Things are Never as Good or Bad as They Seem
Really.
I saw a tweet earlier that said “every deal fails twice before it goes through”, and it really resonated. I happen to work in consulting and have been lucky enough to find myself in a role where I have a team of people underneath me and part of my job is to go out and win new business to keep my team busy and ultimately, employed. It’s exciting, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t stressful, too.
I can boomerang two or three times in a week from “oh my god we’re going to make this deal, triple the size of the team and all get promotions” to “oh shit oh shit how many people can I keep on the bench until I have to start having difficult conversations.
And do you know what I’ve come to realize? Things are never as good or as bad as they might seem in any given moment. The highs either don’t persist or don’t hit as high as you thought, and the lows? Well they suck, but they’re never as bad as your reflex action thought.
This is why I’ve started practicing this thing I like to call “Reversing my emotions” — so in a moment when you feel super excited, I try to really plant myself in the memory of a time when things felt the opposite — when I was in a negative spiral and feeling desperate . It helps to neutralize any extreme reactions and keeps me near where the reality of the situation is.
And I’ve started bringing this idea to other parts of my life, too. Whenever I feel particularly stressed I try to remember that nobody is making my life hard on purpose, and that these issues will pass much like they have in the past.
For example! I’m currently typing this blog post on a plane which was supposed to be yesterday but was cancelled due to poor weather, and then even more bad weather led to this plane being delayed — so I’m about to land in Atlanta after my connecting flight to Austin is going to leave (I’m headed to Austin for the weekend!), leaving me stranded for the evening. I paid $220 to bring the flight forward and extend my weekend, as well as $350 on a hotel room for two nights — all of which at this point is completely wasted money, and I’m going to have to buy another hotel room tonight.
None of this was my fault, and yet neither the airline nor hotel will give me a refund. Nobody has caused me this stress and taken my money on purpose. It’s just one of those things, sometimes life is shit.
So of course I’ve been super annoyed and frustrated, but on this 2 hour flight I’ve been sat here attempting to reverse my emotions — I have these annoyances in my life, but I’m still healthy and safe, which certainly cannot be said of everyone in the world right now.
This too shall pass. Life is never as good or as bad as it may seem.
1st May 2022
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