Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Life dissatisfaction is one of the most common problems for most people in almost any society. Many people are constantly dissatisfied and dissatisfied with something, and want their life to be better, no matter how good it already is. Sometimes such dissatisfaction is well founded, sometimes it is not, and sometimes it is simply absurd. It should be noted that not all people can clearly explain what exactly and why they are dissatisfied and dissatisfied. Nevertheless, this problem exists, it is real, not far-fetched, and without any doubt it must be solved. We need to understand why people may not be satisfied with their lives in general and what they can and should do to make their lives better for themselves. This question is as difficult as it is interesting, since all people are different and their lives are also different. But, nevertheless, I will try to give a comprehensive answer to it in this article, in order, perhaps, to help some of you, dear readers, look at your life with different eyes and learn to receive great satisfaction from it.
At the same time, I want to say that from my point of view, it is useful for a person to be constantly dissatisfied with something in order to have sufficient motivation to strive for more and better. Another thing is that dissatisfaction should be moderate, not allowing a person to go to various kinds of extremes, when he completely unjustifiably begins to consider his life simply terrible and generally meaningless. Therefore, we will not consider the option of absolute satisfaction with our life, but we will approach this issue from the most practical side.
Reason for dissatisfaction with life
To solve a problem, you need to find its cause - we all know this well. In our case, in order to understand what makes people dissatisfied with their lives, it is necessary, from my point of view, to properly understand their worldview in order to find out what the life of these people should be like, from their point of view. So I had to communicate on this topic with different people - with the rich and not so rich, with the poor and very poor, with the healthy and the sick, with people who have achieved something in this life and with those who have achieved practically nothing in it. And guess what? “They were all unhappy about something.” Some to a greater extent, some to a lesser extent, but a certain degree of dissatisfaction took place in all cases. These were completely different people who had different problems, different dreams, desires, goals, some unsatisfied needs that they tried with all their might to satisfy. But they had one thing in common - they were all dissatisfied with their lives, and because of this, they were unhappy to one degree or another. The only difference between some of them was that some people realized their dissatisfaction with life, accepted it and came to terms with it, while others constantly tried to find their happiness, somewhere out there, in another place, in other things, with other people.
So, talking with different people, I tried to understand why they are not fully satisfied with their lives, why they do not feel truly happy. And, of course, they all had their own reasons for being dissatisfied and dissatisfied with something. Some people didn’t have enough money to be happy, others loving person close to someone, respect and recognition from other people, and so on. When I talked to poor people, they mostly talked about money, which, in their opinion, would make them very happy people, if there was a lot of this money, or at least in sufficient quantities. Then I went to those people who had a lot of money and tried to find happiness from them. Still, these people had a lot of money, which means they should have been happy, or at least completely satisfied with their lives. But no, that didn't happen. It turned out that rich people also had certain problems that prevented them from feeling happy. They might not have a good relationship with their wife or husband, they might be bored, their children might not be what they would like them to be, and so on. In other words, I did not find happiness among rich people. Then I went to those people who did not have all the problems that prevented rich people from being completely satisfied with their lives, and looked for happiness there. But even if I found people who had virtually no serious problems in life, I still did not find happiness in their lives, because these people had unfulfilled dreams and desires that did not allow them to feel happy. Thus, happiness was always somewhere nearby, but it constantly eluded people and me. It, like the horizon, was inaccessible to them. And if a person is not happy, then he is not satisfied. He is not satisfied with his life and often with himself. So we can safely say that one of the reasons, and perhaps the main reason for dissatisfaction with life, is the lack of happiness in this very life. Or is it a person’s inability to feel happy. This still needs to be sorted out.
So, when I could not find absolutely happy people who would be completely satisfied with their lives, I decided to pay attention to myself. How are things going with me? Am I satisfied with my life, am I happy with everything in it, am I happy? After some reflection, I realized that, to a certain extent, I was also not satisfied with my life, that I also could not say that I was happy, despite the fact that much in my life suited and suits me. And then I decided to look for the answer to my question not in the external, but in myself. inner world, - I decided to look inside myself to understand why dissatisfaction with life exists at all.
I want to say right away that feeling unhappy and dissatisfied with your life are slightly different things. People feel unhappy mainly when they lose something, and dissatisfied in those cases when they cannot get something, achieve something, or succeed in something. In other words, not being happy and being unhappy are not the same thing. Therefore, you and I will talk about what we don’t have, and not about what we, each of them, have lost.
What don't we have?
And what, in fact, do we not have, what do we lack for complete happiness? Why are we not satisfied with our lives even when we have a lot and have lost nothing? I think I know the answer to this question. Still, in search of happiness and satisfaction, I delved into myself for quite a long time and found a lot. You see, friends, we live in a world in which there are a lot of interesting things that perhaps we don’t really need, that we don’t really need, but that we would like to have. And this desire to constantly reach for something - it creates a certain discomfort in the human soul. Remember, I wrote at the very beginning that a person must feel a certain dissatisfaction in order to simply be alive, in order to want something, strive for something, move for something, in general, in order to be active? That's the whole point. Without dissatisfaction, desire will not arise, and without desire there will be no action, and without action a person is not a person.
The trick is that we don’t really know what we want. We don't even know what happiness is. We always want what we currently need or what we simply don’t have. In the first case, everything is clear - we have certain needs and we strive to satisfy them. I mean natural needs. And the rest, what we don’t have, but what we want to have, is the same carrot that should dangle in front of our noses all our lives. This carrot keeps us active. It is not only an irritant, but also a reward for us. After all, we see our happiness mainly in what gives us pleasure, which, without suffering, over time ceases to be pleasure and turns into the norm, into routine, into a neutral sensation. And when there are fewer bright sensations in our life, then no matter how cool it is for us, for you, you will not be fully satisfied with it. You may not know people who enjoy problems, difficulties in life that make their life interesting, but I do. These people, unlike most other people, lack problems, lack thrills, lack the contrast between good and bad, thanks to which life is perceived more fully. The point is to see the difference between what is and what could be. This difference worries us. It should concern us so that we realize our potential while striving for something else. It is not necessarily that it is different that will be better or greater good for us, the main thing is that it is different. It is important for us that our lives become better or at least simply change, so that we see the best in the familiar.
So it’s not that we lack something, that’s why we are not satisfied with life and feel unhappy. Or vice versa - we feel unhappy because we are not satisfied with life - this is not so important. The point is that this is how it should be. This idea, in principle simple, is not so deep, but very important. Just imagine that in your life you have everything you need, you are happy with everything and you don’t want anything else. What will you do with such a life? Just don't tell me to enjoy it. You won't be able to enjoy it if you don't have an appetite for something conventionally bigger and better, or a fear of losing what you have. It's like with food - if there is a lot of it and it is very tasty, then you will quickly get bored with it. You will either need to overeat in order to get more pleasure from food, or starve a little so that you have a passionate appetite again. Therefore, do not expect that having achieved everything you want to achieve and received everything you want to receive, you will feel complete satisfaction from your life. However, you will still experience a feeling of happiness when you achieve what you dream of, but not for long. For nature, or better to say, life, although it rewards a person for his efforts, it does not allow him to rest on his laurels, but pushes him forward all the time.
The problem of dissatisfaction with life
Based on the above, we can conclude that the problem of dissatisfaction with life is largely a fictitious problem. If we are not talking about the banal survival of a person and the realization of his natural destiny, to which our instincts push us, then everything else, because of which we feel dissatisfaction with life, has more to do with our imagination, and not with real life. In other words, this problem is often not real, and therefore not serious. But at the same time, it makes sense. It helps us understand why we need to live. We just need to correctly understand the feeling of internal discomfort that we experience when we are not satisfied with something. How to do this, how to understand this feeling? It’s all very simple - nature rewards us with pleasure for acting in accordance with its goals and punishes us with pain and suffering for straying from the path we need from its point of view. Therefore, if you listen to yourself, your body, your mind, your inner voice, your intuition, then you will understand what you really need and what you should strive for in order to live in harmony with nature and feel happy. But at the same time, you must understand that you should always strive for something. The problem of dissatisfaction with life will be relevant for those of us who stop and stop doing something. Then such a person will inevitably begin to think about the results that he has achieved and which he has not achieved. And something will definitely begin to dissatisfy him.
Also here you need to take into account one more very important point– life does not stand still, it is constantly changing, and we must change with it. Our achievements of yesterday may be completely devalued tomorrow, both in our own eyes and in general. There must be progress in our lives, and preferably mainly qualitative, not quantitative. You cannot stagnate in one place all the time and be satisfied with what you have, with the exception of the most important things for the life of each individual person, his basic values, which we will talk about below. You need to try to somehow modernize your life so that something new appears in it. You cannot always enjoy the same achievements, the same life, the same things. And even our habits, which help us stay in our comfort zone, do not save us from the disappointment that we experience when nothing qualitatively changes in our lives. You see that a person, having received something, after some time ceases to appreciate it and ceases to enjoy it. Even in those cases when he has everything, he is bored and not interested in living the same life. He will inevitably feel dissatisfied if some zest does not appear in his life, if some spark does not arise that brings the desired variety to everyday life. So no pleasure can last forever. No life, no matter how high quality it is, can satisfy us completely for a long time. The carrot in front of our nose, as I said above, will always dangle. And at the same time, there will always be something [dissatisfaction, dissatisfaction, discomfort, pain, difficulty] tingling at the back of us if we stop. You see how interesting everything is in our lives. On the one hand, we have pleasure, which cannot be eternal, but to which we are instinctively drawn, and on the other, dissatisfaction, discomfort, pain, because of which we cannot stop.
I noticed in myself that as soon as something begins to dissatisfy me, the best thing I can do to get rid of this feeling is to start doing something. You can at least just start planning, dreaming, setting goals for the future to keep your mind busy with work. Work heals the soul. So sometimes you need to think less and do more to feel good.
However, taking into account the above, you may ask a completely fair question - how can you understand the pleasure that a person receives from things that bring him harm - from alcohol, tobacco, drugs? It’s hard to call them a reward from nature, life, for a person’s desire for more and better, because these things kill him? A logical question, you will agree. I have a theory about this, which I have already found confirmation in several sources. I believe that for those people who decide to spit on themselves and their lives, nature provides a deadly pleasure, receiving which they accelerate their own, so to speak, disposal. It should be pleasant for a person to do everything - even destroy himself. Then it will act very effectively. Therefore, when you see people who feel happy and satisfied thanks to something harmful to their health, do not rush to think that everything is fine with them, much less envy them. Nature has its own plans for these people, and they are by no means the best. You need to learn to enjoy more worthy things that contribute to the development of a person and improve his life, and do not lead to degradation and death. We all must develop, improve, achieve more, this is what nature, life, and the Universe want from us. Therefore, every time a person stops there, even if he did everything correctly, if he strived for what he really needs according to nature’s plan, he begins to feel discomfort, which increases more and more if he continues to stand still or begins to move in the wrong direction. Therefore, dissatisfaction with life haunts those who, firstly, do not do what they should do, and secondly, stop doing what they should do. At the same time, if a person decides to give up on himself and his life, if he does not consider himself worthy of better and more and therefore does not want to strive for anything, a new road to pleasure will open before him, which leads to the end of his story. This is my opinion on this matter.
So we are very interesting creatures, as you can see. We all want something, and it turns us on, it forces us to move, it forces us to try to do something to get what we want. But there is also something we don’t want, sometimes without understanding why exactly we don’t want it. And what we don’t want also pushes us forward and upward, and sometimes much stronger than the desire to get something and come to something. It happens that a person convinces himself that he does not want to work at the job in which he works, or live with the person with whom he lives, or be who he is. This gives rise to a desire in him to change his life and himself. Our reluctance is also desire, only in a different form. And until we see reality as we want to see it, we cannot be fully satisfied with our lives. The only question is how we can see the reality that we want to see. Should we see it in what we have or in what we don't have? After all, both sides of life are real. One indicates our achievements, and the other indicates our desires. The first should please us, and the second, at least, inspire us. Therefore, the difference between what we see and what we want to see is actually not big, and sometimes there is none at all. Because seeing our life as happy makes us happy, no matter what others think about it. And if we are not satisfied with something and suffer because of it, then isn’t it our own choice, isn’t it we ourselves who make ourselves unhappy, preferring to suffer? After all, you and I can rejoice in what we have, or we can be dissatisfied with it and even hate it. Because we don’t have enough or because we wanted something else. Why is it not enough for us to have what we have, why can’t we be satisfied with it? Or why do we always want what we don't have? I think it would be better if everyone answered these questions for themselves. In the meantime, we can make the assumption that the problem of dissatisfaction with life is subjective. She may or may not exist. Everything depends on us.
If you believe that your life is bad and uninteresting, then it will become that way for you - bad and uninteresting, even if there is a lot going on in it that other people consider very good and interesting. And if you love what you have, then for a while you will feel very happy man. So our thoughts can influence our internal state as much as real changes in life. This is another very important approach to the issue of dissatisfaction with life. Let's look at it in more detail.
Happiness is within us
So, above we found out that the feeling of dissatisfaction, dissatisfaction, discomfort are all incentives that push us to change, to improve our lives, which encourage us to strive for more and better. However, there are such things in the life of every person, such, better said, values that do not need to be changed, or at least undesirable, but you need to get pleasure from them in order to be satisfied with your life and feel happy. For example, family, children, a favorite activity, other people dear to a person, places, things, values, which are a kind of life support for him, which determine the meaning of his life - all this can be loved throughout his life. You need to be able to appreciate and take care of all this. And for this you need to receive great pleasure and complete satisfaction from everything that is dear and important to you. And this can be achieved precisely with the help of the right thoughts and beliefs. Let's now think about what these thoughts and beliefs should be in order to help a person, if not forever, then at least long enough to appreciate and love what is important and dear to him so that he is completely satisfied with his life, despite no matter what.
I believe that the most important thing that we need to understand is that there is nothing best or worst in this life - everything has its own value, its own advantages, its own merits. In other words, everything is relative. Yes, on the one hand, we need to strive for the best, otherwise we would still live in caves, but on the other hand, there must be some kind of constancy in our lives, some kind of stability, some kind of predictability, so that we had peace in our souls. I know that there are people who don’t need this - they are ready for absolutely any changes, and what’s more, they strive for them with all their might. But I know even more of those who always want to have something that will remain unchanged, that they do not want to change under any circumstances. And such people are the majority. We need values that will be ours only, always and everywhere, that will be a reliable support for us at all times. So we need both changes in life and stability. And these things can be combined. Innovative thinking does not contradict conservative thinking, it's all about proportions. A lot needs to be changed, improved, perfected, but there must also be something constant in our lives, some core that we will consider our personal value. Therefore, do not compare what is dear, important and valuable to you with anything else. Let’s say you have a loved one who loves you, appreciates you, respects you, understands you - you don’t need to demand more from him, you don’t need to compare him with anyone, you don’t need to change him in any way. Tell yourself - this is my value, and nothing else and no one else interests me. There is nothing better in this world than your value, your happiness, and there cannot be! Accept this thought to realize your happiness. Happiness is within us, because it depends on our perception of ourselves and our life, and not on life and not on those who surround us in it. Otherwise, you will never find your happiness, because you will always doubt that you have found it.
So I am absolutely convinced that our happiness lies within us. In any case, I found it there - inside myself. And it lies in our acceptance, first of all, of ourselves as we are, as well as in our acceptance of those goals, values, people, achievements that we currently have in our lives. This does not mean that it is enough to simply convince yourself that everything is fine with you and that you do not need to change anything in yourself and in your life. And you don’t need to strive for anything or want anything. This suggests that it is very important to appreciate what you have and work with it, develop and improve it, and not ask life for everything else, relying on the injustice of your fate. This is what we have been given - this is what we need to go through life with in order to be satisfied with it. We need to have a foundation in the form of values that are important and unchangeable for each of us, from which we will grow. For on the path of life, each of us throughout our lives will face a variety of problems, obstacles and difficulties, in order to solve and overcome which it is extremely important to always remember for whom and for what you are doing this. Appreciate yours only because it is yours. Don't think that there is something somewhere better than that, what is very valuable and important for you, what you have thanks to fate. Don't question your core values unnecessarily, otherwise you will lose peace, lose inner strength, lose faith in yourself. Because how can you believe in someone who doesn’t know his own worth?
You know, some people constantly look for their happiness on the side, believing that better conditions, with the best people, in best time– they will be able to feel truly happy. This is partly true, let’s not deceive ourselves. External conditions determine a lot in our lives. But think about why you don’t now have what you think should make you a happier person? Isn’t it because you have to come to this, having the base that you currently have, isn’t it because better life you need not to search, but to create, and not sometime there, but here and now? Start by appreciating very highly everything that you already have - evaluate yourself, your life, your capabilities, the people who surround you, the life you have. Form, group and polish your value system - it will help you achieve everything you want. It will give you strength in difficult times and allow you to resist temptations that could destroy you.
This is how, dear readers, I found my happiness within myself. And I felt great satisfaction from this. I am still as ambitious as before, I have a lot of plans for life, a lot of goals - operational, tactical and strategic, there are grandiose dreams that I strive to make reality, in other words, I don’t stand still, I strive forward and up, I strive for the best. But at the same time, I really appreciate, love and cherish everything that I have, which is important and dear to me. This is my support, my foundation, which gives me strength and determines the meaning of my life. And when I help people cope with their dissatisfaction with life, I do two things - first I help them realize and very highly appreciate everything that they already have, that belongs to them and is part of their personality, their life, then I help them form their basic values and thus find their happiness within themselves, or you can also say - create it based on these values, and then we just look at what and how they can improve in their life to make it even more interesting, beautiful and happy . As you can see, conservatism goes very well with innovation. You can strive for more and better and at the same time appreciate, love and take care of the most precious thing a person has.
And, believe me, friends, there are no deadlocks. Every person is rich in something, everyone has something valuable and very important to him, and everyone can achieve more and better with the help of everything that he already has. To do this, you just need to decide on the first, most important step and not be afraid to take it. And having done it, go to the end. And then dissatisfaction with life will turn from a problem for a person into an excellent opportunity to make his life even happier and more interesting.
I don’t know about you, but I periodically experience dissatisfaction with my life. So I wanted to write about this. Maybe the autumn blues act this way, maybe it’s just the season.
And everything seems to be fine. I have a wonderful family. My beloved girl who takes care of me. Work is also in full swing. But something is missing. I periodically have thoughts that I am already 24 years old. Yes, I agree that this is not age at all, and everything is just beginning. But, nevertheless, there are many examples of people who, having even reached this age level, have achieved a lot.
There are almost six billion people in the world. And we cannot help but interact with them. Not with everyone, of course:) But we communicate with friends, follow news from friends. Through the Internet we learn about completely unfamiliar, distant, but such interesting events that are performed by equally unfamiliar and distant people. Actors, politicians, singers, athletes, writers and others, others. Well, no matter how you begin to involuntarily compare yourself with them. They are young and successful. And I didn’t even invent anything, didn’t travel around the world, didn’t earn a million, didn’t write a book. Yes, actually, I didn’t do anything particularly outstanding. So their inferiority complexes wake up. In an age when everything happens quickly, when the age of significant achievement is decreasing, when there is a lot of propaganda about what you should do, I can’t keep up with all this. It seems to me that if I don’t achieve anything in the next couple of years, then I’m definitely not capable of anything.
I do advertising campaigns on the Internet, I am interested in the IT market and almost everything connected with it. And in this area, I constantly come across information about some students who invented a super-duper application for Android and earned a lot of money at minimal cost. Or about other school students who came up with great idea for a startup, and everyone is using it now. Yes, actually, a lot of things like that. You can also give such examples from the type of activity you are engaged in.
That’s how you learn about something like this and think: “What great guys! And I'm a loser." No, it's not envy. Don't think so. I am sincerely happy when people achieve something, when they are successful in their business. It's nice to look at such people. After all, in addition to their own realization, they helped others. There is certainly something to learn here and something to look up to. So I also want to invent something.
But isn’t a lot of effort and energy spent on such comparisons? I read somewhere that comparing yourself to others is even psychological problem. People, looking at the profiles of others on social networks, sit and develop complexes and become depressed. Because compared to others they feel inferior. And psychologists advise removing yourself from social networks and living a normal life. This is what it comes down to.
However, I believe that it is not an option to blame everything on the Internet with its accessible information and the same social media. After all, even though such interaction with the whole world helps strengthen someone’s sense of inferiority, that’s not the point. We ourselves, and not anyone else, are responsible for our perception of the world. There is always a choice: chat with friends or look at other people's pages.
In addition, you should not be deceived about the well-being of others. Think about it, are you always honest when you give this or that information about yourself to the court? large quantity people. As a rule, we do not tell the public everything until the end. So do others. But even if it’s true that for others everything is chocolate, this is not a reason for us to be upset. Everyone has their own life, their own path, etc. Everyone is different, that's the point.
I firmly believe that it is worth doing what you love and what you believe in. Success in this case will be ensured. At a minimum, the success of self-realization. And this is already a lot. Think about successful people in your field of interest. I’m willing to bet that they certainly weren’t worried about their popularity and the fact that “others are better than them.” These people just did their job, and the rest came later.
You also don’t have to worry about not being able to do something. It seems like it’s time, but it doesn’t work out for you. This is nonsense. For everyone, this “time” is determined very, very individually.
Here is an example of the words of the famous and popular writer Louise Hay in the West:“Until the age of 45, my life did not have much meaning and brought me only suffering and grief.
At 45, I learned about Positive Thinking and began writing books.
At 50, I founded my own publishing house, Hey House,
at 55 I learned computers.
At 60, I began to study painting, sitting at my desk with my children.
I began to paint paintings and sell them.
At 65, I decided to fulfill my childhood dream and enrolled in a dance studio.
I finally got the satisfaction of moving to music.
At 70, I started doing yoga seriously. My health has improved significantly, flexibility and lightness have appeared in my body.
Now I’m 76, I’m cheerful, healthy, very rich, I look confidently into the future and know that life will bring me many more surprises.”
I find it very inspiring. There is a place in the sun for everyone. Everyone has their own time for success. Just don't obsess over it.
I allowed myself to highlight a few things that will help me start enjoying life, and, hopefully, change it for the better (well, I can’t help it, I love lists, “tens” and points :)) Yes, maybe they will appear banal. But, nevertheless, they can bring joy and excitement.
You can feel more satisfied with your life if:
- make small changes in a positive direction. For something global, as a rule, there is not enough motivation. For example, before, when I decided to get up every day at five in the morning and start the day with a run in the park, I couldn’t stand it more than two or three times in a row. We must start gradually. Let it be with the little things. But it will work out. It's worth introducing small healthy habits into your life. Get up half an hour earlier than usual, move dinner an hour earlier, eat a little less, walk a little more, work a little longer. It won't take long. Moreover, not “right off the bat,” but gradually. Just switch on, and the new habit will gradually take root deeper and deeper and will pull others along with it. What you have been striving for for a long time and unsuccessfully will gradually and thoroughly enter your life.
- get rid of negative thoughts. No, really, it’s time to get rid of it. At least about positive thinking and thousands of books have been written, it is never a bad idea to remind about this. This is already a common truth: for something to happen outside, it must first happen inside. Thus, we begin to think that everything is fine, that everything will work out, everything will happen! A negative thoughts Regarding our future, we cut it off completely. We mentally construct the events that we want to happen in life in a positive way. And we wait for them to happen :) True, it works. And may all your plans come true!
- look for beauty in everything. There are two sides to all events. And sometimes not everything is as simple as it seems at first glance. Perhaps, if you take a closer look at the unpleasant situation, you will see a completely different meaning in it. Internet down? Cool, I’ll go for a walk, meet my friends, get some fresh air! Fired from your job? Super! I still didn’t really like it, but now I have an incentive to find something really worthwhile with great opportunities for growth and implementation. Little sister crying for half a day because her brother took her doll? A good opportunity to talk to your child and explain how to share well :) In everything, if you look closely, there are pleasant moments. The main thing is to look closely.
No, this is not promotion of sports and healthy image life. Physical activity really have an effect on the body in the best possible way. Many people exercise to lose weight and look good. But this is not all that physical education gives. And she gives good mood, and a boost of energy, and a charge of vigor for the whole day, and relaxation. You can run with friends, it's fun. In addition, sweat releases toxins that pollute the body. And the state of the body is directly related to mood. You can even trace it using food as an example. The emotions you experience depend on what you eat. So let's sweat as much as possible and enjoy life!- follow your “passions”. Sometimes we are too afraid, embarrassed or don't find time to do what we want. For example, my passion is writing. I love it. Yes, it turns out, perhaps not the way we would like. But I do it, and I like it! I write posts on the Horde and get great pleasure. Do what you love. Even if it doesn’t bring in money and is classified as a hobby. Whatever your passion is, do it with maximum energy. You will receive great satisfaction, I guarantee it. If you don't know what your passion is, then try it. Search among what you have not yet experienced. Yes, it will take effort. But they are worth it, you will understand when you find your business.
- communicate with people who enjoy their work. People are different, and they give different advice. Not everyone is worth listening to. If you were told that you are a failure, then you definitely shouldn’t be upset. Who knows why the person said that? Maybe he’s in a bad mood, maybe he’s jealous, maybe he’s incompetent. There are a lot of cynical people around, exhausted by life and negative towards everything. If possible, keep communication with them to a minimum. Connect with those who inspire you. There are many people who love their work. Charge yourself with this energy, this excitement. Discuss your work with them. It's much nicer than looking at sour faces.
- time to rest. Vacation is not only pleasant, but also useful. When you feel empty and blue, be sure to rest. It's good to change your usual environment. It’s not necessary, of course, to go to a fashionable resort (although if possible, that’s cool). Go out of town, relax in nature. It is in nature that the surge of strength is much greater. Think about how wonderful life is, relax, do nothing. When you return, you will feel completely different, much better. And then, you see, new ideas will come with a fresh look.
- help others. Personally, when I do a “good deed,” my mood lifts. Don't be deaf to the requests of others. If you can help, don't miss this opportunity. Kind, human relationships make our lives better. Not everything in this world is worth doing for rewards. There are things that are sometimes better than money. Let me quote a phrase from one of my favorite films: “The best things in this world come for free.”
All in all, appreciate life. You have only one, and there will be no more like you. Do what you love. Don't waste time comparing yourself to others. You won't get anything good from this. And remember that you are the most unique creature in the world! There is not a single person like you. And no one else will ever be able to do what you can do. Love yourself and those around you.
What lifts your spirits?
Are you familiar with this situation: everything seems to be fine in life, but something is still gnawing at you from the inside?
And when you're alone, are you constantly plagued by boredom?
And even when the day ends successfully, you are no longer able to rejoice at it?
Life gives me no peace.
In this article, I decided to examine the topic of loneliness, and why, when left alone with oneself, a person experiences an irresistible feeling of boredom. This issue often comes up in one form or another in the media, but the reader remains dissatisfied because the problem is treated superficially and there are no real calls to action. We will look into this deeper and see what is the reason for this state of fatigue and boredom.
A state of dissatisfaction, boredom and emptiness of life
Let's take and describe one day in the life of an average person. He gets up, goes to work, works, has lunch, works further, goes home, has dinner, goes to bed. Moreover, all this because of the constant noise and tension, as a rule, he does not even have time to think and take care of himself. And in those useful moments when he is left alone, he either wants to return to the noise again, or is so tired that he wants to sleep. Thus, concentration is lost, and the internal state can be described as depressed, although he tries to create the appearance that this is not at all the case.
So, the most basic reason for such a depressed state is emptiness of life. There are a lot of things that can help you fill your life with meaning. But first of all, you need to stop and think, no matter how painful it may be. Is my life worth the useless work I am doing? What do I really want? In order to achieve my goal, shouldn’t I radically change my life? And indeed it is correct asked question he can change his whole life.
Psychologists have long found out that the root cause of all neuroses and depression is suppression of a person’s own, real desires and needs . Thus, if a person at a conscious age very much wanted to become a musician or artist, but under the pressure of public opinion he begins to do something completely different, something that he never wanted, there is a high probability that in the future he will be a depressive neurotic, however, it is possible hiding it. So at such a fast pace we came to an understanding of what was needed. The answer to the question is: you need to force yourself engage in activities that we truly enjoy and strive for your own, no matter what!
But how can I do this when society does not approve of my desire and even despises it for it? You just shouldn't pay attention to it. The best minds of humanity will tell you that this is only a temporary phenomenon. And once you get involved in your favorite business, everything will begin to work out for you and public opinion itself will cease to play any role. This is irrefutable.
Your development as a person is also of great importance. No, relax, it’s not how well you know how to make money and pick up girls (guys). It's about about your spiritual development . While in society almost no attention is paid to this, in fact, in order to do your business, it is simply necessary.
Stop surfing the Internet and doing other useless things, you have already found a way out. Start reading books. Any book is of great benefit, not only expanding your vocabulary (and this is absolutely ridiculously considered the most important), but also increasing mental abilities in all directions. Develops memory, critical thinking, logic and imagination. And, most importantly, all this will help you move much more confidently towards your goal, being endowed with the knowledge and experience that flows from it.
This will really change your life in the most favorable way and allow you to live the way you want!
And, after, every time, looking back at your past life, you will laugh and cry at how empty and insignificant it was.
Now you will never be bored and wonder what to do.
Because you are already doing what you want!
Not all of us are blessed with the ability to extract at least a piece of ham from any disgusting situation. This is the lot of sages and incorrigible optimists. As the unforgettable Kozma Prutkov once wrote, for some “and bitter horseradish is raspberry,” and for others “and blancmange is wormwood.” Fortunately, there are few such people who are dissatisfied with everything and everyone, but they produce so much negativity that it doesn’t seem like enough.
No matter what others say or do, people with chronic dissatisfaction syndrome do not like everything.
If a person, as the popular song says, “is always missing something,” it means that he simply does not know what he really wants, psychologists say. The lack of clear and specific goals deprives such grumpy characters of the opportunity to enjoy even the gifts of fate.
The lot of idealists and perfectionists
Sometimes the cause of chronic dissatisfaction is low self-esteem: a person is dissatisfied with himself and transfers this feeling to others.
The roots of this should be sought in childhood: if parents are too demanding, praise their child little and scold too often, comparing with other “good” children, the person develops an inferiority complex and chronic failure syndrome. Pessimism and misanthropy are, as a rule, the “merit” of strict and categorical parents.
The syndrome of chronic dissatisfaction manifests itself most actively in idealists and perfectionists. In their claims, fantasies and dreams, such people are too far from reality. Hence disappointment and total dissatisfaction with life.
Reduce the level of complaints
In order not to turn into an eternally grumbling and periodically depressed person with mental disorders, you need to more clearly formulate your life goals and set priorities: what is really important to you now, and what you can ignore. Psychologists also recommend lowering the level of demands on yourself and others: according to the principle from everyone - not to the maximum, but according to their capabilities.
Excessively inflated claims do not improve the quality of life, but they seriously spoil your mood and character.
If you cannot make such a correction of your attitude towards life on your own, you should consult a psychologist. An experienced specialist helps a person understand what is causing his dissatisfaction and gives him practical recommendations how to deal with the problem. Psychological methods of influence in in this case are to teach a person a positive style of thinking and perception of life.
This is how modern psychologists see the solution to the problem of dissatisfaction with life.
Vladimir Levi:
- If the task of changing life cannot be solved, then all that remains is to solve the problem of accepting it. And the task of change should always begin with the task of acceptance, otherwise the kitten will be screwed... And acceptance is the clearest possible awareness. Right?.. Twice two is four, I don’t agree with this, but still, twice two is four.
Boris Tsirulnik:
- Our planet is sick. And perhaps the time has finally come to listen to those who teach us to live in harmony with ourselves. Hope must never die. You have to believe in it so as not to become a ghost.
How to learn meekness and humility
But, according to Orthodox preachers, constant dissatisfaction with life is fueled by selfishness, a high opinion of oneself, and pride. Such a spiritually unhealthy person considers himself the measure of everything. He is convinced that he is always right and does everything right. And if other people do not act “as they should act,” he naturally begins to get angry, indignant, upset and indignant.
Faith will help save you from pride and the associated delusions and mental suffering. After all, as the famous Orthodox writer Artemy Slezkine writes: “A believer measures the world around him not by himself, but by God, who commanded to love everyone, even enemies, to forgive any insults, not to hold a grudge against anyone, but to seek peace, tranquility and joy everywhere.”
Feeling of chronic dissatisfaction
The feeling of dissatisfaction with yourself, life and what you do is familiar to every person. Sometimes the thought creeps in that not to experience these feelings means to be a smug fool, an impenetrable stupidity. How can you even be satisfied with what you do? It’s not for nothing that the brilliant Salvador Dali wrote a sharp aphorism: “Don’t be afraid to strive for perfection, you won’t achieve it anyway.” However, the question naturally arises here: if it is impossible to achieve perfection, then isn’t the desire for it some kind of neurotic quirk? Indeed, if something cannot be because it can never be, isn’t it stupid to try to get it? The desire to find the philosopher's stone is, of course, commendable, but isn't it crazy to spend your life on it?
Yes, our parents gave us a truly sphinx-like task. They first made us feel inadequate, and then Tom was lured by a certain ideal, which, as it seemed to them, we should be. We dreamed that if we fell into this ideal, into this Procrustean bed invented for us, we would be loved. The latter meant for us, as we now know, not just a feeling of security; to feel loved meant for us to be first. After all, we always shared our parents' love with someone - with our parents' parents, with our brothers and sisters, with their activities to which they devoted their time, and finally, with strangers whom our parents admired.
Love is an egoistic feeling. If you are loved, you want to be loved, first of all,entirely, that is, for everything you do and what you representeat, and secondly,only you. Of course, our parents could not give us such fullness of love, and we, in our early years could not understand that one cannot be so ideal as to close them entirely on oneself, so that If only there were us and them, our parents, those who are especially and infinitely dear to us.
We did not find in our parents the fullness of love that we expected. The fact that this was impossible in principle was not clear to us, because the child cannot see beyond his own nose. All that matters to him is what happens to him; it seems to him that this, in fact, is what the world around him is limited to. It is quite natural that, having become disillusioned with the love of our parents, we began to compete not only with other people for the love of our parents, but also with the parents themselves. Here, however, we again found ourselves in an obviously losing position.
We felt our parents as an authority of power and authority, because, ultimately, absolutely everything in our lives depended on them. How can you fight and compete with someone on whom you are completely dependent, with someone who has complete power over you? Of course, we doomed ourselves to defeat, which, however, we could not accept - this is the source of our chronic dissatisfaction.
We continued to struggle, and our parents, sensing our resistance, became annoyed and angry. Why on earth would they agree that we are the winners and they are the losers, that we are stronger and smarter, and they are weaker and stupider? They simply physically could not do this and did not do it, especially since they themselves, in turn, were not free from their hierarchical instinct.
When this idea, associated with the struggle for leadership within a single “cell of society,” failed for us, the hierarchical instinct sitting in us made a kind of knight’s move. Having comprehended the results of our attempt to get into the Procrustean bed of the ideal, realizing that it was impossible to defeat our parents (they will always be “right” anyway), we had to resort to intrapsychic tricks. We “placed” the sought-after ideal within ourselves and it was with it that we began our competitive struggle. Trying to achieve conformity to the image that we wanted to be us, and not the dream of us, is what we did.
This is how a kind of go line appeared in ushorizon, beyond which, as it began to seem to us,our happiness is hidden from us. If the subconscious could speak (which it is not capable of due to its biological, not sociocultural nature), then it would say: “To be happy, you need very little - you must be ten centimeters taller, ten centimeters slimmer, you your eyes and hair should be a different color, you should be a little smarter, a little smarter, a little more self-possessed, a little more self-confident and decisive, more knowledgeable and more well-read, more...” However, depending Depending on the situation, it would begin to say one thing or another, and therefore in a significant number of cases it would begin to contradict itself.
In general, we not only began to live by our ideal, we also confused all the cards for ourselves. Thus, our personal ideal turned out to be a thing not only unattainable in principle, but also vague, lost in the haze of life’s circumstances. But all this by no means saved us from the hierarchical instinct; on the contrary, it sharpened and strengthened it. Now all that remains is to multiply one by the other, and we will get chronic dissatisfaction, dissatisfaction with ourselves and everything that we do and what we achieve.
Just for fun, ask yourself what you would have to do and achieve in order to feel completely satisfied and happy with your life. Now imagine that you did it - achieved what you wanted... Imagine well, spend your next day as if you had really achieved these goals. And immediately, or in a day, or, in the most extreme case, after a week or two, you will feel that there is no trace of satisfaction with yourself and your life. Again it seems to you that something is wrong, that something is unfinished somewhere, that you are not treated quite the way you would like, and that you yourself are not the person you would like to be.
The feeling of dissatisfaction, of course, is associated with our childhood dreams and daydreams, with the ideal that we came up with for ourselves and which we tried to live up to. But the problem is bigger and broader, it also lies in habit to feel dissatisfied, and this habit was formed in us many years ago, in those years when we were children and really wanted our parents to love us truly and, most importantly, only us.
How can this be? How to get rid of the pathological habit of always feeling dissatisfied; from a painful desire to be better than we really are; seem and not be, achieve and not do? It's both simple and complex.
Firstly, we need to understand that we have rushed in pursuit of a fictitious ideal, which does not exist and, most importantly, cannot exist in reality.
Secondly, we must admit to ourselves that even if we achieve our ideal, we will not be loved more than we are loved now, and besides this, we really don’t want anything.
And finally, thirdly, we need to realize that when we strive for our ideal, we personally sign that the way we are, in our opinion, will not be loved, and this is madness; and if they still love us, when we achieve a certain ideal, then they will love not us ourselves, but our “export version”.
Simply put, we have one and only problem - the fear that we will not be lovedbeat if we do not correspond to some ideal, if we are not “first” and “rayshimi." AND as it always happens with fear, it retreats only at the moment when we stop running from it and agree to what we are trying to avoid in this way. In other words, we need to decide and allow ourselves not to
to be ideal, not to be “first” and “best”. We need to allow ourselves to be ourselves.
It seems that such a resolution is pure absurdity. How can you allow yourself what already exists, because we are us, and we are who we are. What is allowed here?! But let's not rush to conclusions. Any neurotic construct (and the feeling of dissatisfaction with oneself is precisely a neurotic construct) is illogical, therefore the resolution of a neurotic conflict cannot be built on Aristotelian logic, it can only be such “nonsense.”
In this case, this “nonsense”, capable of disablingto attack neurosis looks like this: refusedon't be afraid to be "first" and "best"decide to be who you really are. Aboutone hundred get out of the game, remove the demands that you place on yourself, and enjoy the consciousnessknowledge of who you are, what you do, what you know interesting and truly necessary. Learn to love yourself the way you would like your parents to love you, and then the ever-hungry hierarchical instinct that has been drinking your blood will recede, and you will receive the ability to feel like a happy person.
Normally, a father's feelings for his daughter are guided by respect for her youth and innocence. If he is sexually happy with his wife, his attachment to his daughter is free from unconscious sexual guilt. But in a sexually unhappy family, the girl unwittingly becomes an object onto which the father projects his unfulfilled sexual attraction, and the mother - sexual guilt. The mother begins to see her daughter as a prostitute, and the father as a princess.
Alexander Lowen
Any neurosis can be understood as a culturally misguided attempt to get rid of feelings of inferiority in order to gain a sense of superiority.
Alfred Adler
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