How Does Your Approach to The Unknown Matter?
Your choice of approach always impacts your outcome.
In part because I blanked and forgot to take my meds for the first time in ages yesterday; partially because the weather is grey and it’s cold; in part because of a contentious email chain; partially due to anxiety over the surreal insanity of this election year, I am feeling lost, frustrated, and depressed.
The reason is simple. The unknown. Everything above represents an unknown. Forgetting my meds is impacting me physically, the grey cold feels oppressive on my psyche, the email chain has me angry and discontent, and the election bullshit has me feeling pissed off, scared, and deeply disappointed in a whole swath of the American people.
Yet the outcome of all the above is utterly unknown.
Because this is causing me to feel negative, it would be all too easy to let that spiral out of control. Facing all these unknowns, my immediate visceral reactions are negative. Hence, my approach to the rest of my day, let alone beyond that, could also be negative.
For example, I could just say fuck it, none of this matters. It’s all going to hell in a handbasket, there’s not a damned thing I can do about or for the majority of it. Why bother writing for a world on the brink of its own destruction? Nobody will care.
That’s one approach, and in many respects – and given my current state of mind – the easiest one. But there’s another choice.
Recognize, acknowledge, and consciously choose the approach
I can make choices to take a different approach. I took my meds today and when they kick in, I will start feeling better physically. My sunlamp is over there, I could turn it on to relieve that tension. Don’t give that email thread much time or attention. Share my hope and keep believing that we can overcome the threat to this democracy and keep moving forward.
This is going to take more work because it requires me to make more active choices and decisions. If I allow myself to fall victim to my visceral senses, which are almost wholly negative, that’s the approach I’ll take to everything I do today. However, if I choose to seek positivity and take that approach, that will be the approach I take to what I do today.
Either way, the outcome is unknown. Whether I choose a negative or a positive approach, the outcome is not in my control. Why? Because I’d estimate at least 75 to 95 percent of this stuff is wholly, completely, and totally outside my control.
The truth is that outcomes on almost every level are largely unknown. No matter what you plan, what you do, or your intentions, shit happens you didn’t expect, adding to and altering the outcome and expanding how much is unknown.
Hence, if you have any desire at all to make choices and decisions for what your life looks like, choosing your approach to the unknown is a must.
The three primary ways to live this life
Every single human being is here for one primary purpose. To live. I’m increasingly believing that the meaning of life is just that simple. To live.
What does that mean? It means to have experiences, to learn, grow, and choose options for opportunities, potential, and possibilities to realize life.
Once you pass into adulthood and become almost wholly responsible for your life experience, there are three primary ways to live life:
Let life live you
What happens, happens. You might make some occasional, soft choices and decisions. However, for the most part, you just accept this, that, or the other thing and put little to no effort into it.
Curl up in a ball and await death
Life sucks. There’s naught but suffering to be experienced and had. All effort is futile. I might as well give up, and either just wait for the end, pray for an afterlife that may or may not exist, and expect the worst. This can be active or passive (and often is passive-aggressive).
Get behind the wheel and drive life
Make choices and decisions for how you approach life. Actively seek to have experiences, meet people, learn things, do things. Embrace that the wise recognize they know nothing – and that’s exciting – because it means more opportunities to learn, grow, and change.
Note that everyone shifts between these from time to time. Nobody is immune to being hurt physically, mentally, emotionally, and/or spiritually. There are also other ways to live this life between and apart from these three. Yet much observation and various empirical evidence have shown me again and again that these three are the primary, dominant ways people approach life.
Hence how you approach the unknown matters.
Mindfulness of control in your approach to the unknown
We have a very limited amount of control over the world around us. Externally, this amounts to what we wear, to some degree where we are, and how we present ourselves to the world. Otherwise, all the rest of our control is internal.
What that means is that it’s all about conscious awareness. Rather than letting your subconscious mind do the driving via rote, routines, and habits, you’re choosing to apply active conscious awareness. That practice is mindfulness.
Via mindfulness, you can know what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, your intentions, and actions you do or don’t take. From thought, feeling, intention, and action, the choice of an approach to life is yours to be made.
Given how much is unknown, choosing to approach life from a place of positivity or negativity matters. That’s because in making that choice you further opt in to get behind the wheel and drive, rather than let life live you or curl up in a ball and await death.
It really is that simple. However, it takes effort and work to practice mindfulness.
There are lots of times when making choices and decisions feels extra challenging, when the unknown makes them appear pointless, and succumbing to negativity is easy. It can’t be avoided, and it should be felt because of that truth. However, how long you remain there with that sense is up to you. Choosing your approach to the unknown is key to taking charge and being as in control of your life experience as possible.
Final note – your feelings and emotions are valid. Nobody but you can feel them, after all. However, you can assume control of them via mindfulness, and rule them – rather than let them rule you. I know what I prefer. How about you?
Recognizing that you can choose how you approach the unknown isn’t hard
It’s all about working with mindfulness of your thoughts, feelings, and intentions to direct your actions.
When you recognize and acknowledge that you can choose how you approach life, with an attitude of positivity or negativity, you can take control over your experience. Knowing that the unknown just is, and you have only a limited amount of control almost wholly related to mindfulness, your choice of approach to the unknown can impact your life for the better.
This empowers you, and your empowerment can empower others around you.
Taking an approach to positivity and negativity – from the vast cylinder that exists between them – shifts life in a way that opens more dialogue. With a broader dialogue, you can explore and share where you are between the extremes and how that impacts you here and now.
Choosing thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions for yourself employs an approach and attitude of positivity for realizing amazing potential and possibilities for your life.
The better aware you are of yourself in the now, the more you can do to choose and decide how your life experiences will be. When that empowers you, it can spread to those around you to their empowerment.
Thank you for coming along on this journey.
This is the five-hundred and nineteenth (519) entry of my Positivity series. I hope that these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog, and spread the positivity.
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