Leon Benson @LeonBenson2: How do you deal with feeling like shit no matter what you do or how fortunate you are?
ANSWER:
I am really sorry you are feeling like shit. Sometimes that happens. We’re not really meant to be happy all the time. Nobody ever said that. Sometimes there are real reasons to feel like shit. Like when someone close to you dies. Or you lose a job. Or whatever. Sometimes, though, we just wake up and we’re depressed and there’s nothing we can do about it.
But make sure you check the box on all the big things. There’s a lot of macro things people feel upset about that there’s really no need to feel upset about.
Let’s pick the macro things:
– we can complain about Obama or Romney
– the environment. That’s something to complain about. It’s too hot here today.
– We can complain about Obamacare and how our taxes are going to go up.
– How about we complain about how the banks screwed all of us. I can’t even get my bank to return my calls.
Then there’s more personal stuff:
– I can complain that so-and-so is ignoring me now.
– Or another person trashed me
– Or I didn’t get enough “likes” on a post.
– Or somehow I didn’t make as much money on something as I thought I was.
– Or I can’t sell my goddamn house.
– Or my kids don’t listen to me.
There’s lots of things to complain about. I don’t know anybody who is so fortunate that they couldn’t, if given a piece of paper and a pencil, fill it up with things to complain about. And we can compete with each other. Who can complain the most? This is a popular game played at the water cooler on a Monday.
The brain likes to complain. In fact, one of the main duties of the brain is to complain about things. The amygdala usually gets all inputs first, before the other parts of the brain. This is the part of your brain that gets angry about things. In other words, this is the complainer in the brain. It doesn’t like for inputs to go around it. It’s biological. If you are an animal in the jungle, your brain needs to process the dangers first. Don’t forget that we are evolved from the people that actually RAN AWAY from the trampling elephants as opposed to the people who got trampled.
But the brain likes to have something to do. Else it gets nervous you will stop paying it. So it obsesses on these dangers. It puts you constantly in a state of “fight or flight”. You get addicted to that obsession. Your identity and ego gets wound up in the complaints. “I’m a failure”.
So see if your brain is getting too active. Too needy for your attention. If it is, you can bring it back in balance using what I call the daily practice where you balance the health and goals of all four aspects of your body: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. You can pick small, incremental goals in each category and check them off each day at tdp.me.
But the other thing is: you might simply be clinically depressed. Go see a psychiatrist. Talk things over. See if there is a medication that might help. But don’t just rely on that medication. That’s like someone with lung cancer relying on chemotherapy rather than stopping smoking. Do what you can for your health. But also see a professional.