priorities

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 • 4 • Tags: , , , , ,

Nov 12 2011

To be myself, I had to change myself.

Oh no. I’m doing it again. I’m all over the place. I can’t keep watching myself! Every time I turn around, I mess up again. Then I regret it later. I’m a liability to myself.

Do you know that feeling? That feeling like you’re contradicting yourself. Like you can’t be trusted. Like there are multiple parts of you and each one is going in a different direction and you feel lost, not knowing which part of you to follow.

I’ve found that it happens the most when you can’t keep your word. When you start keeping your word, and being true to your own promises, then you start trusting yourself, more and more.

Trusting yourself

A few things happened in my life recently. Both to me and the people around me. These events made me realize how far I’ve come from 7 years ago when I first started my journey of self-discovery and self-improvement. I took the red pill. I looked at myself and how I was. I mean really looked at myself. All my flaws and what I hated about myself as well as all the things that I thought were good.

There was a point in my life where I said to myself, “I’m going to do this“. Then I didn’t. I said it again, “I’m going to finish this“. Again I didn’t. Every time I felt like I’d failed myself. When I said things, I didn’t do them. After doing this a few times, I couldn’t trust myself any more.

And when I couldn’t trust myself, of course, I projected it onto others around me. Unconsciously, I was pulling myself away from the world around me, because I thought that what I did was wrong. And I felt that everyone around me also thought that what I did was wrong. I felt like I was lying to myself and the world around me. Have you felt like this before?

The thing was, I didn’t actually know at the time why I felt so unhappy with myself. So I took the red pill. I sat down and thought for a long time about things. And I realized that I wasn’t consistent.

Being consistent

Being consistent could mean a lot of different things, but for me, it was about having my internal voice and my external actions coming together. When I questioned myself, I started noticing problems:

I said I loved family. Then why was all my time being spent away from them? I said religion comes first. Then why was I forgetting it in my daily life? I said I wanted to be strong in any situation. Then why was I scared of talking in front of people? I said I wanted to be smart. Then why had I stopped reading as many books as before?

Even though to anyone outside, it looked like my life was actually pretty fine, inside I was carefully disassembling the idea that I was living my life in a way that was good for me. I was realizing that I was probably being self-destructive and that my current attitude would give me some major problems in a few years.

What were my core values?

I had to sit down and really think about how I would live my life if those really were the values I thought were important to me.

That internal conversation evolved into questions of whether those really were my core values in the first place.

What was important to me? I mean really important to me?

It took me time to figure them out. But it was worth it. After that, it was easier to see when I went off track in my life. I just had to look back at whether it fit in with my core values. Honestly though, it’s still evolving even now. Not the values themselves, I have those down I think. Rather, my understanding of how those values fit in with my life are evolving every day.

Be myself? Or change myself?

I struggled with this for a while. It’s not my fault, society made me that way. I was bombarded for years with messages of, “You’re unique” and “You should be yourself”. The problem was, nobody ever explained it to me.

So I thought that it meant I could never change a single thing about myself, even the parts that were horrible, and wrong, and self-destructive.

It took me a long time to realize that being myself should mean following through with the core values that I thought were important. In short, my ideal self. Everyone has their own vision of how they would like themselves to be. That was the truly unique self that I needed to become.

To be myself, I had to change myself.

That realization was mind-blowing for me. I had to change myself to become consistent with my ideal. I had to change myself to be the person I wanted to be. I had to change myself to be myself.

In the end, I’m happier now after changing myself to become more consistent.

Some side effects of being consistent

You’ll:

  1. Be true to your word. Promising something means you have to follow through. If not you’re not being consistent with yourself, this is when you start having multiple selves. The part of you who really wants to do it and promised to do it. And then there’s the part of you who is against it and in the end decided to skip doing it. Every time you don’t follow through, you not only divide yourself in two and more, you also start giving your negative side more power. The person who goes through with his word is the person who is fully in control of both sides of himself.
  2. Have a much stronger sense of who you are. It’s the you that believes in these things and ACTS on them, not just says the words. You’re consistent, your life flows, and when questions and decisions come your way, you can be consistent and easily decide what you want to do as long as it doesn’t go against your core values. At the end of the day, it’s much easier for you to look back and say, “Here. This is the kind of person I am. Everything I did today reflects that.”
  3. Have a clearer direction in life. All those choices which are useless to you (and aren’t consistent with you and what you want) are simply ignored. This doesn’t limit your life. It frees up your time for you to do much more meaningful things rather than wasting time worrying and regretting. When you don’t know what to do, you have to spend so much time experimenting new things to see if you might like it. Odd thing is, you’ll even try things that are bad for you even when you know it. Be strong. Be principled. Be consistent with how much you want yourself to succeed. Forget all those petty side issues that aren’t in the direction you want to go in your life.

So the question is, would you change yourself to become a better version of yourself? Are you doing it now?

By Lutfi Torla • Featured, Setting Goals • 3 • Tags: , ,

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