Bad Thoughts, Unrealistic Expectations and Suffering
How often do you point the finger at others and accuse them for your suffering? How many times a day do you wish that others would just get their act together and stop acting foolishly, stop making such silly mistakes; I know what this level of thinking does to people. It puts everything in a very small box. When other people or circumstances do not measure up, or falls below your expectations, we piece together judgments, and may think negatively about that person with our labels and naming. yes, we have all been there before, the coffee shop meet up with friends where you hook up to complain about the days amount of stupidity that came your way. And while you are doing it, somebody else is doing it to you. It works both ways. What goes around really does come around.
Put an end to it. When you feel the need to complain, this is when you really need to step back and think about whom, what and why. Who are you angry with? Why are you angry with them? What could be done to frame the experience into a more positive mindset? You might be tired of hearing the word “positive” be sued on every page but, the reality is, either you are focusing on something with one lens [the positive lens] or the negative lens [judgments, labels, back-alley bad mouthing]. You figure it out. One path is the easy way: anyone can complain and gripe, and many do. The other way is less traveled, and this is why so few take it. It requires great effort to retrain yourself, to reframe your way of thinking, and to act in a new way that is altogether different.
Do you enjoy suffering? Do you enjoy watching others suffer? Would you help someone to get over his or her foolishness if you could? If they did, do you see them being totally different people? I know I do. At least, I do now, but that wasn’t always the case. I spent years hovering over the mistakes and faults of other people, rarely seeing my own. And, when I condemned and labeled them, I could put my own insecurities at rest. But it was a false sense of security. The only real happiness I had is when I stopped expecting others to be something they weren’t. The day this realization came to me everything changed.
Everything.
It was as if I had been wearing a pair of glasses that were always blurring my vision; and then one day I switched out those glasses for better ones. I had reframed, not only my thoughts but, my mindset. When you expect the world to behave a certain way and it doesn’t, you’ll experience stress. That leads to the start of a faulty thought, and from there a spiral down begins.
Like the links in a chain, one negative thought about something or someone is connected to the next thought. You follow the chain all the way down. This has happened to everyone. It happens to me at least twice a week, and it occurs at times when I am least aware of it, or I am too busy to notice. But now at least I can see it when it happens. By making a decision to be present with my mind at all times, I can bring myself back to the start much quicker than before. I have less days to suffer and more to enjoy. But it begins here. You can end most of your mental stress and pain here today if you really commit to it.
Too good to be true? The other option is to just let your mind operate on autopilot. let it do what it does and you’ll get more of the same results. I assume that you don’t want to be that person who tears down another reputation. Or talks ill of them when they are not around. Or wishes them harm because you decided that they deserve it. be careful what you wish for.
The pendulum swings both ways, and what you dish out comes back to you in larger amounts. Imagine what this would mean if you dished out love, or encouragement, or solutions to problems instead of excuses. Imagine the life you would create for yourself and others if you focused your thoughts on helping people, and nothing more.
Or, what if you gave yourself freely to those people that needed it and expected nothing in return.
Here is another big lesson I learned. I still am learning it, but before I knew about this, I was consumed with my “self” and I focused my thoughts on nothing but me. But you see, “me” is a lonely guy. Me wants the world all to himself. Me is an ego that has had its way for far too long. And so I told ME to take a back seat and stay out of the way. Me has had enough to eat in this lifetime.
And so, the journey towards compassionate understanding begins. Learning to empathize and have compassion, to tap into these feelings and consider deeply the situation or other person’s feelings and level they are operating at. Not everyone is like me. what a revelation. They will not always act in ways that I find appropriate. Another revelation. They do things that don’t make sense and get under my skin. More observations. And guess what? I most likely do the same things to others. Maybe they tell their friends about “this guy who…” and start their own spiral of character killing.
So, we need to draw to a conclusion here about how we can alleviate suffering; not only our own but others as well. I am not saying you have to stand up and become Gandhi or Martin Luther King or Mother Teresa. Just remember this:
Everyone is different and doing their best; they don’t act the way we want, they only act the way they know how. They disappoint and drop expectations. You can work on tolerance by thinking deeply about other people. Don’t worry about what they are thinking about you. Who cares. You’ll go crazy if you focus on that. Concentrate on them for them. Be ready to give a hand or shout out some advice. People reciprocate to others in need. More than you know.
Wrong thinking begins small but soon spirals into an out of control wave. This links to depression, social anxiety and moodiness.
About moodiness, it transmits from one person to another. Your bad mood isn’t just yours if you share it with others. You’ll either pass it on or make others flee from you. The one area of my life I needed to adjust was my moods. As I have been discussing this whole time, the spiral that begins the negative self-defeat was once my biggest burden. It would begin in the morning. Getting the kids ready for school. They don’t want to go and start playing around. I have no time and have t get them ready. My wife is yelling “why aren’t they ready?” I get short on temper and it keeps snowballing. By this stage I usually have to walk away. let the kids have their moment. But moods are dangerous. They tend to direct negative energy from within you and project it onto others. It begins with a bad state of mind that focuses on expectations…again.
My expectations are the kids should always listen and obey.
The reality is they don’t.
My expectations are my coworker should have asked to use my computer install of just helping herself.
The reality is she usually does that to most people; she obviously has no problem with it.
My expectations are traffic should be moving a lot faster than it is today.
The reality is, the weather is bad, its Friday, and there is an accident up ahead.
Expectations are unrealistic. Drop them for a week, a day, or an hour. Focus on just the next ten minutes if you can! When I learned this, my level of stress was cut in half. When your mind refuses to accept the situation as it is, you are going to experience a great amount of mental stress.
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