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Growing up, I struggled with how I navigated life because I was too focused on how things could get better.
So I had the habit of overthinking or sulking when things didn’t go my way.
Being an introvert and a perfectionist didn’t help at all. (These are not bad traits though. But we must learn to control them. Too much of anything may turn out bad.)
Life wasn’t quite what I wanted it to be. As such, I’d envision and daydream about the possibilities of a good life all day long.
These ideas in my head raised my expectations about many things.
And of course, most of my expectations never materialized.
Some people don’t have trouble with these. But if you’re a thinker with futuristic traits, you’ll regularly find yourself with these thoughts.
- Will life ever get better?
- Will the economy be restored?
- Why don’t people like me?
- Maybe if I get married, if I make more money, etc.
The truth is, life hardly gets better – not with you overthinking and living a miserable life.
We always find a way to escape or manage difficult people.
Eventually, we’ll learn how to make more money.
At some point, we learn how to be good with ourselves and stop trying to make people like us.
The problem is not as much about life as it is about you.
Things hardly change that are outside our control.
We always seem to find a way of fixing or changing it over time. Until then, loosen up and enjoy life.
Why We are Tormented With These Thoughts
Here are a few things that cause us to think so much about what life could or should look like.
- LIfe’s Struggles: Difficult conditions force us to visualize living the best kind of life – something different from the nightmare we’re experiencing.
- Personality: Introverts, thinkers, futurists, survivors, have the tendency to think about things and visualize sometimes impossible futures. But life gets difficult when these things don’t happen as we expect. As the bible says, “hope deferred maketh the heart sick.”
It gets worse if you’re dealing with trauma.
Once you’re triggered, you could spend hours visualizing and experimenting with future scenarios in your mind.
Thinking is not a bad thing.
But spending your life worrying about how life should get better doesn’t help.
It will ruin many things including your relationships.
Forcing at a problem hardly helps. If you try to solve things but can’t get through, let it be for a while and you’ll see things fall into place when you least expect it.
Life Hardly Gets Better
Having been on earth for 3 decades, I have seen all kinds of things – not quite all.
One is the fact that life hardly improves.
The cost of goods keeps increasing, human beings keep getting worse, and family members become ever more annoying.
Now there’s AI which has literally led to the death of copyright laws, making it harder for creators to get the recognition they deserve for their work.
Responsibilities are never ending.
As a kid, I used to crave freedom from my parents so I could do the things I loved doing.
I wanted to play with my friends all day. Why should anyone force me to stay in school?
I needed my freedom so I could play video games and watch soccer games.
But when I grew up, I saw the other side of life.
Life will get better in many ways, but many times we ruin things by shaping our expectations wrongly.
The problem is not with life, it’s more about how we’re thinking about things.
Life Doesn’t Get Better, You Do
Many things go wrong in life and will keep happening.
Your heart will be broken (not necessarily in a relationship), you may lose a career, you’ll struggle with things physically and mentally.
A wicked politician will be elected; things will change in the industry; loved ones leave us, etc.
Expecting life outside what you can control to get better so you can get better is where we get it wrong.
This is not me saying that if you marry a great person your life won’t get crazy good over time, it will.
When you get a good job, more money, when you get healed, you surely feel better.
But the best life only happens when you get better.
Stop doing too much in your mind to change things you can’t control.
We spend too much time blaming and expecting things to change that won’t.
Stop expecting people to treat you better when you’re easy to manipulate. People treat you as you allow them. So change you and they will have no choice but to adjust.
Stop expecting to get rich if you can’t manage money. Even when you do get rich, you may misuse it and end up with nothing. So start with learning how to manage the little you have.
Focus on Yourself
90% of those problems we sulk about won’t be there if we had been able to work on ourselves.
Do you want to be somewhere in life, start working hard for it. Stop blaming life and family members and all. Work hard. Be patient.
Did someone offend you, tell them and move on. If they own up and apologize, good. If they don’t, buckle up and move on with life.
You were not meant to be “Paul and Peter” with everyone.
T. D. Jakes once said, living life is largely lonely business and he is right. The only person that can be truly there 24/7 is God. So forgive people and move on.
Learn to overlook offenses no matter how many. Be close to people you can be close to.
Set firm boundaries with those that keep abusing privileges.
Wrapping Up
I know things do change. But when we’re struggling and looking out for a change, we mostly focus on the wrong things.
We create impossible outcomes in our minds and do things wrongly. We sulk, blame, hate, take things out on everybody. But this doesn’t fix anything.
So, manage your expectations. Life will hardly get better if you don’t change.
Unless you learn from your mistakes, you’ll likely end up in the same abusive relationship.
Unless you set boundaries and stick to them, people will always abuse you.
Unless you skill up, learn, and expose yourself to opportunities you’ll never see that money you’re waiting for.
This is why I say life will hardly get better unless you get better.
What can you do? Focus more on getting better and you’ll build what it takes to create the life you want to see.
I’ll be looking out for your comments on this one. So drop a comment below let’s talk.
