It's All Just A Coincidence

You and I have never met, many times before. Our paths might have crossed once or twice online, or passing in the street. We might have lived in the same neighborhood all our lives, but against incredible odds, we just happened to miss each other. It's a big world, after all.

Our days must be filled with these chance encounters, that for a million tiny reasons, never actually take place. Accidental strangers, who just happened to miss their cue.

who share everything in common, except for time and place.

For years, their stories might've been happening in parallel, harmonizing from somewhere across the world, but neither has any idea that the other even exists.

If two lines are truly parallel, it means they'll never actually meet.

It's hard not to wonder where they are right now, veering away on a tangent, in some parallel universe. It's hard not to glance at a stranger in a crowd, and imagine the life you might have shared if things had been different. You feel a pang of missed connection as you carry on your separate ways, leaving nothing but an echo of something that might have been.

You never know how many things had to happen exactly right for you to meet the one you love. You never know how easily fate might have tipped you onto some other course, meeting some other person, who would feel like a soul-mate.

Maybe you'd still be telling your friends it was always meant to be. As if you knew all along that your paths would cross. Or maybe you'd look back at your life and realize

it was nothing personal, it's all just a coincidence.

You never know.

TJ

How to be Miserable!

1. Complain all the time
(It will make you miserable and drive your friends away)

2. Bury your head in the sand and deny that you have problems
(Avoidance won’t make your problems disappear)

3. Constantly compare yourself with others
(You’ll always feel inferior if you compare your weaknesses to others’ strengths)

4. Allow yourself to continually worry about the future
(Most “what ifs” never actually happen)

5. Keep hanging out with people who put you down
(That will totally destroy your self-esteem)

6. Keep on doing things you dislike or hate
(You only live in this world once – and we each have different gifts – so it’s crucial that you try to invest in what you love)

7. Get involved, and stay, in BAD relationships
(You’ll end up hating and devaluing yourself, and convincing yourself that you can’t have more than that)

8. Try to change others instead of yourself
(We can’t change others – we can only influence them; but we do have the power to change ourselves) 

9. Be a people pleaser
(We can’t make others happy all the time. Also, when you give up your power you will feel worthless inside)

10. Look for your worth in “things” 
(Stuff can't satisfy us, or bring us true happiness)

TJ

Life Can Get Better

1. Let go of anger. When we explode in anger we often feel much worse. Consequently, it’s better to cool off and make an effort to stay calm.

2. When people treat you badly it’s rarely “about you”. More often it tells you how that person is feeling, or some other issue that is troubling them.

3. You’re not the only one who has struggled with your issue of the moment – so don’t feel so bad, or put yourself down.

4. Enjoy the good times and take pleasure in every moment as life is a valuable gift to be enjoyed.

5. Work and be persistent as it’s worth the grind and pain. It is the only way to make lasting success possible.

6. You need to find your passion and set goals if you want to live life to the fullest.

7. All relationships can teach us a great deal about ourselves. Both the good and the bad while revealing who we really are. Our relationships reveal what we think, and how we feel, about ourselves, as well as what our values and our expectations are.

TJ

Oh, The Sky Is Falling! Really?

When we predict how long we will feel about some event, we tend to over-estimate the duration of the emotional impact. Whatever our emotions, although we have ups and downs, we tend to return to a neutral 'home' position within a relatively short time. 

Because of our Durability Bias we tend to overestimate the length and/or the intensity of how we will feel about something in the future. This may be caused by focalism (def - a cognitive bias that describes the common human tendency to rely too heavily on the first piece of information offered (the "anchor") when making decisions.), where people focus too much on the event in question and not enough on other future events.

Research has discovered that football fans were less likely to over-predict how long the outcome of a football game would influence their happiness if they first thought about how much time they would spend on other future activities.

I think about how I would feel if my wife left me. I suspect I would feel very upset and believe I would feel this way for a long time to come. The fact that I might meet someone else before long and change how I feel does not come into my thinking. (If my wife is reading, this is JUST an EXAMPLE :))

What do we do to get past this faulty thinking?

Getting people to think about other events that will happen in the future and how they will react to these will reduce their misperception about how long feelings about current events might last.

You can also do this by getting people to think only about the over-arching impact of a desirable/undesirable event and how long the feelings about this will last.

When thinking about how long you will feel about something, think about the possibilities of other events changing how you feel right now.

If it all sounds contorted and/or complicated it’s not.

We can sum it up in this way: 

Do not let the temporary distract you from the long-term. 

When you were young breaking up with a girl/boy friend seemed like the end of the world. 

Did it actually end?

Just asking… 

TJ

Why Is Everyone More Successful Than Me???

There's an optical illusion that's easy to fall for, even if you know the trick. The more distant you are from other people, the more invulnerable they appear.

You see yourself as you are, with your flaws just as clear as your successes, but you see most other people on their terms, only from the side they present to the world. And at first glance they've got everything figured out, with everything set in stone, securely rooted in their community, wrapped up with their loved ones, their lives like a finished work of art.

But it's only just a trick of perspective: everyone else seems to be doing better than you, because you can't see the cracks from so far away. How insecure their footing, how pliable they really are. How many years of effort went into shaping their identity into something acceptable, how many other hands it took to build their lives, which are still only a work in progress.

It's the kind of basic human vulnerability that we'd all find familiar, but is still somehow surprising when we notice it in others. It's an open question why we have such public confidence, and such private doubts.

Maybe that contradiction is what keeps us moving, wanting to be more than what we are, and never be satisfied. Maybe it lets us keep our distance, to avoid too much friction as we brush past each other. 

Or maybe it's what draws us together, the only irreplaceable thing we still need each other for, just one last excuse to keep stopping by, so we can prop each other up, and remind us that nothing is set in stone, not even who we are, or who we pretend to be.

TJ