Tag: Obstacles

Good Fortune

Posted on by jabittan
In stoic philosophy being able to control your emotions is a central focus since it allows you to make better decisions, interact in a more sociable manner with all people, and to see the world from better perspectives through a process of reflection and controlled decision making.  Thinking about our thinking and thought process is how we begin to develop control over our emotions, and it allows us to shift our reactions and feelings to better handle situations.  Throughout the collection of his writing in the book, Meditations, Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius provides us with examples of situations where greater awareness, reflection, and emotional temperance can help us become better people. When facing adversity Aurelius writes, “Remember too, an every occasion which leads thee to vexation to apply this principle; not that this is a misfortune, but that to bear it nobly is good fortune.” In writing this he shows how a shift in thinking and focus can help us move from feeling anxious or dejected to hopeful and proud. Learning to control our emotions and shift the way we feel can help us move forward and advance in situations where we would rather shrink and shy away.

Aurelius’ quote is very inspirational to me because it shows that we can choose how a negative situation will affect us.  We can take a bad situation and always change our perspective to see ways in which we can move forward and take away something positive.  I don’t think that Aurelius would encourage us to jump straight to this mindset in any tragedy, we are human and will still feel those emotions, but over time we can move from negative spaces following any tragedy and build better emotional feelings and thoughts.

I find that Marcus Aurelius’ quote above is the most impactful and useful when applied to the small negatives and social situations that we face every day. It is easy to allow small frustrations to build and become major stressors in your life. We all face challenges and annoyances every day which make us bristle despite their petty nature or their small impact on our lives.  What we can learn from stoicism is that we have a choice in how we react to these daily annoyances, and we can childishly complain, or we can pause and decide to nobly bear the situation knowing that it does not truly impact our life.  Shifting our focus in this way can allow us to be more magnanimous toward people around us, it can improve our health as we drop our blood pressure and avoid fits of rage, and it can also give us the opportunity to present the world with the best version of who we are.

Handling Life’s Challenges

Posted on by jabittan
Another benefit of the rigorous self awareness that Colin Wright lays out in his book Considerations is a sense of preparedness which builds our self confidence as we face hurdles along our journey through life.  “If you’r healthy, strong, knowledgeable, sociable, and capable of coping with discomfort, there’s little you can’t handle”  the author writes.  What Wright is explaining in this quote is that we can build our confidence through self awareness which will help us avoid becoming overwhelmed and filled with fear when we face challenges.  What is required is the ability to profoundly understand ourselves and an ability to view situations from multiple perspectives to fully understand the scope of the situation we face.  Without developing these practices then the hard work we apply to our obstacles is not as effective or efficient as it could be for us to derive a real benefit.

 

Wright’s quote shows that taking self awareness and combining it with hard work and a willingness to be a  uncomfortable creates a resilient mindset. Gaining a deeper understanding of our skills and weaknesses helps us see the best ways to approach challenges or areas where we need to grow. This can help us anticipate ways in which we plan to maneuver through life when the going gets tough.  We can develop a better mindset for our day to day life through our reflection, and this mindset can help us better prepare for our challenges.

 

Wright continues, “Why would you worry about something you know you can handle if you need to?”  The final part of his quote shows how our self awareness practice and the increased confidence that comes with it help us face our challenges in a better light. Rather than worrying all day about hard work and obstacles, we prepare ourselves for them with the understanding that we can overcome anything because we have prepared ourselves and know our strengths and weaknesses.

Fear of Consequences

Posted on by jabittan
“It doesn’t actually matter where our fear of consequences originates.  What’s important is acknowledging that it’s there,” Colin Wright states in his book Considerations. What Wright is addressing in his chapter about consequences is the way we tend to think about the repercussions of our actions. He lays out the idea that very few of the negative consequences we fear are permanent. Throughout the chapter he dives into our fear of consequences, where that fear originates, and ways to bypass that fear.

 

For Wright, pretending that we do not have any fears does not help us move forward. He believes it is important for us to open up about our fears and identify them through processes of self awareness. When we begin to look at what we are afraid of and what keeps us from acting, we begin to see ways to overcome the obstacles that scare us.  When we let go of the consequences of our actions and examine ways in which we can overcome negative reactions we are preparing ourselves to have courage and handle the negative in a respectable manner.  This idea is similar to those of Richard Wiseman in his book 59 Seconds, where he identified studies which suggested that journaling about the obstacles we will face and how we will overcome those obstacles can better prepare us for our journey and help us feel better about our journey.

 

Wright also explains the ways in which we take small consequences and magnify them beyond their true scope. When we imagine that small consequences carry more weight than what they actually do, we begin making decisions as if they precede life or death consequences. This puts an unreasonable amount of stress on our lives, and complicates our decision making process.  When we begin to understand our fear and thoroughly think through the consequences of our actions, we can begin to enjoy more freedom in our life without being paralyzed by the ‘what if’ mindset of life.

A Full Life: Challenges, Failures, and Successes

Posted on by jabittan
Writing about facing life’s challenges and accepting failure Colin Wright in his book Act Accordingly states, “Living life to the fullest is not about winning every time and avoiding the aspects of life that prove too onerous.  Its about unabashedly facing challenges, failures, and yes, even successes with a smile, moving ever-forward toward a more ideal lifestyle and a better version of yourself.” This quote addresses progress and maximizing our life by not shying away and avoiding the difficult parts of life that we think we may not be ready for or that we may want to avoid because we know they require a lot of hard work.  Achieving goals and building connections and relationships with others lead to a more fulfilling and happy life, but often times it is a lot of work to reach our goals or put ourselves in situations where we meet new people.

 

In my life I have struggled with the idea of moving toward goals and ideas that I know will require a lot of work and effort.  It is hard to find extra time to put in the work that is required to be engaged in extra projects that help build meaning in our lives.  For me, there have been many times where I have feared the hard work required to overcome a challenge or work toward a goal, and I have instead moved in different directions. I first recognized this in college when looking at what majors I would chose, and it has continued to haunt me in smaller decisions and ideas ever since.  What Wright would suggest for me is that I do not focus so much on the outcome or how challenging it will be to reach the point I am shooting for, but understand that regardless of whether I succeed or fail, the important thing is that I am engaging.  Wright would tell me that in order to grow I need to recognize challenges and understand the difficulties associated with them, and move towards them with a strong desire to perform well. His message is a bit trite as we tell ourselves that not everyone will win every time, but actually applying that and accepting it in our own lives is important if we want to accept that we won’t always be ready to perfectly handle all of our challenges.

 

What Wright explains in his chapter about failure is that it is never permanent.  We hit roadblocks and challenges that we are not always ready for.  We should not expect that we are always going to be able to handle every situation we face, but by putting ourselves out in the world and accepting the hard work instead of running away from it, we will build more skills through experience.  These skills which may develop from failure will allow us to make better decisions in the future. It will be challenging but by not allowing ourselves to quit we can learn and move forward as a better version of ourselves.

Seeing the Obstacles

Posted on by jabittan
Vera Countess von Lehndorff continues in her letter to James Harmon for his book, Take My Advice, to write about self confidence, striving towards our goals, and persevering through the difficult moments.  She writes, “Believe in yourself and be determined in all activities as you strive for your accomplishments.  Do not give in to despair in your weak moments or when you feel discouraged.”  In my mind  I can combine this viewpoint with Richard Wiseman’s discussion about visualizing success and journalism.  Wiseman in 59 Seconds: Think a Little, Change a Lot, wrote about the scientific backing to the advice in many self help books.  When it came to moving forwards towards our goals, the research shows that those who journal are more likely to reach their dreams.
Wiseman offers us a way to actualize the advice from von Lehndorff. Believing we can accomplish something is a huge first step, and it requires creativity and imagination to put us in a place where we see possibilities and a future that we want to pursue. We are able to look past the challenges that will hinder us as we journey towards our goals, and this can help us build more motivation for chasing those goals.  What Wiseman advises, is that we pause at the outset of our journey to examine and understand not just what goals we want to pursue, but what difficulties will arise in chasing those goals.  We will all struggle and hit obstacles, but if we have a plan for how we will overcome obstacles, then the challenges become less daunting when we actually face them.
Von Lehndorff encourages us to fight through despair, but does not offer any insight in preparing for or overcoming that despair.  She is aware of the fact that we will have moments when we are weak and unable to perform at our maximum level and seems to encourage us to push through the doubt with increasing action.  Following the science and journaling about not just the positive points of the journey, but how we will face the challenges will prepare us to fight through the difficult moments we may or may not be aware of.

Don’t Be Afraid

Posted on by jabittan
I have thought a lot about fear recently, and revisiting the sections I highlighted when I read James Harmon’s book, Take My Advice, has helped me approach fear from multiple perspectives.  In Harmon’s book the photographer Horst writes, “Don’t be afraid. One learns through pain, and suffering.  Patience helps!” His quote explains his thoughts on the difficult and painful parts of life that we all strive to avoid.
What I have come to notice with failure is that I am not afraid of the act of failing at something, but I am afraid of the consequences that follow failure.  I think this is an important distinction to make.  I am not afraid of what I can control with a given situation and its result, but I am afraid of the consequences that will follow in the form of other people’s reactions to my failure.  On a second and deeper level, I am for some reason, afraid of hard work. Whenever I get a great idea in my head I can go crazy with what I want to do and how fun it would be to actualize my idea, but then the realization of how much work it will take often paralyzes me.  I have no problem working hard, I graduated Cum Laude, but the idea of additional work in an already busy life becomes overwhelming.
I think that Horst would advocate for me to have patience and plan my goals out over a long time so that the work becomes less daunting.  The problem I have with this idea is the fear of working hard with something, only to find out halfway or two thirds of the way to my goal, that I want something else.  I don’t want my hard work to accidentally steer me away from what I want and into something I had not intended.  Patience and a long term goal in this sense can be something to fear itself.
Richard Wiseman in his book, 59 Seconds: Think a Little Change a Lot, does offer a solution to this dilemma.  Wiseman reviewed popular self-help and advice books to see if any of their suggestions had real scientific backing.  What he found in conquering fear and chasing goals is that those who journal are more likely to reach their long term goals.  He would combine Horst’s idea of patience with a level of self-awareness. Wiseman’s advice is to be honest about what you want and why, and then examine what you could to do get where you want to go. Along the way everyone will face obstacles, and Wiseman says that spending time journaling about how you will overcome those obstacles will help you understand the difficult parts and plan ahead. This way, when you do hit periods of turbulence and hard work, you don’t need to be afraid. Instead of fear of hard work, I can journal to understand what kinds of hard work I can expect and how I will solve problems to mitigate the hard work.  This focus can give me more confidence and reduce the fear of consequences and the fear of hard work.