Do You Want to Achieve Favorable Outcomes? It's All About Right Attitude!
Opposite Effect SyndromeHave you heard this statement before? “Oh my! I might cry later because I’m laughing right now.” Or this one? “I should not be happy too much coz I might get sad later”
The statements above are very common for those who have this fear of irrational balance or cause-and-effect thinking that whatever emotional disposition you have right now will alter to its exact opposite later. This way of thinking about being happy or being sad consequences is inhibiting people to enjoy life as it is. It prevents us to make the most of ourselves and grow because it leads us to being too cautious and to deprivation. We deprive ourselves from being fully happy and just laugh hard when we are glad. And the bad thing about this way of thinking is the fact that we usually remember this ‘balance effect thing’ when we are so happy than when we are sad that we suddenly stop ourselves for being just happy because we are worried that it will result to its exact opposite and that is - we will be very sad later on. Some people might say “Well, I think it’s natural since we can’t be happy all the time. We will have problems for sure because no person is actually problem-free” Yes this is true! Of course life has its ups and downs. But, do we have to be on guard for our feelings always in a way that we are putting blinking red traffic light that tells STOP on each emotion that we have? No, of course. We dont have to do that unless we want to check or weigh our good feelings against our bad feelings to see if we have the so-called balance (Oh my!)
Life is what we make it as we all know. God is so generous to limit us from expressing our emotions. Whether you are a believer of God's infinite resources or not, just imagine how wonderful it would be to just let yourself live your life at a time without putting limits on your feelings or your potential to feel great. If you want to laugh, laugh all you want. If you want to cry, cry all you want. God is not giving us limit to express ourselves especially if the expression itself is what makes you appreciate your life well. Never think that whatever feeling you have right now will have corresponding effect later that is totally opposite because you’re only asking for just that. Because thinking that way has expectation. And when you expect, there's a belief that it will happen, and so, you're attracting it to happen.
Balance is always there that keeps us human but let the balance take care of itself and you on the other hand, just do take care of your life.
The statements above are very common for those who have this fear of irrational balance or cause-and-effect thinking that whatever emotional disposition you have right now will alter to its exact opposite later. This way of thinking about being happy or being sad consequences is inhibiting people to enjoy life as it is. It prevents us to make the most of ourselves and grow because it leads us to being too cautious and to deprivation. We deprive ourselves from being fully happy and just laugh hard when we are glad. And the bad thing about this way of thinking is the fact that we usually remember this ‘balance effect thing’ when we are so happy than when we are sad that we suddenly stop ourselves for being just happy because we are worried that it will result to its exact opposite and that is - we will be very sad later on. Some people might say “Well, I think it’s natural since we can’t be happy all the time. We will have problems for sure because no person is actually problem-free” Yes this is true! Of course life has its ups and downs. But, do we have to be on guard for our feelings always in a way that we are putting blinking red traffic light that tells STOP on each emotion that we have? No, of course. We dont have to do that unless we want to check or weigh our good feelings against our bad feelings to see if we have the so-called balance (Oh my!)
Life is what we make it as we all know. God is so generous to limit us from expressing our emotions. Whether you are a believer of God's infinite resources or not, just imagine how wonderful it would be to just let yourself live your life at a time without putting limits on your feelings or your potential to feel great. If you want to laugh, laugh all you want. If you want to cry, cry all you want. God is not giving us limit to express ourselves especially if the expression itself is what makes you appreciate your life well. Never think that whatever feeling you have right now will have corresponding effect later that is totally opposite because you’re only asking for just that. Because thinking that way has expectation. And when you expect, there's a belief that it will happen, and so, you're attracting it to happen.
Balance is always there that keeps us human but let the balance take care of itself and you on the other hand, just do take care of your life.
Attitude identifies choices, and choices build one’s character
Just last year to be exact, I was able to come up with the saying above based on my own experiences including experiences of the people around me. I actually felt good coming up with this, shall I say – adage. That I always put it in my IM Network Status mainly to spread its meaning to remind others as it reminds me to be of control of my actions. I had it connected to the things that were going on around me – at work, at home, and even in some places I went to and people that I talked to. Almost everywhere and every person I know inspired me to come up with such a motto in life. This very sentence about Attitude motivates me in a lot of ways that it made me look at it always as a basis of my reaction in any situation I am in.
Imagine this scenario:
One day, you suddenly woke up realizing that you’ll be getting late for work. You remembered that you asked your mother last night to wake you up but thought she didn’t. You cursed to yourself and jumped down from your bed and accidentally knocked your lampshade from your table beside your bed to the floor that the small light bulb in it broke. Then you cursed again. Having no time to clean it up or fix it, you cursed again. You’re feeling bad now that when you got out of your room, you questioned your mother why she didn’t wake you up. Having no time to hear her explanation, you just proceeded to the bathroom only to find out that somebody’s currently using it. Tsk! Tsk!
And let’s just move forward, when you reached the train to work, there are so many passengers already lining up there that you can’t get on to the train easily. With the thought that you’re really late now, you tried to squeeze in and accidentally hitting people on your way so they got mad at you. And so on and so on. You continue on experiencing one bad thing after another until you made it to your office. You can continue on imagining things that can happen in this scenario but you must not miss the bottom line of this situation, which is wrong attitude that led to d-i-s-a-s-t-e-r! You have allowed the disaster to come in and invited more of it unconsciously because of wrong way of dealing with the situation.
To continue on.. The next day, you woke up again late. Then how do you feel now? Probably, this might frustrate you again and you might even think “It can’t be! Oh gosh! I shouldn’t be late again!” And what will happen next? If you haven’t learned your lesson, you probably repeat the same scenario you just had the day before and worse.
Now, imagine that you still have the same situation wherein you are about to get late at work AGAIN but instead of letting yourself act according to your feeling of the current situation, you tried to relax. You just realized that you’re getting late so what will you do now? You can invite disaster again or you can decide to move fast but with presence of mind and would not let the word ‘late’ bother you too much. Then you will be surprised to learn that everything else just went on smoothly when you got in to the office.
It’s not the situation itself that will define its own outcome, but your ACTION to the situation is the one that determines what will be the outcome of the situation instead. By making good choice based on good attitude towards unfavorable events in our lives like problems, we are building our characters. It depends on your attitude how you will accept or deal with things. Definitely, we can’t control things that will happen to us readily but we have the power to face them and surpass them successfully. People usually make choice based on attitude. If a person is pessimistic and always sees trials as negative events in his life, then he will more likely to choose something that reflects her bad character. That she’s easy to dwell on problems than the solutions. On the other hand, a person who is open to challenges makes choices that reflect his good character as strong and optimistic. A type of person who focuses on solutions rather than problems themselves.
We make good choices that nourish our beings by good attitude, and good choices in return will manifest our good character and vise versa. We should be then in control of our choice of action by focusing on what is good. This also applies to the fact that we always have the capacity to choose. If you’re frustrated because you failed on something, you can choose to be angry or to be sad or you can choose to let it go and start all over again. If you’re mad how your life goes, you can choose to blame others for your own miseries or you can choose to seek for others’ help instead. It’s your choice!
Remember that we’re not holding back anything by maintaining pleasant attitude. Is it ok to be mad or to be disappointed? Sure, It’s ok to let it out! What’s important is what you will do afterward. Being angry or disappointed is just a scenario but your action will be the means to the outcome of that scenario that will contribute to your growth as an amazing person.
It's all about right attitude.
Enjoy life!
