ojasmehta
The Existentialist: October 31, 2018 at 03:16PM
Confidence to Cope With Difficulties. However much we long to lead problem-free lives, the truth is that no one gets through their allotted time on earth without a few catastrophic 'off-script' events. Something, somewhere, will go very wrong. Not potentially, or incidentally, but necessarily, because of our appalling exposure to error, accident and illness. Someone very important to us will die long before they should. We’ll suffer a significant reversal in professional life, probably triggered by some mistake on our part or a collision with one of the very sharp edges of the business cycle. A central relationship will go wrong: a child will develop a major grievance, someone whom we trusted entirely will betray all the hopes we’d lodged in them. ...It sounds very daunting, but there are ways to cope, the chief of which is to be prepared. One of the greatest sources of despair is the belief that things should have been easier than they have, in fact, turned out to be. We give up not simply because events are difficult, but because we hadn’t expected them to be so. The struggle is interpreted as humiliating proof that we do not have the talent required to carry out our wishes. We grow subdued and timid and eventually surrender, because a struggle this great seems impossibly rare. The capacity to remain confident is therefore to a significant extent a matter of having internalised a correct narrative about what difficulties we are likely to encounter. And yet, unfortunately, the narratives we have to hand are – for a range of reasons – deeply misleading. We’re surrounded by stories of success that conspire to make success seem easier than it in fact is – and therefore that unwittingly destroy the confidence we can muster in the face of our obstacles. Confidence isn’t the belief that we won’t meet obstacles. It is the recognition that difficulties are an inescapable part of all worthwhile contributions. We need to ensure we have to hand plenty of narratives that normalise the role of pain, anxiety and disappointment in even the best and most successful lives. (Adapted from The school of life). Check out this post on Instagram! ift.tt/2zelEbs.
The Existentialist: October 31, 2018 at 03:16PM
Confidence to Cope With Difficulties. However much we long to lead problem-free lives, the truth is that no one gets through their allotted time on earth without a few catastrophic 'off-script' events. Something, somewhere, will go very wrong. Not potentially, or incidentally, but necessarily, because of our appalling exposure to error, accident and illness. Someone very important to us will die long before they should. We’ll suffer a significant reversal in professional life, probably triggered by some mistake on our part or a collision with one of the very sharp edges of the business cycle. A central relationship will go wrong: a child will develop a major grievance, someone whom we trusted entirely will betray all the hopes we’d lodged in them. ...It sounds very daunting, but there are ways to cope, the chief of which is to be prepared. One of the greatest sources of despair is the belief that things should have been easier than they have, in fact, turned out to be. We give up not simply because events are difficult, but because we hadn’t expected them to be so. The struggle is interpreted as humiliating proof that we do not have the talent required to carry out our wishes. We grow subdued and timid and eventually surrender, because a struggle this great seems impossibly rare. The capacity to remain confident is therefore to a significant extent a matter of having internalised a correct narrative about what difficulties we are likely to encounter. And yet, unfortunately, the narratives we have to hand are – for a range of reasons – deeply misleading. We’re surrounded by stories of success that conspire to make success seem easier than it in fact is – and therefore that unwittingly destroy the confidence we can muster in the face of our obstacles. Confidence isn’t the belief that we won’t meet obstacles. It is the recognition that difficulties are an inescapable part of all worthwhile contributions. We need to ensure we have to hand plenty of narratives that normalise the role of pain, anxiety and disappointment in even the best and most successful lives. (Adapted from The school of life). Check out this post on Instagram! ift.tt/2zelEbs.