I set out to actively lead a life that truly feels good in the Spring of 2008 after a series of setbacks in my personal life. My aim is to spread whatever I learn about feeling good to others through this blog.
You Don’t Need to Experience Extreme Suffering to be Deeply Unhappy
As I begin to unfold my own personal story on this blog I relate various low points but I have never been through anything truly tragic. I have never experienced the death of a loved one, or lost the use of my eyesight, or been imprisoned or had my house burn down or <insert unimaginable tragedy here>. For that, I am truly grateful - but only now, years later when my perspective has changed.
Gratitude Doesn’t Always Come Easy
These days when I catch myself feeling sorry for myself it is second nature to stop myself in my tracks and spend 5 minutes thinking about all the things I am grateful for such as my health, my family, the freedom I enjoy with my work, my car, the fact that I live in a first world country, my friends and I can go on and on.
BUT, when you are in the midst of misery it’s not so easy to be grateful because the human mind is conditioned to focus on the bad stuff. What I found is that when I was unahppy the words of my mother would echo around my head. She always used to say to me, “There’s always somebody worse off than you”. Yes that’s true but that did not help me one little bit at the time! In fact, it made me feel worse!
When I was suffering in my own way I was in pain for my own reasons. On an intellectual level I knew that things weren’t all that bad and that there were plenty of people worse off than me but knowing that simply made me feel guilty for feeling bad about my own problems! Guilt is one of the worst of the negative emotions and it serves no useful purpose whatsoever. In my life, it has been my biggest demon and I still face it now - it creeps up on me when I don’t notice it.
Your Problems Depend on Where You Are
There is a concept of a hierarchy of needs. At the very lowest level we need things like food, shelter and clothing. If we don’t have enough food to eat we’re probably not too worried if our job is boring. However as our basic needs become met we turn our attention to the next problem which causes us pain. As humans we need security, we need friendship, intimacy, a sense of meaning and purpose and many other things that vary from person to person.
Whenever we are suffering in some way, it is usually because something that we need is missing. For example, my most pressing problem right now is the breakdown of relationships so this causes a loss of intimacy. I also need to earn more so that I can buy my own home but my need for intimacy is stronger so that has a much greater effect on me than my financial situation. If I was in a happy relationship then my financial situation would probably rise up and demand more attention.
Our attention will always be focused on the problem that shouts the loudest. This depends on where we are on that hierarchy but it also depends on our own values. Some people value money far more than relationships for example.
Your Problems Are Very Real To You
A danger here is that people put labels on problems, they tend to rank them and say that this problem is ‘worse’ than that problem. This is absolutely false!!!
Your problems are completely real to you and are valid! It doesn’t matter what somebody else may be going through, it is not a competition! If it helps you to think of other people who have ‘worse’ problems than by all means use that to develop some feelings of gratitude for the good things in your life but if those thoughts make you feel guilty then stay away from them as you will only make your own problems worse!
Never let anybody tell you that you’re problems aren’t real, or that you are being silly. You don’t need to experience some tragedy in order to be deeply unhappy. As we move around that hierarchy different problems rise to the surface and whatever they may be, they are real for us at the time. I spent years suffering from depression for ‘no real reason’, but of course there was a reason - I was extremely unsatisfied with my work and desperately felt like I needed to be doing something different.
Moving Forward
What can happen is that people become ’stuck’ in their problems by continuing to focus on them in a negative way and then never move forward. This can be the time when friends and family tell you to snap out of it. Again, this can be rather unhelpful if you are not yet ready to move forward.
No matter what the problem is, and whether there is an obvious ’solution’ or not, you can’t move forward until you are ready to do so. Even if there is physical action that you can take that first needs to be preceeded with a change of mindset. This is a personal journey. Nobody can do it for you - you can only do it for yourself and you have to be willing to move forward. Of course, If you are reading this blog then the chances are that you are ready so acknowledge that and congratulate yourself!
In future posts I’ll be exploring just how we go about solving our problems, and accepting them if they are situations that are beyond our control - death for instance. For now, just understand that your problems are real, you are entitled to feel the way you feel and don’t let anybody tell you otherwise!
Stumble it!
Michael Carnell
July 28, 2008
Congratulations and thank you for your new blog. Very heartfelt and very meaningful. Must be hard to write sometimes, but I am sure it will do you and other people out there a lot of good. Keep up the blog and keep going for the good stuff in life!