Author: Michael Davidson

Losing Your Job Doesn’t Have to Mean Losing Yourself

“I believe one of the greatest achievements in life is the choice to be empowered, not paralyzed, by a disappointment.” ~Lori Deschene

I was recently fired from my dream job, and this was devastating to me.

Anyone who has ever lost their livelihood should be able to relate to this experience. Vulnerability, shock, confusion, and anger dominated my feelings in the aftermath of suddenly losing a job that I loved.

What happened? My company created a fantastic referral program, and I saw a business opportunity to take advantage of it.

I reached out to multiple senior members of the staff in order to get approval for my business plan, and then I set it in motion. Two weeks later I was fired, without warning, for the very thing that I had openly sought and received approval for.

Upon hearing the news, my mind was reeling. I don’t think I’ve ever been so angry.

How could they do this to me, particularly after being told the day before that I could soon expect a promotion? How could they be so cruel? Why couldn’t they work with me to resolve the issue in an amicable way?

Thoughts of revenge swirled around in my head. I wanted to burn bridges. Oh lord, how I wanted to burn bridges!

My life was suddenly thrown into turmoil. The plans that my girlfriend and I had made for our next year or so were thrown into disarray.

Would I have to move away from her, and how would that impact our relationship? How am I going to explain this to my friends and family? How was I going to pay my rent? How can I ever feel secure in a future job? Am I “falling behind” my friends?

What it largely boils down to is feeling a loss of my identity. Despite only working at this company for a few months, its mission is something that I felt (and continue to feel) incredibly passionate about.

I don’t just mean that I lost my identity in the sense that “I am what I do.” Of course not—I’m so much more than just my job.

But this job allowed me to act authentically; not only did I enjoy my work, but I actually felt as though I was living my life, rather than just working in order to live my life. I was doing good things, and promoting something that I loved.

As Homer Simpson once said, “If I’m not a nuclear safety whatchamajigger, I’m nothing!”

Losing my job meant that I was no longer “cutting-edge tech industry guy who is revolutionizing the world and helping the poor and downtrodden.” Or at least that’s what it felt like.

But in reality, personal identity is far more complex than this. Whatever you think you are is at best only a vague approximation of who you really are.

My former job was in customer service. And while there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, I really wasn’t using my skills to the best of my ability. There are other lines of work, even within the same industry, that would allow me to express my identity more authentically—and perhaps more profitably as well!

I had gone through something similar before, and learned a similar lesson then. Career setbacks have allowed me to “fail up” in the past, and they can do so again.

Even though it feels as though the rug has been pulled out from under my feet, past experience has proven to me that these situations can be among the most valuable.

Real life requires embracing the uncertainty of who you are and accepting the vulnerability that comes along with this fact.

My identity isn’t some fixed quality that is only expressed via a particular job. My identity comes from my values, and I have to trust that these values can be expressed in some even greater, more authentic way. In other words, I am more than what I think I am at any given moment.

Getting fired is difficult, but it need not be emotionally devastating. It helps to talk about it with trusted people who love you. It helps to write things down. And it helps to look at being fired as something to evolve through rather than something you “get over.”

So what’s next for me, then? I don’t know specifically, but I’m sure it will be something bigger, better, and more authentically me than what I have lost.

And in the meantime, I need to “let go” and forgive those who I believe have wronged me. Luckily, I have been reading my copy of Tiny Buddha’s 365 Tiny Love Challenges, and just came across several exercises that are helping me to do this (April 9^th and April 27^th, for those keeping score at home).

First, I’m visualizing my former manager and the HR representative “as a young child who is doing his or her best, making mistakes, and hoping for [my] understanding and forgiveness.”

The fact is, I was working for a startup, and chances are they were just doing their best and didn’t really know how to handle the situation properly. It’s quite possible that they are beating themselves up over it.

I’m certainly not happy about what happened, but perhaps they aren’t either. Everyone makes mistakes, and I forgive them for it.

The second exercise, which perfectly sums up the message I am trying to convey in this essay, is to “imagine that you are the hero in a movie, and all the pain you’ve experienced has helped you grow, and will eventually help you thrive in life… you are the hero of the story, not the victim.”

While I’m deeply saddened to have lost my job, this pain will be invaluable in fostering future growth.

If you too have lost your job recently, or a role that feels like a part of your identity, try not to see it as losing yourself. You are so much more than any one job or role. And consider that maybe this happened for you, not to you. This chapter may be over, but the next one may be even better.

Being fired image via Shutterstock

December 1, 2015
A Powerful Way to Motivate Yourself to Pursue What You Want

“See the positive side, the potential, and make an effort.” ~Dalai Lama

Until fairly recently, I was somewhat afraid of talking to girls.

Well, that’s not exactly true. I was afraid of talking to girls if I had a romantic intent. If it was an innocuous conversation, I could be cool as a cucumber.

As you can imagine, this stifled my romantic life somewhat. If I met someone and things were going well, once I realized that she liked me a little and I could move things forward, I would freeze up. Self-sabotage.

This was very frustrating to me, and I know that I’m not the only one who has experienced this phenomenon. In some ways, it looks kind of like a classic case of “fear of success.” But in reality, it was more subtle than that. Consider the following situations:

Scenario #1: Imagine that you see someone who you are attracted to walking down the street. You’d like to go strike up a conversation with this person, but you feel some anxiety. What if they don’t like you? How embarrassing it could be! Your mind fills with all kinds of negative thoughts.

Scenario #2: Now imagine someone on their bike loses control and is barreling down the sidewalk toward them, but the object of your attention doesn’t notice. How much would you hesitate before yelling at them to move out of the way, or even to grab them and help move them out of harm’s way? I’ll bet you didn’t have to think twice.

In each of these situations, the action that you want to take is to talk to someone who you are attracted to. But the intent behind each is incredibly different.

I realized that when I wanted to talk to a girl in a romantic context, the intention behind my action centered on my wanting something from the girl. There was no malice or anything—it’s just that I felt as though I needed to “get” their romantic interest. It’s something I was “taking” from them.

In hindsight, this was such a silly thing to believe! I must have felt that somehow I wasn’t good enough, that she wasn’t going to receive some benefit from talking to me. She would be doing me a favor by giving me attention, and I was somehow imposing a burden upon her.

You can imagine how this intention might make me feel bad about going after what I want.

But that need not be the intent that I go into the interaction with. I’m a pretty cool guy and I have a lot to offer. Instead of my intention being “I want to get her to like me,” why not “I want to make her smile,” or “I want to share my positivity with her”?

When I started going into my interactions with women with a positive intent, the difference was extraordinary.

I used to be far more hesitant, but why would I hesitate to share my positivity with someone? Most people are very welcome to having positive experiences, so why would I be nervous?

That is the power of having a positive intent. But while dating may be one of the most obvious and easy to relate examples, this principle can be extended to many other areas of your life.

It’s far easier to motivate yourself to take any action when you know you are doing so with a positive intent. And when you do take that action, you are more likely to be successful with it.

Let’s say you are considering applying for a job that you think you’d love, but it might be a stretch to get it.

You might be thinking something along the lines of “I want this job because I know I’ll get paid a lot and have a good time doing it. But they are asking for five-plus years of experience and I only have three, so maybe I shouldn’t bother…”

It’s a very understandable intent (who doesn’t like getting paid and enjoying their work?), but it leads to a thought process that isn’t conducive to your success. You can see how much less likely it is that you’ll even apply for this job in the first place. And if you do apply, do you really think your best self will shine through?

Far better would be to have a different intent: “I want this job so that I can make a positive contribution to an organization that I believe in.”

Even if you don’t have all the experience that the job listing is asking for, you still want to contribute to this organization, so why wouldn’t you apply? And if you get an interview, you are far more likely to focus on how you can help the organization, and that will improve your chances of getting an offer.

The next time you are feeling unmotivated or are anxious about doing something, examine your intentions.

Getting yourself to actually pursue what you want could be as simple as reframing your intent.

Regret quote image via Shutterstock

May 4, 2015
Why People Who Bring Enough to Share Are Happier

“Joy comes not through possession or ownership but through a wise and loving heart.” ~Buddha

We all have these random little personal philosophies or rules that we live by. Oftentimes, these rules are hidden beneath the surface, not in a form that we are aware of or is easily expressible.

But I do have one particular “random little personal philosophy” that I live by (and am aware of!) and would like to explore further. It is my philosophy of tipping.

This philosophy of tipping was thought up specifically with reference to tipping, say, in restaurants, but can easily be generalized. Here is the original formulation:

I cannot afford to eat at this restaurant if I cannot also afford to give a large tip.

Now, this doesn’t mean I need to give a huge tip each time—I just need to be willing to in advance.

So, if I’m going to a restaurant where I know a decent meal will cost $20, I will commit before going in that I am willing to spend closer to $30. Generally, the tip will be fairly typical—about 20% for a good job—but the actual magnitude isn’t the point.

What matters in this case is that I consider a large tip to actually be a part of the cost of the meal already. Of course, the tip is part of the cost of a meal, but I don’t think most people look at it that way.

Rather, most people think of the menu price as the cost, and the tip is this annoying extra that you have to pay at the end. I’ve had friends who go out to eat with me, order whatever they want off the menu, and then find that they don’t have enough cash to pay for a tip at all.

In my case, if I didn’t have the money available to give a sizable tip, I wouldn’t even make it inside the restaurant. After all, that would mean I couldn’t afford it.

This may sound like a very simple life philosophy, and one that hardly seems worth reading about (let alone writing about). But the implications, when the principle is taken to its logical conclusion, are far more significant. Let’s generalize it now:

If I am not willing to share something, I shouldn’t get it in the first place.

Please, do not take this to be a legitimate moral or economic principle—it is pure and simply a life philosophy, or a heuristic for making choices in my own life. Your property is your own and you are certainly not an immoral person if you don’t share, but you may very well be happier if you do.

A major benefit of all this is its fiscal sensibility. While you may end up spending more on tips and getting extras of certain things in order to share, you will ultimately end up being more careful with your finances and use your money less.

This sort of mindset makes you far more likely to have a potluck with friends than to go out to eat, or to save money rather than spend it.

But once you’ve really internalized the idea, you’ll also find yourself experiencing a significant happiness boost. Why? Because giving feels good. Being kind feels good. And sharing positive experiences with others feels good.

Ultimately, it involves spending more time and money on others and less on yourself. You certainly shouldn’t be neglecting your own needs and desires. But when you do nice things for yourself, make sure you have a little extra so somebody else can enjoy it with you.

Okay, great. So how does this work in practice?

As a whiskey lover, I consider it a nice treat to drink a delicious, high quality whiskey. Jameson may be perfectly fine most of the time, but I like to have Johnny Walker Black Label around for special occasions.

Unfortunately, JW Black is pretty expensive—it would be very easy for me to hoard it and not let other people drink any. Instead, I drink it primarily when I have close friends around. It’s a vastly better experience when shared!

The nature of the material possessions that I tend to purchase is similar; I try to buy things that have more sharing potential. Most of my possessions at this point are books and DVDs, both of which I am routinely lending out to others or enjoying with them.

Predictably, this lends itself to a more “simple” lifestyle. I buy a lot less than I could, but the things I do own have a high return on investment with regards to my happiness.

A big part of this philosophy, though, is to share with strangers. If you are going out for a night of drinks in the city, throw an extra few singles in your pocket to give to the homeless people in the area. If you can’t afford $5 to give to five homeless people, then you can’t afford the $50-100 it would take to go out.

It’s not just about money, either. The same principle can apply to the way you use your time.

If you can afford to play video games all day Saturday, then you can spend an hour of that time volunteering at a soup kitchen or helping a friend move. In fact, studies have shown that spending time on others makes you feel as though you have more time available…cool!

As with most areas in life, it is hard to apply a philosophy like this perfectly, but that’s not the point. I’m far from perfect with this, but even so, I’ve derived great benefits from focusing on this principle, and you can too.

Friends sharing image via Shutterstock

January 8, 2015
A Simple Technique to Quiet Your Mind and Be Present

“Get out of your head and get into your heart. Think less, feel more.” ~Osho

Meditating. It’s one of those things that we all know we’d be better off doing, but most of us struggle with it immensely.

It’s difficult. It’s hard to find the time. And it often doesn’t seem like it’s working.

For many years, I’ve tried to make meditation a regular habit. But rarely can I do it consistently. It’s almost always the first thing to go when I’m crunched for time or feeling stressed.

Of course, those are the times that meditation is best!

But, for someone like me who has difficulty paying attention in general, the standard “beginner’s meditation” is often insufficient. It’s quite challenging to do nothing but focus on your breath for five minutes, let alone twenty or more.

This has only gotten more challenging since moving from a university setting to a full-time job. Now my mind is often so crammed with technical details of troubleshooting health information systems that the idea of shutting off my mind for even a few minutes feels nearly impossible.

I know I’m not alone here. Many people struggle with this, and it is a nontrivial problem. I’m not an insomniac, but on numerous occasions I’ve been completely unable to go to sleep because I simply cannot shut my mind off long enough to pass out.

Sometimes I’m concerned with what someone said to me at work that day. Sometimes it’s missing my family and friends. Sometimes I beat myself up for not going to the gym that day. And sometimes it’s just a whole mess of thoughts that I can’t quite pin down.

As such, I’ve been in the market for a meditative technique that can be done any time, anywhere, for as long or short as I’d like, and without requiring the ability for sustained attention. I believe I’ve just found this technique.

Before going into it, I would like to acknowledge the fact that having the ability to sustain your attention for extended periods is invaluable, and absolutely worth working toward. The technique I will be discussing should be used to help build this capability, not to replace it entirely.

The Technique Sensory Awareness

Rather than directing your attention inward, say, toward your breath, what about directing it outward toward the world around you?

This is an approach that I first came across right here on Tiny Buddha, when Lori described “the noticing game.”

The idea is that you can expand your awareness by paying attention to the things around you, and trying to notice as much of your environment as possible. A great, common example of this would be “people watching.”

The noticing game has helped me tremendously as a meditative technique, but it does have its limitations.

For instance, I’ve found that it tends to cause a feeling of separateness—that I am in some sense isolated from whatever it is that I am observing. In addition, I have a tendency to search around more frenetically than I should, trying to notice the “coolest” thing in my environment.

Surely, this is not the intention behind the exercise, but I do feel as though it is a consequence of the simplification that comes from looking at it as a game. While the noticing game has benefited me greatly, I’ve recently been taking it to the next level with a slight modification of that approach.

A couple weeks ago, I came across a great method of expanding my awareness in a fascinating book about Kabbalah, or Jewish mysticism. You can think of it as a more generalized or holistic version of the noticing game.

The goal is to maximize the use of your sensory perception.

When we are not conscious of it, we filter out a huge quantity of sensory data that is not useful for whatever task we are trying to accomplish. This is a great evolutionary strategy, and it also gives us the opportunity to expand our awareness whenever we feel like it. Double win!

First, let your vision expand peripherally. No need to turn your head, look around, or change your body position at all. You can see (at least in my experience) about 50% more of your environment simply by being conscious of it. Try it out now!

Expanding your visual awareness like this makes you feel more alert and “in the moment.” In other words, it does much of what traditional meditation does, but without needing to focus on anything in particular.

But why stop at just visual perception? You can pay more attention to the sounds in your environment as well.

You need not focus on a particular sound; simply let the noises in your environment get consciously registered in your mind. Huge amounts of ambient noise gets filtered out, but you can easily remove that filter for short periods of time, thereby noticing much more of your environment.

Next, notice your body. Right now, I’m quite aware of an uncomfortable twinge in the center of my back. But until I started paying attention a moment ago, I couldn’t actually “feel” my butt in my seat, or the bottoms of my feet on the ground.

These feelings simply got filtered out, because they are bland and uninteresting from an evolutionary standpoint. But they’re actually quite interesting as I pay attention to them.

There’s really nothing new or revolutionary about this technique. In fact, one of its major advantages is the simplicity of the whole thing; there’s no need for any complicated maneuvers.

We all have much more awareness potential than we actually use in our daily lives. Instead of actively trying to notice specific things in your environment, you can let the environment come to you and soak it all up together.

Most of us, most of the time, are experiencing life on autopilot. But without a huge amount of effort, we can begin to spend more and more time in a state of calm awareness, where the trials and tribulations of the day become unimportant.

Our anxieties and concerns take on a fraction of the significance we normally attribute to them. And who wouldn’t want that?

October 23, 2014
There’s a Difference Between Alone and Lonely (And We All Need Time to Recharge)

“He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the world.” ~Marcus Aurelius

At the end of August I moved to Madison, Wisconsin. This was my second major move in a year.

In both cases, I was separated from almost my entire prior social network. After college, making friends seems like a totally different ball game.

Here in Madison, I wake up before five in the morning to go to work and don’t get back until six or seven on most days of the week. This leaves me feeling exhausted, but it hasn’t stopped me from going out and socializing fairly often.

In many cases, too often.

I’m somewhat of an introvert, and I very much need my alone time. But the “need” to be social and make new friends as quickly as possible seems to be winning out most of the time.

That compulsion to establish and strengthen new friendships makes sense; positive relationships are one of the most surefire ways to increase our happiness. But when it comes at the expense of a good diet, sleep, and (most of all) a chance to recharge our circuits after a long day, it can become a problem.

Acknowledge Your Need To Recharge

We all need at least some alone time. But in this age of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out), it can be incredibly challenging to “sacrifice” your social time. And for what? To feel lonely?

Well, I’ve got news for you: There is a difference between being lonely and being alone.

In fact, many people who don’t take the necessary time to recharge end up feeling isolated, despite always being with others. There are many times where I’ve been “out of it” while hanging out with friends because I haven’t taken time to recharge. So what are we to do?

The key is to recognize our need for constant external validation and squash it like a bug. That’s easier said than done, of course. But by getting ourselves on the right path, we can make it drastically easier to build that downtime into our schedules.

Think of it this way: There won’t always be people around for you to hang out with, so you’ll need to learn to be happy by yourself anyways.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not preaching that we should all withdraw ourselves from the rest of the world. What I am saying is that we should minimize our need for external validation so that we can find time to recuperate from the many stressors we experience on a daily basis.

This is time where you make an active effort to get to know yourself and your values. You are alone because you choose to be alone at that moment, and you know that you can enjoy yourself even without company.

How To Be Happy Alone

There are a number of things you can do to optimize your time alone.

1. Let go of your FOMO.

Fear of missing out is an incredibly common problem these days. People only post their greatest moments on Facebook, so you constantly feel like there are amazing things happening that you are not a part of.

Learn to reframe these thoughts, and realize that you can easily have just as much fun as your friends who are going out. Instead of thinking, “I can’t believe I’m missing X”, think, “Now would be a perfect time for a rejuvenating workout.”

2. Meditate on your values.

When you are alone, spend some time considering whether you are happy and if you are acting congruently with your values. Not only will this increase your overall happiness, but it will also help you use your time better.

Spending so much of your free time with others may be taking too much time away from other things you consider priorities. It’s important to me that I spend time writing, but since my most recent move I haven’t been congruent. Spending so much time going out distracted me from my goals.

Your alone time can help you recognize if the same is true for you—and help you change it.

3. See your alone time as an opportunity to take good care of yourself.

This means exercising, eating right, getting enough sleep, and finding ways to manage your stress. The most common excuse for not taking care of ourselves is that we don’t have enough time. Combine this with your alone time and you will!

This will also have a positive effect on the time you spend with your friends. The better you take care of yourself, the better you’ll be in your relationships with others.

4. Minimize your exposure to negativity.

Reading the news in my alone time, while interesting, is a very easy way to worsen my mood. Limit the amount of time you spend absorbing these negative messages and the time will be a more positive experience.

Some Ideas to Enjoy Your Alone Time

1. Try new hobbies.

Hobbies allow you to develop your skills and to experience the much sought after “flow” state. I recommend writing, but there are a million other things you can try, like cooking. We all have such an intimate relationship with food. Cooking can be an immensely pleasurable experience, and it also allows you to better control what you are putting in your body. Win-win!

2. Spend time outdoors or appreciating beauty.

Take a walk by yourself, watch some clouds drift past, or enjoy someone’s street art. When you are with others, you may feel a need to rush by, but alone you are unencumbered. There is a lot of beauty out there to appreciate, so don’t miss out.

3. Do some people watching.

Observing other people’s behavior can be wildly entertaining, but it can also be a cathartic experience. People watching can help give you a better understanding of yourself and of how humans act.

Get More from Your Social Time

Learning to be happy alone is not about becoming a hermit; in fact, it will help you appreciate the time you spend socializing even more.

How? Two ways. First is simple economics; make something more scarce and its value goes up. In other words, you will enjoy being with your friends more if you don’t hang out with them all the time.

But more importantly, when you are alone, you can better get to know yourself and your values. This self-awareness translates into more authentic connections with others.

When you are with other people, cherish that time. Really try to make the most of it and connect with whoever you are with.

But know that at the same time, you would be perfectly content to just sit on your couch and have a cup of tea while watching old X-Files episodes. Allowing yourself to recharge in this way will help you and your relationships to grow.

December 12, 2013
Why We Sometimes Enjoy Pity and How to Stop
“A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.” ~Mark Twain

When I was younger, I remember occasionally hurting myself while playing outside.

If I rolled my ankle, I might fall to the ground clutching it, but not feel too bad overall. Then, when someone from my family or a friend would run up to me and see if I was okay, I’d start getting choked up.

At the time, this confused me and made me even more upset. Why could I not control myself?

I experienced a lot of self-pity, because I felt like I was weak and could not handle my emotions. And then I would break out in tears.

None of this made any sense to me then, but it would happen the same way every time.

Now that I’m older, I think I “get” it. I actually enjoyed the feeling of pity, and would subconsciously seek it out.

This doesn’t just happen in children. Did you ever notice how when some people get sick or injured, they will practically brag about it?

“Hey everyone! I totally broke my arm the other day. Look at me!”

This whole “enjoyment of being pitied” business is a particularly nefarious form of attention-seeking behavior.

It is a sign of insecurity. We want to be pitied because we crave attention, and without pity, we worry that nobody will care about us.

Pity is a form of external validation that is based off feelings of inferiority. The desire for external validation and the internal lack of self-esteem is a serious one-two punch knocking down our happiness levels.

How does this sort of behavior start? What is the original cause? Why do we think this negative external validation is a good thing?

We all have beliefs about ourselves that require some form of validation for us to convince ourselves that these beliefs are true.

There is something inherently alluring about having a victim mentality. If you believe yourself to be a victim, you surrender your personal responsibility, which essentially gives you “permission” to blame someone or something else for your negative situation.

It also means that you “deserve” pity.

So if something bad happens, your ego seeks out pity in order to reinforce a victim mentality, which then allows you to abdicate your personal responsibility to do something to change your circumstance—while receiving attention that you might associate with feeling important or loved.

This sort of process is most likely internalized through childhood conditioning. For example, when I was visibly in pain, everyone focused on me, which I enjoyed, so I learned to prolong that by crying.

And pity-seeking behavior goes hand in hand with self-pity, which presents a huge obstacle to happiness since you can’t feel good if you’re choosing to feel bad for yourself.

Of course, like all of our ego’s defense mechanisms, pity-seeking behavior will try to hide itself from you.

How Can You Recognize These Behaviors?

You may be seeking pity if you:
- Frequently start sentences with “I didn’t deserve…”
- Regularly tells others that life or parts of your life are unfair
- Repeatedly talk about how someone has harmed you
- Draw attention to your problems and ask why they had to happen to you
- Subtly wish for negative outcomes so you can talk about them
- Get caught up in your own head and become unaware of other people
- Look at someone else’s misfortune through how it negatively impacts you
With that last one, someone else’s troubles allow you to create a story that you can use to garner more sympathy for yourself.

An example would be a person who explains to her friends about how her husband lost her job. Instead of feeling compassion for him, she focuses on how she’s affected by his loss, as if it’s harder for her than him.

We all do this time to time, but when it becomes a habit, it can interfere with our happiness and our relationships.

How Do You Stop?

As I said earlier, the two main drives that cause these behaviors are a reliance on external validation and a low self-esteem.

In order to fully eliminate these behaviors, you need to address both of these causes.

The first step is to consciously recognize that you are engaging in these behaviors. Once you’ve accepted this, you should take some time to meditate on the effect they have on your life.

Are you more frequently in a bad mood? Do you find yourself sabotaging your own efforts? Have your relationships suffered?

Perhaps you can’t emotionally connect with others since you are so focused on yourself. Or maybe you’re keeping yourself stuck personally or professionally because you’re committed to talking about the unfairness of it all.

Recognizing these effects builds leverage that will help motivate you to change.

Now, when you notice yourself engaging in pity-seeking behaviors, short-circuit your conditioning by practicing gratitude and recognizing how good it feels.

Instead of focusing on how you have been wronged or hurt, immediately think about something positive in your life. Sure, you broke your arm while skiing, but you were able to use your two legs to take a walk in the park, and you enjoyed that without needing any type of negative attention.

Repeatedly practicing gratitude will reverse the conditioning that caused your behaviors in the first place and help you create positive feelings without needing negative reinforcement.

Over the long term, you need to build a sense of self-worth by accepting personal responsibility for your life and consciously choosing to change the situations that aren’t working for you. When you feel like you control your own fate, you stop being a victim and you feel far more valuable as a person.

It feels much better to actually enjoy your life than it does to talk about how much you don’t.

This isn’t an issue that you deal with once and then it goes away forever. It is deep seated within us, and it requires consistent self-improvement to minimize it.

As I grew up, improved my self-esteem, and started to take responsibility for my life, my pity-seeking behavior decreased drastically, but it still exists.

What’s important isn’t to eliminate the behaviors entirely, but to deal with the underlying causes as best we can.

Do you enjoy seeking pity? Why do you think you do it?

Photo by lupzdut
June 3, 2013
When Your Beliefs Hold You Back: Release Them to Avoid Regret
“Waking up to who you are requires letting go of who you imagine yourself to be.” ~lan Watts

Do you hear voices?

Even when you are alone, there is usually someone talking to you. And you hear them loud and clear.

Everyone has an internal dialogue going through their heads for a large part of the day. Just because you hear these “voices” it doesn’t mean you are crazy.

On the other hand, these voices can make you believe some crazy things.

Most of what these voices tell you is negative. And when you hear these negative things often enough, you come to believe them.

The worst part is that these voices speak to you in the first person, making you imagine that it’s actually your words:
- “I’ll never be able to lose weight. I just have a slow metabolism.”
- “Old/Bald/Fat people like me never find fulfilling relationships.”
- “I’m not the kind of person who can start my own business—people like me just get a ‘comfortable’ job.”
Underlying each of these statements are assumptions that restrain your behavior, or limiting beliefs. See if you can spot some.

For a long time, I thought I had to become a professional, like a doctor, lawyer, or accountant.

Since I was good at math, I decided to become an actuary. I was fairly content with this decision for a while.

But despite enjoying my 10-week internship, I felt like I couldn’t handle 40+ straight years of corporate work.

In my mind, however, it would have been a waste of my intelligence to do anything else that I wanted to do, such as writing. Plus, I craved the ego boost that comes from other people seeing me as intelligent.

So I applied for more actuarial jobs. And I got rejected from all of them.

While it certainly did hurt to get rejected, it forced me to choose another path for myself. (more…)
March 18, 2013
5 Reasons to Stop Keeping Score in Relationships

“It’s one of the most beautiful compensations of life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

During my freshman year of college, my group of friends would always hang out in my room.

For the most part, I enjoyed playing host.

Then certain things started to bother me. People would constantly be eating my snacks, and I would constantly be cleaning up after them when they left.

Day after day, I would provide my friends with food. They would make a mess eating it while sitting on my bed. And they wouldn’t clean up after themselves.

Perhaps this sounds trivial to you, but over time I found it very annoying.

And after a few months of this, I became resentful toward my friends.

The problem here was that I couldn’t help but “keep score” in my relationships with them.

What do I mean by this?

Every time I gave my friends food, I would mentally record it, and expect to get something of equal value in return.

In my mind, I was giving way more than I was getting.

And then every once in a while when they would come in and offer me some of their food, I felt even worse.

“How can they think that this is enough after all I’ve given them?”

If they thought they were giving me a sizeable gift, then suddenly I felt obligated to pay them back to keep the balance in my favor.

In hindsight, I see how disturbed this way of thinking is. But at the time, it all made sense to me.

Keeping score got me nowhere, other than feeling bad and deteriorating my relationships.

This kind of mindset is toxic. It causes nothing but harm.

Think about your own life and your own relationships. Chances are you are keeping score in some of them.

And I bet it’s having the same effect on you. (more…)

February 3, 2013
Reframing Rejection: Getting Rejected Doesn’t Always Have to Hurt

“Remember that sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck.” ~Dalai Lama

When I entered college, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life. I was going to be an actuary, just like my sister.

Judy had just graduated, and she loved her job. My sister and I are very similar (both of us are math nerds, for example), so I knew I would love it too.

While my school didn’t have an Actuarial Science major or any formal preparation for the career, I was able to get ahead, passing the qualifying exams at a rapid clip. And just as I was supposed to, I got a prestigious internship at a big consulting firm the summer after my junior year.

Life was good. I loved my internship. I was being paid handsomely. And I was doing well, as indicated by my performance review.

When the summer was over, all I had to do was wait for the call, the job offer, and I’d be set for life.

That was the plan, at least.

Of course, things never quite work out as planned. So when the phone call eventually came, it wasn’t with a job offer, but rather the only rejection out of our six-person internship class.

While it was disappointing, I knew that with my great qualifications I would get an offer from another big company. In fact, I had connections at some competing firms, which I was sure would lead to another comparable job.

I did everything I had to do. I interviewed perfectly, and no one else who was interviewing for the same positions had passed as many exams as I had.

Yet somehow, it wasn’t good enough. By Christmas, I had gotten rejected from every single company I had applied to.

I wasn’t sure how to feel. Of course, I felt pretty bad. But then, I kind of didn’t.

You see, I was never able to study abroad in college. My roommate spent five months living in Jerusalem, and I was jealous. Suddenly, I was presented with the opportunity to remedy my #1 regret.

And now, nearly a year later, I am living in Netanya, Israel, teaching English and having a great time. Out of rejection came a wonderful opportunity for me.

Perhaps I’m just lucky. I certainly am grateful for the way things turned out. That being said, there is a mindset behind turning rejection into good fortune, and that mindset can be developed. (more…)

December 27, 2012
Learn to Forgive Yourself Even When You’ve Hurt Someone Else

“Be gentle first with yourself if you wish to be gentle with others.” ~Lama Yeshe

Think back to the last time somebody apologized to you about something. Did you forgive them? There is a very good chance that you did.

Now think back to the last time you harmed someone else. Have you forgiven yourself? Probably not.

We all make mistakes. Oftentimes, through our actions, somebody gets hurt.

During this past year, I served as a liaison between my fraternity and a seventeen-year-old cancer patient in a local hospital through the Adopt-a-Family program. This patient, Josh Goldstein, passed away around the beginning of March.

My responsibility as liaison was to have a regular communication with Josh. I failed in this responsibility.

In the month after Josh died, I was overcome by shame. My belief that I was a fundamentally good person was shattered. How could I be so neglectful? Why did I not spend more time with him?

This feeling climaxed during “Family Hour” of Rutgers University Dance Marathon (a thirty-two-hour, student-run event that raised over $442,000 for families that have children with cancer and blood disorders). I was standing in the rafters, listening to a speech by the mother of one of the families that we had helped.

I couldn’t bear to hear her thank us for all the wonderful things she said we had done when I felt, deep down, that I was a bad person!

I literally could not touch my friends who had been standing next to me because I might have contaminated them with the disease that was my poor character.

This terrible feeling continued, and tears began to stream down my face. Flashing before my eyes, I saw all the opportunities I had to visit Josh in the hospital but had chosen not to.

Then my memory came to our fraternity meeting where Josh’s death had been announced. His last wish had been that we would not forget him after he passed. I pictured Josh saying this over and over again.

And then a strange thing happened: I realized that not only was I not going to forget Josh, but that I would never make the same mistake again.

In an instant, I had forgiven myself, letting go of the pain and accepting that I could still be a good person even if I made a serious mistake. (more…)

October 9, 2012