Our Self-Induced State of Mental Poverty
We live in a society plagued with selfishness. I’m selfish. You’re selfish.
I live and work in the outskirts of Washington DC. The last report that I heard stated that our area has the third worst traffic in the nation. I know what it means to experience and see road rage.
Every day something will go wrong. Count on it.
Think about your reactions in a typical day of commuting through DC. Most days, you’re going to get caught off by someone in traffic. How do you respond? We get cut off in traffic and our first instinct is to wave at the other driver with only one of our fingers rather than smiling and simply expressing how grateful we are to be in a vehicle that actually works.
Every day we will encounter things that can send a weak-mind reeling into a tantrum. Something is marked wrong on our cellular bill so we call the support line screaming at the young 19-year-old girl who answers the phone. She’s working her first job fresh out of high school while struggling to earn a degree. But that doesn’t matter because she’s the one to blame, right? Why not take it out on her?
Why not let everyone know what a victim we are of corporate America, of raging, maniac drivers, and of a whole slough of other injustices that you can come up with?
Or…..
Why not focus on the positives that we have in life? Why not count our blessings? Why not respond to life’s catastrophes with strength, dignity and patience? Why not realize how good we truly have things?
The truth is that most of us are absolutely spoiled rotten and yet somehow we simply fail to realize how good we have it. We’re so quick to get upset about the littlest injustice that we’re never able to enjoy the love and happiness that surrounds us.
Far too many people are living in a self-induced state of mental poverty. Just start counting your blessings.
Something is going to go wrong today. Count on it. It’s going to happen. If not today, then tomorrow…or both. When it smacks you in the face, don’t react. Instead you should smile, take a breath, and list out loud five things for which you’re grateful.
I’m the Richest Man in the World
This entire concept can be wrapped up in this beautiful song by the great Eddy Arnold. It will be worth it to take the three minutes to listen to it below.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qi0Ibs0VofY[/youtube]
Onibalusi Bamidele
Really great post!
We often blame for our failures and fail to recognize our success.
I remembered when I do get 400 unique visitors a day, I am always blamimg myself and complaining expecting my 3 months old blog to be in the thousands, I never really appreciated God for that I have (which many others are praying to have). I immediately realized my mistake and my visitors dropped to around 150 after some days, I am now thankful and I am back at over 200.
This is really a great posts and the truth is we need to be thankful and neglect that mentality of not being thankful.
Being thankful makes our lives even better because it brings more happiness to us.
Thanks a lot for the great post,
-Onibalusi
Nicholas Cardot
That’s correct. I’m certainly not advocating that we find ourselves content with doing less than our best, but when it comes to our overall happiness there are a lot of people who could really use a good dose of genuine gratitude for the things that they do have.
Steven Corbett
Excellent perspective. I lived five minutes south of D.C. until just last week, so I got to experience the Beltway first hand. Things like that really make you stop and take a good look at yourself.
It’s utterly futile to steam over things that you can’t control, and to be honest, the frustrations and inconveniences of life are actually insignificant when you embrace a larger outlook. Those same annoying things happen to everyone else, every day, but because we put blinders on, we only tend to see the issues that we have to deal with.
Life becomes beautiful when we truly learn to love our neighbor as ourself, or- from another angle- learn not to think more highly of ourself than we ought.
Nicholas Cardot
I didn’t even realize that you were in the area. We should have gotten together. Are you going to be back in the area soon?
Steven Corbett
I’ll be back for my sister’s wedding next month- we’re actually living in the Cayman Islands now!
Nicholas Cardot
Wow! That certainly sounds like fun. How long will you be up here? A day? A few days? A week? If you get the chance, let’s have lunch together or something.
Steven Corbett
Hey, that’d be great! I’ll be in the area for at least a couple of weeks in early July, and my schedule will be flexible, so if you have any free time, we can definitely work something out! Thanks!
Justin Dupre
Our mind is so powerful! I really liked and enjoyed this article. Thanks for sharing this with us and the video. Awesome!
Nicholas Cardot
You’re absolutely right. People fail to understand that these things are decisions. Our attitude toward what we have can be the result of us simply deciding to focus on the good rather than us allowing ourselves to be controlled by every external influence that seems to pass us by.
Brian Tomlinson
Nicholas, great post my friend. We can certainly learn alot by keeping a positive outlook in all things in life. The mind is a powerful thing and our thoughts do manifest into actions. Keep positive and you can make that positive change to the world around us.
~BT
Nicholas Cardot
It’s true. Too many people think that being positive is only for those who have positive things happening to them but the truth is that it’s for those who can learn to look and focus on the positive. We all have some good things in life and some bad things. The key is to channel our energies from those good things and not from the bad.
A'ishah Hils
This is so important to remember. My better half is always flying off the handle about little irritations – well, things I think of as little irritations – like traffic. I honestly believe there are better things to get your blood pressure up over. We know for a fact that things are not always going to go our way and stuff’s gonna suck sometimes. Just imagine how much happier we’d be as human beings if we actually lived our lives as though we believed that. And how much kinder to each other.
Vagi B
Thanks for the post, always interesting to read your blog.
I agree that we have to look at situations from the bright side and count our blessing, but you also have to stand up for your right regardless of how small the impact such an action will have on you and your life, cause we live in a world where some take advantage of the weak and by turning the other cheek every time, you will never get what you want, especially if you have great dreams and high standard of goals.
My point is; of course it is not right that you take your anger out on the 19 year old student at the call center, as she is just following procedure, but if it is impossible to talk with the CEO who is in the end to blame for your product not working as he promised and running a company that is not for your best interest then I believe that you getting your will by doing what you have to do, is necessary. In the end she chose that job and if you don’t complain it will never change, so by complaining and sometimes you have to be rude before others start to listen, you are actually also creating a better situation for the next guy in your shoes, as complaints will never go silent into the night and at one point when enough have complaint about the same thing someone will take action to create a better solution for the future.
The fact is that if you are always satisfied with the wrongs going on around you, you will never feel like you need to change the world for a better place.
Susan Redmon
Hi Nicholas,
Thanks for sharing this post and video! We are the most blessed people on earth and occasionally need to be reminded to count them.
Have a great day,
Susan
Winston Muller
As far as reactions go, its true, people are almost “trained” to be selfish, angry, and cold during the day & at work, yet a lot of those people treat their friends/family with respect.
The day I realised that everyone is someone else’s son/daughter/mother/father/brother/sister/best friend is the day I started treating people differently.