You have two ways to approach this week’s prompt. One is by thinking about a time when you felt life was easy and when life was hard. Use those memories over the next week to journal the events, experiences, and people who were a part of life at that time.
Note: this essay takes just under 4 minutes to read 📖👀
Here’s why: you can start to identify patterns for when you’re entering an “easy” stretch and a “hard” stretch. This is one of the most useful skills that comes from regular journaling. You can almost “see the future” because you’re getting better at recognizing positive and negative patterns.
Quick disclaimer. Hard things happen in life, and many times out of our control. No amount of journaling can prevent accidents or loved ones getting sick or any number of difficult things in life. But journaling and logging those experiences can still be helpful. Let’s talk about how…
The second way to approach this week’s prompt is by identifying what your current status is on the easy <> hard spectrum. Once you do that, pick an activity in life to “even out” your status and bring you closer to equilibrium. If you find life has been easy, seek out something that challenges you and is hard. If life is hard, pick an activity that feels easy and natural to you.
Here’s an example. I’m in the midst of an “easy” stretch. My family is healthy, the baby sleeps through the night, new job is going well, conference talk was a success. Life is good! So it’s time to pick up something challenging and frustrating, like double-unders.
Double-unders are a jump rope skill where the rope passes under twice in a jump instead of once. It’s tough to learn and incredibly frustrating (for me). Several times I’ve given up on it and thrown the rope down in disgust.
Now if you’re thinking – that may be hard but it’s not a truly hard thing in life – then you’re exactly right and have stumbled on to my point. I’m not artificially creating drama or sabotaging my work or relationships. That’s a very real and risky thing many people do and NOT what I’m talking about.
The point of a low-risk and high-frustration activity (often in learning something new) is to remind myself that even if life is easy right now…
- I am not perfect
- I still have a lot to learn
- Life will be hard again
Remember, you can use the same tactic when life is hard. Like I talked about in the Kaizen video, a single small action can be an incredible boost to well-being and confidence. Think of activities and people that bring you happiness and soak up any exposure and time you have to them.
I remember when our first son was 3 months old and I had just lost a job I thought was going to change everything for me. My wife was working nights and we didn’t see each other much. It was a hard time. But in that stretch I kept trying to go for walks in the woods as much as I could, often with a pocket notebook to jot down thoughts. It was a low-risk and easy activity to remind me that even if life is hard right now…
- I am not perfect
- I still have a lot to learn
- Life will be better again
What’s good about this approach is it’s perspective-proof. What one person says is easy may be hard for another, and vice-versa. We’re all dealing in life in different ways, but this approach gives everyone a strategy for re-balancing life in their own way.
If you want a book for more strategies and stories for keeping perspective and balance through the roller coaster of life, I highly recommend The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday. I re-read it about every year to stay balanced and reminded that life will be better (or worse) again soon.
Thanks for reading this week’s Themes for Thinkers. I know it was a little different so I’d love to hear what you think via email, just reply and I’ll write back! Next week I’ll send the Monthly Bullets for July, and T4T will resume July 8th. See you then!