Just think for a moment about the major news stories in the last couple of years...
It's amazing that any of us have managed to hang on to our sanity.
Seriously, I mean that sincerely. It would be perfectly understandable if we were all sitting in our respective corners rocking back and forth while rambling utterly incoherent gibberish about the end being very much nigh.
Now this post isn't to suggest for one second that Covid, conflicts, an impending cost of living emergency and the appalling humanitarian disaster playing out in horrific, glaring technicolour before our very eyes are mere trifles we can shrug off and just be happy and positive...
But there needs to be some sense of self preservation when it comes to 24 hour newsfeeds and proclamations of woe at every turn.
We need to mentally equipped to fight another day, we need to be open to the other side of life and most of all we need to be optimistic enough about the future in order to avoid complete nihilism and to see a reason to rise above much of the misery that appears to be every-bloody-where, am I right?
If we are not able to look after ourselves, function fully in society and find reasons to create a strong future, how can we help others and lay the essential building blocks of a brighter future for humanity?
Oh, I'm not implying that we are single-handedly going to go on to transform the planet we inhabit, to create world peace or eradicate poverty, famine and disease overnight, although that would be a worthy ambition...
Every single one of us, however, plays a small, but crucial part in contributing to what I like to think of as 'the global consciousness'.
I have long since subscribed wholeheartedly to the philosophy that each of us sends out a collection of intentions both positive and negative and each does it's own infinitesimal part to affect the global scale.
I guess what I'm getting at here is that no matter how bad the world around us appears to be there are always sources of great inspiration to draw on. Take the current European conflict. Although there are clearly atrocities taking place there are also people trying to make a difference, no matter how seemingly insignificant their efforts may appear to be to the casual observer.
Did I just gloss over the mass civilian casualties almost as if they were a mere inconvenience and imply that they are cancelled out by somebody delivering fresh drinking water and basic necessities to one small village of 250 people?
No! Of course I didn't!
I too am devastated when I see such inhumanity between peoples of the world to one another. I am often a little too empathetic, watching news stories, comparing landmarks, buildings and bridges that look like places close to me and wondering if it was my neighbours, my family, my friends, my children!
The shudder I experience all too often when pondering such matters is palpable and I have been known to lie awake at night wondering what if someone did such and such, why doesn't somebody make a plan to do blah blah blah... Sometimes the answers feel almost too easy and then I remember that global politics and indeed often national and regional politics is influenced by people who don't see things like you and I!
Imagine devising a plan to airlift 10,000 citizens from such a conflict and take them to safety but somebody declares that plan too expensive.
I'm sure that just like me you often wonder how financial cost is ever brought in to such decisions but in the grand game money greases the wheels that keep on turning.
To get to the point of the post, my message is a simple one but it can be hugely effective at maintaining the sense of emotional wellbeing and positive mental outlook necessary to traverse some of the bleaker periods of life.
If you hear a story of a man who goes out and shoots 14 people because his employer laid him off, you better make damn sure to look out for the story of the man who put his life in jeopardy to rescue 5 strangers from a house fire or the lady who knits hats and scarves and sells them around her home town to raise money to provide children 7,000 miles away with school uniforms.
My point may appear a little simplistic or trite but I know that you get the point...
Don't complain, moan, curse and swear every time it rains if you don't ever attempt to mention the sunny days. Unfortunately as with most situations there will be good and bad, you can bank on it.
If you don't happen across something in your day to make you feel good, make a concerted effort to look an example up, there is always love, light and optimism to neutralise some of the negativity of the world, if you will only seek it out, acknowledge it or merely notice it.
Bad people exist, you'd be a bloody fool not to admit this, right? There is evil in the world, people do spiteful, nasty, horrid things in the name of false causes, retribution for a real or perceived slight against them or simply for no reason at all.
Conversely, there are everyday superheroes who rise above the circumstances they see in the world to do something wonderful, to set an example for all of humanity to follow if they would only choose to.
Cases are plenty of people who suffered some unbearable twist of fate, endured an incredibly dark period yet emerged from the tunnel of despair to become people with a gift to offer the world.
It's not at all difficult to find ways to love those we share the world with, a little empathy and understanding can be the foundation with which we look to those around us as fellow travellers, not as useless eaters out to get us at every turn.
How many times have you heard the phrase:
Do others before they do you.
As opposed to:
Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.
None of us are quite that dumb, right? We have an infinite capacity for being able to do the right thing even when the wrong thing has been done to us repeatedly.
I know with 100 percent certainty that if I were to visit a large city and suffer at the hands of pickpockets on 4 separate occasions I would not pick the pocket of some unsuspecting passer-by myself to even up some twisted cosmic score.
You would simply never hear me say...
"Well, you see, somebody robbed me so it's only fair if I rob somebody else in turn".
Most of us are simply not made that way, right?
Our guard needs to always be up in order to view people and events in the best way possible and not tar all humans with the same brush because we encounter a scummy one going about our day.
Sometimes you wake up feeling like garbage. You jump outta' bed, stub your toe, burn your mouth on hot coffee, trip up the kerb rushing because you need to be somewhere you'd rather not be to do something you'd rather not do with someone you'd rather not see.
Some days are simply like that.
If you're sensible and have any sense of self preservation, you won't say:
I hope I never have another day!
That just isn't the answer, you've gotta' be way smarter than that, right?
So the eternal challenge is to find something in the day to make it valuable or at least to bring a smile to your face. Something on which you can hang your hat because there needs to be some positivity and optimism to be found in something or someone or else what's the point?
The last point I wanted to make is maybe a little controversial.
Everybody likes to stay in touch with what's going on in the world about us however, sometimes you need to unplug from the non-stop, sensationalist and salacious world that is 24 hour media, be it online, in print or from those doom-mongers on cable news.
If the inside of your head is like a filter between the outside stimuli of the world and your brain, can you imagine the amount of gunky slimy sludge there is blocking way up there?
The constant drip drip drip of bad news, cynicism and negativity is detrimental to the function of your mind, body and psyche. Try and arrest it and replace it with something far more reinforcing of the good that exists in the world. Sometimes more life-affirming material can trigger the pathway to a far better life, but the doom-cycle must be broken first.
The world is so often exactly what you expect it to be before you even leave your door.
So before you go out searching, don't decide what you'll find!
You may be surprised what an open mind, open heart and open hand may bring in to your life.
The Self Improvement Community is not simply a place to outline your greatest successes or the challenges you overcame, obstacles you surmounted or to tell others of your most impressive achievements.
It is also a place to detail the harsh lessons you have learned, the times you sold yourself short or doubted your own ability. Anything that teaches us something important is valuable both to you and potentially to others going through something similar.
It is also a community that seeks to inspire, inform and be a repository of resources, stories and advice for others who seek a better tomorrow.
Thank YOU for taking the time to read my post and if you're one of those amazing people who like to hit the comments section... Then I doubly thank YOU!
Either way I want you to know that you are appreciated!
