Will YOU Ever Be “Okay” Again After THIS Happens?
Life occasionally shows its challenging side. Like a labyrinth, it keeps us guessing until the end about what's lurking around the next bend. There's no turning back, and the earliest we can expect to come to a standstill is when we check in at the cemetery. So we have to keep going, as hard as it may be for us sometimes. There are good days and bad days.
The important thing is that you don't take the bad ones as permanent, and make conclusions about the big picture from one detail. Yes, there will be defeats and setbacks. Sometimes even real tragedies and strokes of fate catch up with us. But after that, things will and must continue for us.
Even if, in moments of deepest grief or greatest need, the saying "Everything will be all right" may seem like a rather cynical line from an antiquated poetry album, it's true. Everything will be okay again someday; you, too, will be "okay" again someday. How do we know? We'll show you with the following 5 points.
1. If it's not good, it's not the end
The two most important things we cannot ignore in bad times are our attitude and our focus. Our attitude determines whether we basically go through life more optimistically or pessimistically. Studies clearly show that optimists cope faster and better with blows of fate than their counterparts. If you want to leave life's downturns behind you more quickly and make a fresh start, you need the right positive attitude.
Letting oneself hang and remaining in the role of victim will only prolong suffering and pain unnecessarily. We then voluntarily expose ourselves to a downright poisonous cocktail of gloomy thoughts, depressing future prospects and negative feelings. In this way, no healing can succeed and, above all, no new beginning can take place.
The second magic tool that can serve us well in bad times is our focus on the essentials. If we focus on the problem, we will keep going in circles and will never be able to escape its downward spiral. If, on the other hand, we focus on the solution or possible solutions, things immediately look very different. People with a hands-on mentality not only survive crises more unscathed than passive types.
They also benefit from the maximized learning experience that results from it. In contrast, those who remain in a state of shock, waiting like a rabbit in front of a snake to be devoured and obliterated by their fate, will end up exactly that way.
2. Bad days do not make a bad life
When everything becomes too much for us and Murphy's Law begins to reign, we very quickly tend to adopt an all-or-nothing mentality. We've always had bad luck in life, never been lucky, or were born unlucky. This scathing view of our existence is not only unfair to our lives, it also drags us down even lower than we already are at the moment.
Tragedies and losses are snapshots, they bring our lives to a temporary halt and force us to pause. We have been rudely thwarted from our constant quest to seek happiness somewhere in the future. Instead, we are compelled to dwell for a time in the here and now. And this trip is not pretty. But this one shattering experience should not cast a shadow over our entire life so far.
If we remain objective, we will find that, all in all, it has been a good life, which it can become again. Just as one martin does not make a summer, one drama does not reduce our entire life to the point of absurdity.
3. We can only influence 10% of it
Theologian and author Charles Swindoll has spent years studying the unpredictability of life. His conclusion is: 90% of everything that happens, we can not control. We only have real control in life over 10% of it. Feel free to let this wise insight run through your mind a few times.
We have known since the teachings of the Greek philosophers that the only thing in life we can really and truly depend on is change. It is the fixed star in our sky, not a fleeting comet that passes by now and then. This realization should lift an enormous burden from our shoulders. We are no longer responsible for everything and everyone, but only for 10% of the total picture of our life every day.
Of course, this consideration does not take away all our responsibility, but we no longer have to be able to do everything and we are allowed to let the reins loosen once in a while and see what happens. In bad times, keep this 90/10 rule in mind and then decide on which side of the scale your current problem should be placed.
4. Losing everything can mean maximum freedom
This train of thought is admittedly experimental and may seem cold-hearted and cynical to you. But often we don't even know what prison we have built for ourselves through the years. We just live each of our days as if there is nothing better to come anyway. We stay in unhappy or perhaps even abusive relationships, persevere in jobs that bring us nothing but bullying, poor pay and sleepless nights, and always fall short of our potential.
Like a speculative bubble on the stock exchange, this construct must escalate at some point, there is no other way. So what seems like an enormous loss to us at first is actually a gigantic opportunity for a new start that fate offers us here. Those who no longer have anything to lose experience a level of freedom that other people spend their lives searching for.
This realization will take time and will not reveal itself to us immediately. We first bemoan our fate and complain to God and the universe why we are being punished in this way. In reality, however, we have been given an immeasurable blessing to share, not a curse.
5. Suffering is optional
Whatever fate has thrown at you, the sooner you let it go and check it off, the better. We have to deal with the pain, but how long we suffer from it is up to us. No one can control life, on the contrary. The more we would try to prevent everything that could harm us, the more we miss the beautiful sides of our existence. Compulsion and pressure are not good advisors. The fear of further tragedies will at most paralyze us, but it will not spare us from them.
Today's Conclusion: life is not for the faint of heart
No matter how much fate may be beating you down, there is always a higher purpose behind it. We do not design our life plan, but our task is to follow it and to fulfill it in the best possible way. If it comes to exceptional situations, which demand absolutely everything from us, then there is only one reason: We will emerge stronger and wiser.
The very next wave will be less powerful than this one. Already the next earthquake will have lost its terror and strength. Think of the dark side of life as a gas station from which you draw energy for the future. As we know, everything that does not kill us makes us stronger. That's it for today.