When life gives you lemons, oftentimes, we’re so fast into action that, instead of making lemonades, we squeeze the juice into our eyes.
It’s hard to keep up in a fast-paced world. We always have to be quick in making decisions and/or actions, then moving onto the next problem or project. It’s as if as the institutions, that were supposed to guide us and help us as part of the collective, were distracting us from the things that matter: our state of being a human being, and our relationships with each other and the environment. We were taught to think critically – but, only for theoretical things, or ideas that only matter in making money or cultivating power for a few others. We were led to reflect on everything that is bad within ourselves, but not so much on the good and everything else that is neutral. We were only influenced to surrender but only to rigid rules and belief systems. The ending? Our thoughts, regrets, and guilt will pile up until we burst, causing more chaos to the world. And, if we don’t act on this soon enough, we’ll still be in this disarrayed loop; and, frankly, this is a lot nauseating.
Getting our life back on track can be difficult because it’s possible that we don’t even know what our life was when it was not gravely affected by so many stimulants. Another problem is that we don’t know how to reorganize because we’re not used to it. This forces us to participate in illusions that we might or might not need – like doing challenges like 75 Hard, participating on extreme diets, cutting of a lot of connections, and making extremely risky decisions that may or may not aggravate our current circumstances. Again, this is not to say that these methods do not work: as there are indeed cases that doing complete overhauls or suddenly changing our routines is the only way out. However, we often lack introspection and other reflections that, often times, we are doing these things in a very shallow way; or, the other side of the coin, in an inhuman, empathetic way. This may lead to sudden quitting even before you start doing it; or, overdoing because limitations and boundaries were not even defined in the first place.
Getting your life back on track does not always mean introducing chaos to your system. Most of the time, it will always be about finding balance and allowing yourself to look inward, to feel emotions, and to read yourself to filth until such time you’ve figured out everything that you need to make your first step. Reorganizing your life means that you have to take a step back every now and then to figure out what options or actions will serve best for you – factoring in the type and intensity of risks that there are in your circumstances, and the rewards that should be aligned to what you really want and need.
Surrender. Getting your life back on track does not mean you get to evade everything that you’ve been experiencing. Because, the first step into realigning to your life’s purpose, or to your mission, or whatever it is that you want to hold on to, is to acknowledge and accept that your life is facing chaos. You need to understand that what you’re working for is not for the life that you want to have; but, rather, for the life that you’re experiencing at the present moment. It is the acceptance that there are things in this and your own world that you cannot and should not control because you understand that manipulating those are far more detrimental than simply letting go. When you let go, you recognize that you’re allowing yourself more opportunities for growth and development because you have more clarity on your thought process and success ideation. When you surrender, you begin to understand that everything that was and is being thrown at you was and is not intended for your downfall – that some things just happen and that you should see this as challenges and opportunities for you to use your brain and body to find a solution. For some instances, you don’t even have to view these things as such because what you’re meant to do is just live and experience.
This does not mean dismissing the state of manifestation or the assumption that everything that happens is for the better in the long run. This is not a chance for you to have your “bah, humbug” moment. Surrendering means trusting the process and not abandoning it all-together. It is quite a difficult thing to accomplish; however, necessary, because it means that once you’ve accepted the things that you can’t control, you will be required to slowly push the limits and the boundaries that you’ve set – without losing sight of your goal and what’s to come. If you’ve noticed that even though your path is quite chaotic (because, in essence, you’re shaking the foundations that were set by somebody else), you’re not losing anything substantive and worthy of your energy, then it means that everything is still in your favor. And, if at the moment, if your gut tells you that you’re doing fine, and that you’ve lost something you feel like needing in the long run, then it means that you don’t need it anymore and that you have to give space to something else.
Reflect. This requires you to think of the past while living in the present. Every one of us made mistakes and experienced a lot of bad things even before we decided to go on a journey of self-discovery and growth. We’ve seen a lot of people act irrationally and not based on who they are and what they represent. As we go along our lives, we are gaining enough data to reflect on what decisions and actions are leading us to the right path and to the reality that we want to have. If you feel like you don’t have the capacity to think of the past experiences so that you can have sound judgment in the present, then you’re either too dumb or lazy to even lock in on your goals. Reflection is part of the commitment that you’ve signed up for in the beginning. There is no shortcut as this is necessary for you to create a proper feedback loop. However, if you want to not do any kind of reflection, then you do your own thing. Just don’t regret it when you’ve realized that you’re making the same mistakes over and over again.
Reflection demands you to listen to your body. On a physical sense, your body tells you whenever you’re exhausted and depleted while you’re on your journey in getting your life back. The process itself is a very difficult and tiring thing and you have your own physical limits. In the type of chaos that is irreversible and incapable of reorganizing itself, realignment can destroy you. For example, if one wants to do weight training for strength and endurance, and they immediately goes to lifting weights that are heavier than them, they either experience failure for the first time, or they will be injured – often taking weeks to fully recover. The ending? They won’t even dare committing to it anymore because something already stopped them in the beginning, and the body triggers this instinct of flight whenever one thinks of doing it again.
It demands you to stop your own stupidity and stubbornness because these two will be your definite downfall. Reflection means allowing your intuition to guide you as well. Oftentimes, your gut will lead you into the right direction. It will tell you whenever a decision will endanger you and other people. It will tell you whether an action will give you better circumstances. When we make rash decisions without thinking properly, you will, most definitely, build piles of regret overtime. This also happens when one is on autopilot.
Think. Reflection is associated with this action. Surely, critical thinking is a major thing that is lacking from most people. Just imagine the consumption of news. Because people are led to feast on the first information of spectacle and controversy that they see on their screens, regardless on your politics, you will tend to believe it and react on it as soon as you can type. This is without consideration on who brought the news, what news is delivered, how it was delivered, what context is there, and how the news is compared to other sources through fact-checking. The tendency is that because people react quickly on the information at hand, they tend to side on who holds the power of that news and make the wrong decisions based on that. This is the same thing in terms of getting your life back on track.
For example, when you look on search engines about the different tips on life management, you dissect every detail before you act on it. When you want to go on a diet, you think of whether it is truly doable based on your circumstances, whether it is culturally healthy on your part, the cons of doing the diet, the expenses that you might incur, other steps that you need to take in order to compensate for any negative loss, and etc. When you want to be a content creator, you think of how to be sensitive in terms of your creation and distribution, your shooting and editing schedule, your capabilities in terms of video creation, writing, and editing, and etc.
Critical thinking demands you to check all bases before you act on it to ensure that you will be consistent. When you want to get your life back on track, you will constantly have a session within you to further your thought process. Critical thinking allows you to improve and work on your personal biases and prejudices, consumption and digestion of all kinds of information coming from all fronts. Even though it will increase the chances of you being overly specific, at least, you will have the decency to not nitpick on what you have to do just because you prefer something over another or you’re just too afraid to do it.
Getting your life back on track does not mean just overhauling your system or making a few changes on how you live your life. It also means having your willpower tested over time You will almost definitely fail if you keep on holding onto things that don’t serve you anymore, even if your gut keeps on telling you to, and you infer that it is the best thing moving forward, after considering all of the information that is available to you. You cannot and will not be realigned to the reality that you want if you don’t have the capacity to strengthen your willpower. You will not be successful if you aren’t empathetic enough to listen to your body and everybody else’s.
So, regardless on the type of lemons that life gives you, you should allow yourself space and time while making your decisions and actions. You should allow yourself to slow down, breathe, and to ponder on the smallest of things that might get ignored when you’re too stupid, lazy, afraid, and irrational to be sound, sane, and safe.
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