Some time ago, one the first day one of my Personal Development Workshops, I pointed out that, more often than not, when you ask someone how things are going, the answer you’ll get is “not so bad”! On the second day of the workshop, one of the participants said that, whilst driving there, he was listening to early morning radio. Half a dozen people had ‘phoned in for a quiz and, in every case, when they were asked how they were this morning, the answer he got was “not so bad” – without exception! And although I thought that that type of fed-up response was an Irish thing – but I since discovered that that’s not so. My French friends reply that they’re ‘pas mal’, the British respond in much the same vein. And even my American clients have explained to me that, when they say that they’re great, they’re just trying to convince themselves!
Even a quick glance of seven decades of research in psychology will confirm that not so bad is about as good as it gets! Normal people, to quote the renowned spiritualist Tony deMello, sleepwalk through their lives never realizing that, in order to live life to the full, all they’ve got to do is wake up! Sadly, the ordinary mind lives on auto-pilot – the research confirms that, using our psychological capability of automaticity, we pay precious little attention to anything that’s going on. And, in not paying attention to our daily lives, we completely miss the possibilities of life that are staring us in the face.
Now, if you’re feeling not so bad reading this, then that’s simply not good enough! Why would you go through life in some kind of comfort zone that’s not uncomfortable enough for you to do pull yourself together and change your life? Do you have to experience a disaster or crisis to wake up? All the evidence suggests that that is the case. The personal development expert, Ekhart Tolle, had to endure something like a total breakdown, had to end up living on a park bench, before he realized that he should wake up!
Don’t go that low. Don’t let short-change yourself. Don’t let life whizz right past while you complain about not liking your job, while you worry about money, while you get hyper over the peaks and troughs of what you call life. Things are how they are because you made your life that way. And only you can change your life – you can transform it. All you have to do is wake up.
So, what does this waking up involve? Focus on, pay attention to what’s real, not the stuff that’s going through your head and making your existence routine, mundane and a disappointment. Take your blinkers off, see the reality staring you in the face. Come to your senses, smell the roses. God gave you five senses – isn’t it time that you started paying attention to them?
I got here because you visited my blog and linked to it. I am glad you did.
If you read my story while on my blog, you will have noticed that it is different. I have had to start again from almost zero three times in my life in new countries. The last under particularly stressful conditions in the Zimbabwe farm invasions.
After surviving all that, I had a heart attack which out an end to my business.
I do know a little about adversity.
Now when asked how I am, my normal reply is “wonderful” or “good”. If asked to elaborate, I mention that to wake up in the morning, breathing and with all the important parts still working, means that it’s a good day.
People find that positive outlook mystifying and wonder what I have been up to.
Thanks for this post, it got me thinking about how we might overcome the tendency of acceptance and apathy you talk about. Maybe a lot of this – mindlessly accepting our dissatisfaction by concealing it from ourself and others with a phrase like ‘not bad’ – is because we are not told that things can be different, that we can create the life we want. If we learn it at all most of us have to discover this as we go through life and this is often when adversity hits.
I have been lucky, inlearned when i was a young adult that we do have control over what happens to us and how our lives pan out. My mission in life for the past 25 years has been to show dissatisfied others at “life doesn’t have to be like that.”
A good starting point is to develop a keen sense of curiosi about life, about everything, because this helps to keep our senses active and alive.
Keep up the good work, spread the message, thanks.