World Education

I was walking down the hall at work today and overheard some man, who was obviously someone in management, telling another man of whom is just a regular employee, that he, “Needed to turn his frown upside down because at least your face gets some exercise if you smile. And that everyone has problems, and we all deal with them, and you just need to be happy, blah, blah, blah”. Whomever he was talking to probably was dealing with problems in his personal life at home, which of course might have been effecting his work performance.

When I was younger, I probably would have thought what this guy said was very positive and good. But now, I think it probably ranks as one the dumbest things I ever heard. Yes, a lot of us have our problems, but to a different degree. Some do have it worse than others. And of course I’m sure 90% of it centers around money somehow in either a direct or distantly direct way. But anyways, when it comes to dealing with problems in your personal life, it’s ok to be mad. It’s ok to not smile all day long. You should be concerned, and you should be worried. It is a normal human response. If you have a problem, you need to deal with it head on. You need to face it. You cannot put a pretend smile on the outside, when you are in fact frowning on the inside. Besides, how can you laugh today when you can’t even smile tomorrow right?

The first and foremost thing when it comes to personal misfortunes is that you need time alone. Even if you need to take a day off of work to do it, then do so. Hopefully you can afford to do so, or you have the vacation time available. Regardless, at some point immediately, after work, or on a weekend, you need to find a place where you aren’t around anyone. The best thing to know is that there is at least someone that has lived at sometime in the history of this earth that has had your same problems. And if you live by the once great Vikings motto “Everyone that is alive today, will be dead in 100 years”, then you know that your problems obviously won’t last forever. It can’t rain all the time.

Now that you have found some time to be alone and think, the motivation in arriving at a solution is that you can always help someone else out in the future of whom might be facing a similar problem. But aside from that, running from your problems, or having the “don’t worry be happy” attitude isn’t going to get anything solved. A lot of times problems will not resolve on their own unless you take a proactive approach. So the key here is to be proactive. Don’t procrastinate and put things off. Decide at least one thing that you are going to do tomorrow that will get you closer to a solution. If you have money troubles, then maybe one decision is to have a start at it by sitting down with your spouse and ironing things out and deciding ultimately what it will take to eliminate debt or purchase a necessity. From there, many more steps can be developed. If it’s a medical problem, then definitely always remember to get a second and third opinion about things. The medical field is very advanced these days and they have pretty much identified just about every possible thing that can happen with the human body. Therefore, there is always a course of action that they have for you to get you to recovery.

So once you’ve decided of at least one step to take, and have determined that you will be proactive in taking that step, then hopefully you will be starting to feel better on the inside. But the most definite attitude to have is to die trying. Don’t ever give up on finding a solution. I’ve been there myself many times. For instance, I was unemployed and out of a job at one time. I was let go out of a decent paying job. I didn’t know what to do because the economy was horrible and there was not anything out there at all. So it became a big problem for me because I was beginning to make preparations to lose everything. I thought that I’d have to sell my car, my house, lose most of my savings account, and then move in with my parents. It was a real low point for me. Everyone else was married, had kids, had a good job, a good house, and seemed to be enjoying life. And here I was, heading back down to rock bottom. I mean, it was a new low in my life. I had no job, no wife, no girlfriend, and in danger of having absolutely no money. And I gotta tell ya, I pretty much hated the world at that point. But, I didn’t quit and I didn’t give up on getting myself out of the rut. I set a goal to send out at least one resume a day, or even more if I could. Usually I ran out of job ads to send resumes to, but I stuck to my goal and went through the phone book and picked companies to blindly send resumes to and kept looking at every job posting to see if I missed anything. I did this every single morning without failure for 6 months! Every morning I did this, then I went out for the rest of the day to eat my lunch, then I hit the trails to go run several miles. I figured, I could go run on my favorite trails throughout the woods and countryside, which would get me plenty of exercise, fresh air, it didn’t cost any money, and provided plenty of time to be alone and think. I would run and walk for about 4 hours a day. I got in pretty darn good shape when I was unemployed, and I had lots of time to resolve issues going on in my head. And yes, especially after the first couple of months, I was worried to death that I’d never find anything. I thought I’d be shoveling asphalt for a living eventually if I couldn’t find anything. But again, I didn’t quit. Things looked absolutely grim, but I still stuck to my goal of sending out resumes each morning without fail. So anyways, one morning I eventually got a phone call that did lead to an actual job interview. I went to the interview with an upbeat attitude and assurance to let the hiring manager know that I wanted the job. And I got it after 6 agonizing months of unemployment. And now when I look back on that time, I wish I would have enjoyed the time off. But it was hard to try and enjoy time off if you never know if anything will come along. But the point is, I decided I was going to die trying. I am 100% positive I never would have gotten the interview nor the job if I didn’t have that attitude. Neither would have come along at all without the attitude I had decided to adopt in a time of absolute hopelessness.

So when it comes to dealing with problems in your life, it’s ok to be upset. You don’t have to pretend to be happy. What you do need to do is to decide that you are going to be proactive in executing steps to direct you towards a goal, and that you are going to die trying in arriving at a solution.

Categories: IAmSoOver It, Financial, Office Space, Psychology