Pause and remember – When you fight reality, you will lose every time. Once you accept the situation for what it truly is, not what you want it to be, you are then free to move forward.
– Jennifer Young
It’s never been easier to dodge the difficulties and the problems in life; we have all the tools to ‘’free’’ ourselves and escape from the burden of reality.
Every day you have to make a choice between pleasure – pain, instant gratification – delayed gratification, to face the reality and responsibility or choose comfort and entertainment.
What was your choice today? Is the choice you made benefiting your future self or is it harming it?
Look, I skip training today, the days don’t go as planned every time. I’m not saying you can win all the fights and make the right choice, every day – 365 days a year.
We can’t win all the battles all the time. It’s about having awareness when you make the choice, so you are the one who chooses with conscious thinking and not your habitual unconscious self, not at first.
If you want to feel satisfaction in life, however, you need to make the right choices as often as possible.
Here’s what I wish I knew earlier about the relationship between pain, pain acceptance and satisfaction in life; the acceptance of reality and not hiding from it, value congruence, what’s Reticular Activating System (RAS) and how it works, and last, but not least, flow states and the satisfaction you obtain from them.
Accept reality
The healthier you are, the more willing you are to accept and see what you don’t want to see and respond with responsibility.
We often ignore what we don’t want to see or what we want to be different. We waste our energy denying reality, resisting what cannot be changed.
Your suffering will decrease once you accept what it is and stop resisting it.
Careful, there are things in life you can’t control and change; you have to accept them; there are things we can change, but we think we can’t.
You change what is in your control and what you can, and what you can’t, you have to accept.
When we are no longer able to change a situation – we are challenged to change ourselves.
Viktor E. Frankl
Pain acceptance, it’s not easy, but many times it’s the only way forward to adapt and thrive with life’s difficulties.
Sometimes only acceptance is left.
Responsibilities = Opportunities to grow
When you refuse to accept and face the pain of responsibilities, you end up hiding from them, and that hiding makes you unhappy and ruins your emotional health.
The responsible person will face the reality and his responsibilities; as a result, he will feel good about himself. The irresponsible person will hide from the problem and will procrastinate on taking action to solve the problem, which will bring more suffering in the long term.
Emotional health requires us to face our responsibilities, and use them as opportunities to grow.
The problems aren’t going anywhere
The problems are growing, the fears are expanding, and you may resist facing them in the short term, but all the willpower and desire you have cannot make them disappear by just ignoring them.
To feel good about yourself you need to face and take action on what you should do. You know what your next step should be. You know what is important to you and what problems you need to resolve.
You don’t need someone else to tell you what you already know. It’s not the lack of knowledge that makes you procrastinate and hide from your problems. In most cases, it’s fear and laziness.
Most problems don’t go away by themselves, not only that, but they even grow with time. By facing them earlier, we deal with them easier.
Life is difficult
“Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult-once we truly understand and accept it-then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.”
M. Scot Peck
Life is difficult, but it can be rewarding when we face the pain. The pleasure of life requires work, requires pain acceptance. Growth it’s painful.
Either you grow from the pain, or you experience pain when growing as a person.
To cure addiction, for example, you have to be ready to face pain in the process. The beginning is hard and painful, but it’s the way forward.
Running away from pain and suffering very often brings pain and suffering. Life is beautiful and joyful because it’s difficult.
Short-term pleasure and bad habits will ruin your life
Things that pull you out of reality, like drugs, alcohol, etc… can make you feel good in the short term, but in the long term, they will ruin your existence.
What ruins people’s lives the most, it’s the bad habits they build. It’s mind-blowing how a lot of people don’t even realize, that the ‘’cure’’ for their pain, is what actually causes their pain.
Drinking alcohol to forget about life’s problems is what makes the problem stay unresolved and makes it even bigger. Alcohol itself brings a lot of problems; when you add smoking or other bad habits, it’s a recipe for disaster.
The only proper way to eliminate bad habits is to replace them with good ones.
Of course, a bad habit can be anything that it’s damaging to you. There are many bad habits you may have, which on the surface look harmless and aren’t so obviously bad, like being drunk every night, while you scream at your children.
Dive deep into the uncomfortable truth
Going to the gym is not comfortable; you may feel pain, and you may need to sacrifice your time and energy. But if you want the results of going to the gym, you will have to face the pain and the resistance.
Most of the things you want to accomplish require experiencing uncomfortable situations and pain acceptance. Most of the things that are easy are not valuable. There’s no value in doing something easy most people do.
Most people are not willing to do what it takes to accomplish what they want, and that’s okay. But when you want to accomplish something and you don’t do anything about it… you will feel even more pain than if you just took action.
You have to make the decision to change your relationship with pain.
You are not growing if you don’t face pain. Growth can be painful, but it will be worth the pain in the long term.
Pain and pleasure work together
You need to endure pain. Pain and pleasure are necessary for one another. They work together. You experience greater pleasure in life when you’ve experienced pain and suffering, the pleasure and joy, then it’s much more intense.
Seeking pleasure, however, is a deep hole without an end. Very often, people that are constantly looking for pleasure, find it harder to experience pleasure, because the simple things that are pleasurable for you, are no longer pleasurable for them. They need stronger stimulation to experience the same pleasure as you.
If you strive for a meaningful life, you will experience pain, but that pain may turn into deep intense pleasure in the long term.
Accept the pain! You can’t escape the pain. You may try to escape from pain by seeking comfort, but comfort in itself sooner or later becomes uncomfortable.
Challenges and difficulties
When you do something difficult and you challenge yourself, you feel great. Typically, one of the most difficult and challenging things you’ve done in the past, are the things you feel the most grateful for.
Seriously, let your mind go back to your past, where you felt proud of yourself. Is there a moment where you felt proud doing something easy and comfortable? I hope not, and I doubt it.
We are often proud of what we have overcome, the difficulties and challenges we had to go through. These are the things we remember about ourselves; these are the things that bring deep fulfillment.
Fulfillment’s better than happiness, happiness is a good emotion to experience, but it’s not a long-lasting experience. Fulfillment lasts longer than happiness, because it’s a state of being, and happiness it’s an emotion.
Reticular Activating System
It’s located in the base of your head and acts as a filter against all the data that is around you, sounds, colors, images, and tastes. There can be up to 2 000 000 bits of data at any time.
The brain can’t process all the information available, so the RAS filters the information and lets only a fraction of it, which it finds important.
How does the RAS know what is important?
By what you focus on most.
If you say ‘’I can’t lose weight’’, that’s your focus; that’s the message you are telling your RAS to focus on.
Be very careful of what you are saying and where your attention and focus is oriented. Sayings like ‘’I’m bad at this’’, and ‘’I can’t do it’’ just recreate the same experience.
The RAS will show you things to prove it’s true for you. The more proof you see, the stronger the belief becomes. When the belief is strong, you are more likely to tell it to yourself.
PROOF → BELIEF → SELF-TALK
Set your RAS for the things you want. Focus on what you want not on what you don’t want.
Instead of saying ‘’I can’t do it’’ say ‘’I can do it’’ and the RAS will start to show you things to prove that your new belief is true.
The RAS shows you the things you focus on. If you have a new car, let’s say a Ford fiesta, all of a sudden you become aware of all the Ford fiesta cars passing you. Before, you never noticed that car, but now when you own the same car, you see it everywhere.
In the same way, you can consciously choose to focus on things you want to, and build healthy beliefs about yourself or see opportunities around you.
Focused attention
You have to learn to control where your attention goes. What you focus on and where is your attention, it’s what you experience in life. What you experience in life is your life. To have a joyful experience in life, you need to control your attention.
If I’m constantly focused only on the failure in my life and blur all the positive accomplishments I did overcome, my experience will be of a person who it’s failing at life.
Pain acceptance over pain focusing
Two people can see the same thing in a different way, and that’s because they focus on different things.
Most of the things that happen to us are neutral, the mind, however, likes to make it positive or negative, based on what are our beliefs and how we see the world.
Losing my job, for me, could be a positive thing, I can see it as an opportunity to learn a new skill, meet new people, experience something new, and a possibility to find something better.
For you, that could mean you have to struggle to find a new job, you may lose money, and you may end up finding the worst job you ever had.
Same circumstance, with two different views. What’s the better, more beneficial way to see the world?
Flow experiences and joy
In the flow, while it lasts, you forget all of the unpleasant aspects of your life.
Flow, it’s a state of intense engagement, where you are focused deeply on the present moment. You lose your perception of time, nothing is important, except your current activity.
This experience often occurs when you do something that interests you and it’s challenging enough to keep your attention on the task.
Reading an interesting book that makes you think, climbing a challenging route, MMA sparring with a skillful opponent, all these things make you focus intensely on the task and bring joy to your life, although at the moment it may not feel like it.
For you it may be something else, it may be writing, reading a book to your child, or playing football.
Creating a life where you experience more of these intense experiences, makes your life more interesting, joyful, and meaningful.
Your values and satisfaction in life
How can you bring more satisfaction to your life?
You have values, if you are congruent with your values and you live by them, you will be more satisfied. If you believe it’s important for you to do something creative, but you spend 60 hours per week working an unfulfilling job you hate, you will feel unhappy.
If you value authenticity and honesty, but you are lying to your family when you get home, you will feel miserable. If you value bravery, but you hide when you need to show it, you will feel bad about yourself.
The satisfaction in life comes mostly from living a life of authenticity with yourself.
Make sure your values are yours and are congruent with your goals in life.
If you value freedom, but you are stuck in a job you despise, you would feel unsatisfied with your current circumstances.
Some of your values can be someone else’s values. Very often, we are attracted to chase goals and choose values that are not ours. Most people’s values are what society values. That can be beneficial and make you a needed, important person in society, but also can make you chase something you don’t want to.
Bottom line:
Life is difficult, it requires pain and acceptance, don’t try to make it painless, build a life of meaning and joy. Pay attention and be aware of your habits. You are the sum of your habits. Bad habits have the power to ruin potential in life, no matter how promising your future looks.
Focus on what you want, not what you don’t want. You get what you focus on in life; often people tend to focus on what they don’t want instead of what they want.
The satisfaction in life comes from doing what you already know you should do. Responsibilities are part of life, even if you live alone in the forest, outside the modern world, you would have responsibilities.
Most of the things we want to accomplish or improve are outside our comfort zone. Don’t be afraid to take risks and take challenges in life. When we face challenges we may get into a flow state, which brings satisfaction and joy in life.
Be congruent with who you are and your values.
What you should remember and take away with you:
- Accept reality and move from there. Don’t try to escape from it.
- Stay away from bad habits, and change your habits, if you need to.
- Don’t resist pain when it can’t be avoided.
- Focus on what you can do, not what you can’t. What you focus on in life is usually what you get from life.
- Do something that interest and challenges you. Flow states bring satisfaction and joy.
- Be congruent with your values.
