Picky Picky Ponky

All you need to know in choosing your predicaments.

My scanty Biology knowledge informs me that organisms are designed to defend themselves against unappealing circumstances. Taste something nasty, immediately spit it out. Prick your finger, immediately retract. Responses to stimuli, I believe they called them. It took me a while to realise that this concept is as much emotional and psychological as it is physical. Pricks and nasty tastes in our internal environments are responded to similarly to pricks and nasty tastes in our external environments: by retraction. But what if, in an act of chaotic madness, you chose to keep the nasty thingamajig in your mouth, or to keep your finger on the sharp part of the needle?

Okay, okay. Don't do that. Like I said, "...chaotic madness..." What I'd like you to see is that we are physically innervated to sense and avoid unpleasant situations in order to maintain our well-being (It doesn't get more obvious than this, folks.) It is no wonder, therefore, that many of us feel the need to extend this evasion to the internal pricks and nasty tastes in our lives. However, what's the real consequence of treating our day-to-day troubles with avoidance?

I'll tell you what. Escapism, masked by the veil of "distractions". Drink to forget that your company is sinking in debt. Party to numb the pain of your failed exam. Overeat to get through that breakup. While I'm all for healthy distractions, which are totally necessary and, well, healthy, the unfortunate situation on the ground is that a vast majority of us are more drawn to quicker, totally destructive distractions. (a discussion for another day.)

Adding a subtle pinch of salt to this evasive behaviour is the people who advertise the apparent solutions to all life's difficulties. "How to be happy and fulfilled." "Ten things you can do to prevent stress." I admire their efforts in trying to teach us how to avoid pain, but I simultaneously oppose their notion that having problems is a problem. On the contrary, the real make-it-or-break-it factor here is the kind of drawbacks we opt for.

One thing we need to realise is that we will never not have problems. Solve one, create approximately five others (hence mimicking the irritating patterns of bedbugs, those ungrateful miscreants). A never-ending series of hurdles is part of being human, so if you are hoping for a time when everything will be sprinkles and rainbows, I'm afraid you're on the wrong bus. Therefore, if you can't beat them, join them (the problems, not the bedbugs. If you can't beat the bedbugs, I would fervently advise you to move out.)

Insightfully chosen setbacks are more beneficial than poor distractions, which I feel are stimulated by poorly chosen setbacks. Ironically, we learn more about love from people who did not love us than from people who did; more about growth from failure than from success; more about trustworthiness from those who broke our trust than from those who have been loyal companions; and the list goes on and on. Life can suck, but that "suckage" has a unique ability to progressively teach us lessons that consequently make us better people. Misfortunes can be heart-breaking, but how else will we, for instance, really appreciate the importance of keeping an eye on our belongings without being robbed?

We should be keen not on eliminating our predicaments, because it is a frustratingly futile effort, but on choosing our predicaments. I bet that you are familiar with stressing yourself over things that you later came to realise were non-issues. I know I am. As a kid, I used to be obsessed with Hannah Montana. I requested my uncle to ship me a Blu-ray DVD of her latest concert; he asked me to wait for about two months for him to get the money and initiate the shipment. I was beyond myself with anger. Wait?? Who has time to wait? Doesn't he realise that I have to watch this concert now before it expires?? Argh!

Reminiscing this episode, I realise I was extremely poor at selecting my complications. I perceived waiting as a can of worms, so the delayed arrival of the Blu-ray DVD stressed the heck out of me. Now imagine if, as a result of similarly crappy values (impatience, greed, unforgiveness, the likes), I continued making non-issues issues. No self-help book offering me the magical tactics to slay my growing stress would be of assistance. I'd have to wholly uproot this weed by deciding what, according to a set of better values (patience, contentment, forgiveness, yeah yeah), I considered to be a problem, then use this renewed state of mind to choose how to deal with my new bunch of fewer, more constructive problems.

We have no control over what happens to us, but we have absolute control over how we respond to it and how it affects us. Thus, is the beauty of the innate luxury of choice that we have had since birth. Every unpleasant situation in our lives can be transformed into a learning experience, an opportunity to gain first-hand intel on how to better approach tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after the day after that. This transformative power, however, only applies if we are actively working with the right problems, a trait that I don't think anyone ever gets completely right no matter how long they're at it, but at least we'll keep having more wholesome problems with each new day, and that's all that matters.

Post Tags stress problems