Life shouldn't be hard. Part 2

Imagine where I would have been today, if I in the past hadn’t welcomed anyone into my life, lived many years for instant gratifications, did not push people that were good for me away, hadn’t taken drugs in a harmful way, hadn’t engaged in promiscuous sexual behavior, hadn’t lied, hadn’t pushed down and ignored my negative emotions, hadn’t eaten a bunch of crappy food, had been more loving and forgiving towards those around me, studied harder, planned better for the future and in general thought more of the consequences of my actions. Etcetera.

Writing this down, I come to think of that most of these decisions are not either-or decisions. They are to a large degree things that I could have just not done. 

The conclusion: Life is easy. I’m the one making it hard.

Life shouldn't be hard. Part 1

I just realized something. I’ve made so many bad decisions in my life, that I don’t know where to begin. And sure, everything in my life isn’t great. But I’m pretty happy with how things are in general. I have a wife that I love, a job that I like, I make okay money, I know a bunch of interesting stuff, my body works as it should with only some minor back problem that are slowly getting better and I, mostly, fill my spare time with things that feel engaging and meaningful.

The conclusion: Life is easy. I’m the one making it hard.

Will this benefit me? Part 3

This can also be applied to other areas of my life. Wanting to get things done, I keep bashing my head against the wall, even if I’m worn out. This leads to me doing things ineffective and sooner or later I crash. What if I instead of doing this, simply rest when I need to rest and take care of the stuff that I need to do when I’m well rested and can do them effectively?

Will this benefit me? Part 2

I think that some clarification is in order. What I don’t mean by this, is that I should just force myself to comply with a rigid life where I only do things that are good for me. Anyone can come up with such a plan, but few will be able to follow it. What I’m talking about is to arrange my life consciously, so that I have a plan that works and that I want to follow. 

Will this benefit me? Part 1

Here comes three little posts about how to make life easier. 

I’m a big movie fan. But besides watching movies because I like them, I also use them to relax. But now and then, quite frequently actually, things end up taking more time than I’ve planned. But when the evening comes, I’m dead set on watching the movie that I’ve planned seeing, even if I know that I need to go to bed, because I have to get up early the next day. So I watch the movie anyway, sleep too little and end up causing more stress, instead of relieving stress, which is one of the primary purposes of watching the movie. So, what if I, instead of doing this, save the movie for later? It could even be a nice, unplanned treat that I give to myself some other day, instead of doing some boring chore that I’ve scheduled, as long as it’s a chore that I can postpone.

Changing plans

As I’m writing this, I could have felt a lot better if I had changed my plans the day before. Things ended up taking longer than I had planned and it turned out that I couldn’t do a few other things either. But I still went ahead with the rest of my plans, which left me slow and tired today, when I easily could have just decided to do something else. I am often inflexible in this manner.