Notes to Myself - Part VIII

On problems, pressure, and the freedom to step back

Many of us are so stressed that we barely have time to live. There is always something that demands our attention, no matter how many items we get off our to-do lists.

A must-do this, a should-do that, a promise to keep, and all the expectations we want to meet. Some of those are not even ours, but standards or expectations from the environment we live in.

But sometimes, when we can hardly cope with all the stress, we ask ourselves:

When exactly are we planning to start living?

For some people, retirement is the best time for that. That's a bit like having to earn your life first.

The problem is that our bodies often don't support that approach. Years of stress have their price. And you cannot buy back your youth or your health with all the money in your savings accounts.

This post is not meant to criticize society or the system.

Instead, I will share things that helped me stop my life from being a constant chase.

Image by 2286921 on Pixabay

Some Problems Can Wait

This may sound like one of those simple truths older people like to share. And maybe I'm now old enough to follow all my ancestors who carried that wisdom…

In the end, it comes down to two things.

The first is to estimate the actual size of a problem. Not all problems are as huge as we may believe, especially when we are totally stressed out.

For this, it helps to ask a very simple question:

What really happens if I don’t deal with this right now?

In many cases, you can be a daredevil and find out what happens when you don't react. Being totally stressed out is a valid excuse if you use it only once.

Of course, you don't want to try this approach with health-related issues.

Whenever we get sick, we quickly realize how many other things suddenly stop being important. That helps us understand what the real big problems in life are.

The reason we tend to make problems bigger than they are is the fear of consequences. As children, we learned what it meant when we didn't do our duties, like doing our homework, cleaning our rooms, or unloading the dishwasher.

But now we are adults, and we can decide what truly requires our immediate action.

And that brings me to the second point.

What we define as a problem is often connected to our boundaries.

We don't have to pick up every obligation life throws at us. Sometimes the healthiest answer is a simple no.

Yes, it doesn't have to be complicated. Whenever anything is not a clear yes, it's a no. And when you are in doubt, you can tone it down with a soft maybe later. That gives you space to think about it without any pressure.

And if someone tries to put you under pressure, a firm no can be so liberating.

Going the Opposite Direction

Of course, you cannot avoid every problem. Some insist on being solved. And if you refuse to deal with them, they get bigger and create intense pressure.

But sometimes, no matter how hard you try, nothing changes.

That's when things get dark. What starts with frustration and anger can turn into a crisis. Life starts to become hopeless.

I remember situations when I was close to giving up.

But before that happened, my attitude became something like this:

Fine. If all this effort changes nothing, I might as well try the opposite approach.

In a way, it was a bit like showing life my extended middle finger.

Strangely enough, that worked out pretty well.

I remember an important exam that I failed in university despite putting my all into it for months. There was nothing I could have done more, really nothing. So for my second try, I didn't prepare for it anymore. Instead, I decided to approach the exam with an “I don’t care anymore” attitude.

It worked. And I even scored a good grade.

I’ve had similar experiences in other areas of life, and luckily, they were not all that dramatic.

During marathon training, I once realized that running much slower actually improved my performance.

Now I understand where this saying comes from:

Walk slowly if you are in a hurry.

Of course, doing the opposite isn't that easy. It makes a big difference whether you do it consciously or just as an impulsive reaction.

For example, my father was a very strict man who punished me hard for even the smallest deviations from his expectations.

I hated that and didn't want to become like him.

Life tested me later when I became a manager with a team of ten people.

Most of the time, my relaxed approach worked quite well. But some younger employees struggled to take responsibility. I tried patience and encouragement, hoping things would improve.

They didn’t.

Eventually, I had to become much stricter with them than I wanted, as I saw no other way out. In those moments, I felt terrible as I basically had become a bit like my father.

Over time, I realized that being strict is not all bad when applied in the right dosage.

I learned this lesson by avoiding strictness first. And it's basically the same with everything that you try to approach from the opposite direction.

You will not magically get a solution by just doing the opposite. But you will get very different outcomes. And that's data you can use to compare results and then fine-tune.

The thing is that by consciously doing the opposite, you open the channel of curiosity.

Do it in a playful and explorative way. You might be far more relaxed, especially once you have decided that you are close to giving up anyway.

When there is nothing left to lose, and we approach things with an open mind, that’s often when magic finds its way back into our lives.

---