Is There Anything You Can Do About That?
The answer can change your life in multiple ways.
The world is at your fingertips. Whatever device you’re using to read these words gives you access to news and information, 24/7, worldwide.
On the one hand, this is incredible. Only in the last two or three decades have we had the power to learn and know anything at all about any topic whatsoever. You name it, you can learn something about it.
On the other hand, this is terrible. There is so much information available that it can be incredibly overwhelming. What’s more, finding fact versus opinion – informed or utter bullshit – is another challenge that can only be done by choice and action.
Absorbing the staggering amount of data subconsciously creates a ton of instability in your psyche. This is due in large part to our fear-based society and its constant, unending yammering. Do this, be that, buy it all, or suffer. Choose badly, you’ll suffer. Do nothing, you’ll suffer. Further, misinterpret the Buddhist meaning of “life is suffering,” and is it any wonder we have a mental health crisis of epic proportions around the globe?
Parsing out the information constantly bombarding you can be increasingly challenging. Just to add insult to injury, it’s even harder when many of the solutions you’re offered line someone’s pockets and at best offer temporary comfort or relief.
From a young age, you’ve been taught to look outside yourself for answers. However, the answer to almost everything you face – whether mental, emotional, spiritual, or physical – starts within you.
To access this, you can ask several questions in the here and now that will make you actively consciously aware. One in particular, however, is this:
Is there anything you can do about that?
Misrepresentation of selfishness
Spend any time whatsoever on social media, and examples of incredibly selfish people will be in your face. Lots of self-righteous religious, political, and business leaders doing all that they can to dominate and control. Influencers selling you things you don’t need, so-called gurus offering material and immaterial quick fixes, and people basing info on opinion over fact, are everywhere.
This has led to a growing misrepresentation of selfishness. People see acts of self-care, putting your needs first, and the like, as selfish.
Maybe, in a vague sense, they are. But in truth, they’re not. Why? Because you are the only you there is. When you let your mind, body, and spirit fall into disrepair, you experience ill health, depression, anxiety, crises of faith, disassociation, and other signs of poor health, wellness, and wellbeing.
You, and you alone, can make choices and decisions to care for your mind, body, and spirit. Yes, you can – and maybe should – also get help from doctors, therapists, counselors, and the like in the care of your health, wellness, and wellbeing. However, it can only begin within you. You alone can choose to take action to care for your health, wellness, and wellbeing.
Genuine selfishness is done with malice of forethought. It’s being one of 8 people, a pie cut into 8 slices, and you taking two knowing everyone wants a piece, thereby forcing someone to go without. Real selfishness is “governing” by looking out for the interests of your millionaire and billionaire donors but letting the majority suffer and get routinely screwed over.
Hence, self-care, and putting your own health, wellness, and wellbeing first are not selfish acts.
Taking this into account, let’s get back to the question.
Is there anything you can do about that?
All over the world, LGBTQA+ and POC individuals and communities are harassed, hurt, disempowered, treated unfairly, and suffer inhumane acts just because of biology. COVID is still causing harm. AI is taking jobs and disrupting creativity, work, and multiple industries. There is a war in Ukraine that is senseless and awful. In the Middle East, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is escalating, with both sides committing atrocities. Brexit is continuing to do major harm to the UK. The state of Texas is treating women like second-class citizens.
All the above is just the tip of the iceberg. I don’t know about you, but everything I listed above is upsetting, infuriating, distressing, and the cause of much concern.
Yet, there’s an important question about this that you might not ask. Is there anything that you can do about that?
The answer is going to vary from person to person. For the most part, it’s “that depends”. Overall, however, the answer is going to be no.
That doesn’t mean there’s nothing at all I can do about these things. For example, I can openly support and be an ally to the LGBTQA+ and POC communities. I can get vaccinated for COVID and be mindful of keeping 6 feet apart from people and masking when it seems necessary. I can seek reliable sources and learn about AI and how it might impact me; be mindful if the people I vote for are being part of the problem or solution to the international and national crises; attend protests, send emails make calls, or take some other action if it feels right to do so.
However, that’s the extent of what I can do about that.
Why does knowing the limits of what you can do about that matter?
Does it do you any good to worry about things outside of your control? No. If you give large swaths of your time, attention, and energy to these terrible things, constantly watch the news, and scan social media, can you change them? No. Are you a bad person if you don’t give them more than a passing thought and basic, vague acknowledgment? No.
Why? Because you can control only a limited, few things directly. All of them are or start within you and belong solely to you.
That’s the truth. You can’t control anyone else, change anyone’s opinion, or force anyone into doing your bidding. The only control you can exert over anyone to any genuine effect is you.
Specifically, you can control your thoughts, feelings, actions, intentions, approach to matters tangible and intangible, choices, and decisions. That’s it.
Not much, right? Not so. That’s because when all is said and done, that’s everything. You, in a nutshell, are a combination of every bit of the above list – or more specifically, everything listed above empowers you to control who, what, where, how, and why you are.
How? Active conscious awareness.
Practicing mindfulness
My definition of mindfulness is active conscious awareness in action. What that means is not just going with the flow or living by rote and routine, but asking questions here and now, in the present moment, to become actively consciously aware.
Each of these questions can only be genuinely answered here and now. They include,
- What am I thinking?
- What am I feeling?
- How am I feeling?
- Am I approaching this (person/place/thing/situation) positively or negatively?
- What are my intentions?
- Why am I doing or not doing this?
These, and other questions like them, are mindful questions. You’re the only one who can answer them because you, and you alone, are in your head, heart, and soul (mind, body, and spirit). What’s more, the answers can only be known, truly, at this moment, in the now.
Asking and answering these questions gives you insight and clarity of your mindset/headspace/psyche self. Once you have the answers to these and similar questions, you can answer this question:
Is there anything you can do about that?
If the answer is nothing, that’s normal. Because what you can do anything about tends to be limited, and largely limited to you and your life. That is not selfish. I repeat, THAT. IS. NOT. SELFISH.
If you worry, fret, and focus on things you can do nothing about, you can choose to change that. Recognizing, acknowledging, and working with this can change your life in multiple ways. How? By changing your focus to things that you can do something with and/or about.
What do you think of that?
Asking and answering if there’s anything you can do about that 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 things that you do have control over, you more clearly can see the things that you can and can’t do anything about. Knowing that the things overwhelming you, making you feel bad, are outside of your control, if there’s nothing you can do about that, you can choose to shift what you focus on, and the things you can do something about in your life.
This empowers you – and in turn, 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 fifteenth (515) 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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