinse and repeat.

Let me tell you a story:

This is the story of a young man who wanted to get into shape. So he told himself that he would, just as soon as the time was right. After a few months, New Year’s rolled around and he finally said to himself, “This is the perfect time to kickstart my exercise with a New Year’s resolution“. But then, he has to find a good gym to join.

So he looked for one, and after many weeks, found one. Then he thought to himself that he needs the right workout clothes (because you can’t just look sweaty in any old clothes now, can you?). So he went out and got himself the right ones.

Then, of course, he wanted to make sure he was doing the right exercises, so he just HAD to spend a few weeks first researching an exercise regimen online.

That vaguely fictional story is a story that’s repeated around the world. We lie to ourself. We procrastinate. We ‘pause’ our exercising because we convince ourselves that we have to solve a problem first before the plan can go on. Just like we sometimes convince ourselves that we have to solve a problem first before life can go on.

Don’t forget the big picture

Life is killing you, one detail at a time

Okay then, here’s what I’m really trying to say from all this. Don’t forget the big picture.

Don’t get caught up in looking for a job so that you can save up money to buy exercise clothes so that you can exercise. When you worry about those details and put everything in a sequence like that, you’ll never get anywhere. You’ll waste so much time worrying about the details that in the end you forget that the whole point of this whole thing was to get some exercise…

Small problems occur all the time. This means that your time will be so filled up with handling the details that you miss the big picture. This is the humdrum of daily life. Everyday, you’re focusing on these small small things and worrying and obsessing over every single one.

Like in this xkcd comic here, sometimes we find a method to solve the problem. Then, rather than solving the original problem, we zone in on that ONE SINGLE method and spend an ungodly amount of effort trying to execute that method perfectly. We forget that we can just ‘ring the doorbell’. We forget that the original purpose is to get the guy to unlock the door, instead of trying to figure out how to remotely change the volume on a computer through the internet.

Conclusion

Let’s recap.

Life doesn’t happen in a nice sequence like a TV series.

  1. Problems don’t come to you one by one and you can’t ‘pause’ everything in your life to solve this episode’s problems.
  2. When you tell yourself that you HAVE to do something first before you move on to the next step… check again. Maybe you can already do the second step even if you haven’t completed the first.
  3. Make sure you’re solving your original problem. If you find yourself fixated on sending out resumes when your original purpose was to exercise, then you just might have a problem…
  4. Yes! Have priorities. No, don’t forget everything else.
  5. It’s ok for the world to pause for you and give you space when you have big problems. Just don’t expect it and then feel betrayed when it doesn’t happen.

Well…. so far this made sense in my head. I wonder if it made sense to you?

By Lutfi Torla • Featured, Making Plans • 0 • Tags: , , , , , ,

Jan 8 2012

When fear stops you from living

You decide based on your emotions. Why? Because emotions tell you what’s important to you.

You only feel strong emotions for something that you care about (whether good or bad).

However, it’s not always good to follow your emotions. You can’t always trust them. Sometimes, you have feelings that you misunderstand. And you start thinking that you love skydiving when, in truth, you actually love the rush it gives you. We’re pretty bad at understanding why we feel something.

Emotions can lead the way and point you toward things that make you feel alive. But then, it’s your job to use logic to figure out which part of that activity actually makes you feel that passion.

The opposite is also true. Sometimes your emotions and desires tell you that you don’t want to do something. But why don’t you want to do it?

Do you NOT want to do something because it hurts you? Or because you’re scared of it? It’s hard to figure out sometimes because our mind’s defences often just want to block out that we are weak. It’s called denial.

Have you ever said to yourself, “I didn’t really want it that much anyway“, when actually you were tearing up inside? Rather than confess that we’re weak/scared of something, we’d rather just say that we didn’t like it anyway.

There’s the problem though. Our mind has already associated fear with weakness. When you’re afraid, or scared of something, it means you’re weak, right? Wrong. When you’re afraid and give in to that fear, that is the problem; but only fears that stop you from living your life and achieving your dreams.

Don’t face your fears

People always say:

You should face your fears

However, I say that you should only face your fears when they stop you from living your dreams. That’s because some fears are fine. Some people are scared of cockroaches, or snakes or spiders. That’s fine; it’s not really a big deal.

For these people, I’d say that having fears is normal. Normal and even healthy. If you aren’t afraid of guns then there’s something wrong with you.

But sometimes… sometimes you’re scared of speaking in public when you really really want to be a good manager. Or you’re scared of publishing your writing even though you really want to share your ideas and make the world a better place. Or you’re scared of opening your own business even though you have a great service that you think will really help people.

THIS is when your fears stop you from living your life and achieving your dreams. And this is when you’ll feel internal conflict. ALL THE TIME. “Torn between two lovers” and all that. And the reason is because you yourself want to do something, and you yourself don’t want to do it.

In that case, the only solution is to change yourself to be yourself.

So what do you do when your fears and dreams conflict?

Priorities: Fears and Dreams

A lot of people have empty dreams. There’s a big discussion that’s going on about the difference between dreams, goals, resolutions, plans, etc. I was sucked into the debate for a time, but now I’ve realized I don’t really care about the definition of the words themselves. I care that people understand that when you want to achieve a goal (plan, dream, whatever), you have to have an extra step, which is to set out the way you’re going to achieve it.

But even before that, you have to know what you’re getting into, if not you’ll never have the motivation to even start. And if you push yourself to start anyway, you’ll lose that motivation before long. Haven’t you noticed how many people make New year’s resolutions and never follow through with them?

To know what you’re getting into, one of the ways is to look at your fears and dreams together, and see whether you’re willing to still chase that dream if you have to face your fears.

Take an afternoon to yourself. Sit somewhere that’s nice and lonely like your bedroom or a grassy field. Don’t do anything but let your mind wander and imagine. Imagine chasing your dream. Imagine what you would be doing on a typical day of you chasing your dream. Then imagine yourself facing your fears as you chase that dream. How would it look like?

Is it worth it? Would you be willing to go ahead with it?

I don’t know the answer to those questions. And neither do you. At least not until you sit yourself down and imagine for yourself whether you’re willing to go through 2 hours of training every day for the next year so that you can get better at basketball. Or whether you can spend 30 minutes a day, 4 times a week, to learn a new language. Or whether you can summon the courage to stand up in front of a small crowd to practice your public speaking skills.

You won’t know until you figure out how important that dream is compared to your fears. Once you figure it out and have your priorities straight, you’ll then have a good idea of which one wins. If your fears scare you more, don’t bother facing them. The dream wasn’t really that important to you anyway (or maybe that fear is just too deep). Or maybe… maybe you just have other more important things in life bigger than that dream. I can definitely respect that.

HOWEVER!, (and this is a big however), if that dream is worth it to you, it’s time to think about ways to face your fear, because that fear is what is keeping you from being a man who feels complete.

It’s not an issue of whether you achieve your dream, or even whether you’re good at it in the first place. You can chase a dream even if you know that you have a high chance of failure.  The issue is about you chasing your dream. When you don’t; when you shy away from that thing in life that calls you like a beacon; you stop believing in yourself. You stop trusting yourself.

And that is something that breaks my heart every time I see it.

Let me put it another way.

How can you be a trustworthy man if you don’t stick to your principles?

Because that is what your dream is; it’s a way to realize your principles (what you truly believe in) and make sure that they happen in the real world.

If you don’t, all you’ll do is regret your life the whole way through and you’ll be one of those people who always talk about “one day” living your dream. Don’t be one of those people. I’m in the journey of moving away from this myself.

Conclusion

So to recap, it’s fine to be afraid of something, when it has nothing to do with your dreams. Because then, it doesn’t really bother your life or affect it in any way. But when fear stops you from living your dream, it’s time for you to work it out.

You don’t owe it to me or anyone else. You owe it to YOURSELF so that you can start living life and stop regretting it.

By Lutfi Torla • Featured, Setting Goals • 2 • Tags: , , , , ,

Jan 4 2012

The social magician

There are so many aspects of ourselves. The good parts and the bad. The successes and the failures.

Here’s an interesting question:

How do you make people see ONLY the parts of you that you WANT them to see? How do you make them see you as a winner?

The answer given by the social magician is… social misdirection.

Misdirection

Magicians use misdirection.

There’s a classic trick (I’m revealing secrets here!!) where a magician throws a bright red ball into the air and catches it. While doing this, his eyes and your eyes naturally follow the ball all the way up and back down. Then he does it again. Up and down. And again. And again.

Then as he throws it up the next time, his gaze and your gaze move up following the… Hey wait, why isn’t the ball coming down? As you frantically search the air for the bright red ball, you realize it’s gone. You look back down to the magician’s hands, and they’re empty too. What happened?

On that last “throw”, the magician only pretends to throw the ball up while he actually still keeps it in his hand. As we look up (and we’re not looking at his hand), he takes advantage of that moment and hides the ball elsewhere. But if he didn’t throw the ball, why did we look up? Misdirection.

Misdirection is all about expectations. When we have expectations of what we’re going to see, our minds indulge us and let us see only what we want to. When this magic trick was done as a study, scientists found out that the people who watched the trick said that they actually saw the ball leaving the had of the magician! What’s more, they even came forward and pointed how high they saw the ball go before it vanished into thin air. Our minds are easily tricked into focusing on and believing something.

The magician here planted a few expectations into our brain to make sure that most of us are tricked:

  1. Throwing the ball up multiple times allows us to expect the path of the ball in the air. We know where it will go so we look there on the last throw.
  2. His gaze following the ball means that our eyes look in that direction too. Visual cues are strong ways to tell someone what is important to look at. We always look at what’s important.

With all those expectations running through our minds (subconsciously), we just have to look up.

Here are two  magician’s rules:

  1. Never show a trick until you’ve mastered it.
  2. Never repeat the same trick.

When you haven’t mastered the trick, you won’t be fluent with it, and your eyes will naturally slide over to where the action is happening. This means that you’ll look to the ball in your hand instead of the imaginary ball that’s supposed to be moving upwards. Guess what happens then? Your audience looks there too.

And kablam! The jig is up. They’ve seen your trick.

So how does this apply to social situations?

Social Misdirection

When people look at your personality, they follow your “visual cues” or in this case, they follow your social cues. What you think is important is what people will focus on. Do you make a big deal about your hair? Then even someone who didn’t even notice anything wrong with it will start to wonder. Do you focus on the pimples on your face every time? Then other people will too.

Ok, let’s bring this to the next level. Do you always focus on the problems in yourself, or the good things? Whichever you focus on, you can bet that the people around you will pick it up from what you do and say. If you focus on problems, they will also focus on the flaws and problems you have. They will always see you for the person you are. A person full of problems.  person who complains day in and day out about how life is not fair. And the most they can do is to pity you.

On the other hand, I’m sure you’ve heard of inspiring stories like Hellen Keller, (who was blind deaf and mute) but still went on to live their lives well. When you see these people who don’t focus on their problems, but rather on how life could be amazing, it naturally shines through from what they do and say.

It’s not like they don’t have problems. They have more than their share. But the fact that they don’t focus on them makes it hard for us to focus on them too. They seem to breeze through life, overcoming one obstacle over another. We don’t pity them, we admire them. There’s a huge difference there.

When you repress yourself and refuse to see how awesome you are, at the same time you’re usually focusing on how un-awesome you are. That is, all the flaws that you have and how they’re “holding you back”. And if you’re focusing there, and putting all your effort into noticing those parts of yourself, how do you think others will notice you? Exactly, they’ll notice you the same way.

When you have a “victim mentality” and always act like a victim, others will treat you like a victim too. A person who complains tirelessly, even when it’s just a tiny problem.

Or to put it another way:

It IS a big deal if you MAKE it a big deal.

They’ll look at you and notice where your “eyes” are looking. Are you always complaining about your looks? Your money? Your laziness? If that’s the only thing you notice about yourself, you can bet that it’s the only thing that others notice about you too.

This is what I call social misdirection. You set up expectations for your audience; expectations for how to feel, how to react, and what to focus on. And your audience follows that expectation. They see what you want them to see.

This means that no matter how many flaws you have, you can always minimize its impact by not focusing on it.

But like in normal magic tricks, social misdirection also needs you to be “fluent” in feeling good about yourself. It’s something that needs to always be “on”. It’s something that you have to believe yourself. But how?!!

The answer lies in magic once again. To perfect a trick, practice it. Practice a hundred times. Practice a thousand times. Practice 3 hours a day for 6 months. Practice looking at yourself and remembering times and ways that you’ve succeeded and done well. Practice it until you do it unconsciously in your sleep.

And then you’ll be ready.

But there’s more that the social magician can do. If he does it right, he won’t just make others see him as a winner, people will also treat him like a winner. I’m going to call this social leading.

Social Leading

We influence how people feel about us and treat us.

Have you ever adjusted yourself to somebody else during a conversation? Of course you have. Sometimes it’s just about adjusting the speed that you talk. They talk slower, you’ll go slower too. They talk faster? You too.

At other times, it’s also about the mood they carry. Meeting up with a person who’s all smiles? You’ll natural make your conversation all happy too. Don’t want to ruin his day, right? And if the person you meet is all sad? The way you speak starts to reflect that too.

Now, if others can affect us in that way, isn’t it only logical to think that we affect others in the same way too?

We DO affect others. So if the people around you aren’t treating you the way you like, check your own attitude first. Are people bossing you around? Maybe you’re letting them. Do they always make jokes at your expense? You probably have strong reactions to the joke. Does no one compliment you? Perhaps you’re bad at accepting compliments.

So this begs the question, what happens when 2 opposites meet who then try to affect each other? Who wins when a sad person and happy person meet?

The simple answer is: the one whose reality is stronger.

When you have the stronger “reality“, you don’t back off. You force people to adapt to your style rather than adapting yourself to them. It can also be considered a form of assertiveness. “This is how I feel and I refuse to change it or feel guilty for it. If others want to feel differently that’s fine and it’s up to them.”

The person with the stronger reality stays in his reality. If he’s optimistic, he doesn’t adapt to the pessimistic person he just met. He’ll go on having that optimistic, winning tone in his voice and in his actions.

Again, you can only have this strong reality when you’re “fluent” with feeling good about yourself. And again, it only comes with practice.

The social magician

So, the social magician is the person who plays with how people see him, changing their perceptions and their realities, casting magic on their senses. He practices being the person that he wants others to see him as, and he practices until he is fluent with the character. Then he uses social misdirection to make people look where he wants them to look, only at the parts of himself that he is proud of. With that, he gets people to follow his lead and treat him how he wants to be treated.

This… is the social magician.

By Lutfi Torla • Communicating, Featured • 0 • Tags: , , ,

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