We are all familiar with the author who writes the chilling horror story, the musician who pens the brooding, introspective song, or the video whose photographer, rather than an presenting uplifting images, displays for us distressing ones. We need look no further than the typical evening news to see negative situations seemingly all around us. To top it off, most psychologists believe that even for the healthiest, non-pathological individuals, seventy percent of a our internal self-talk is negative.
Yet we all know the story of the athlete who failed, to return in triumph; or, the person who stares down a near-fatal illness and returns stronger than ever; or, the political dissident in a repressive regime who emerges from years of imprisonment to lead his or her land to newfound freedom.
The key to negativity, whether minor irritation (why did that guy cut me off in traffic?) or major catastrophe (why did that guy cut me off in traffic, causing me to spiral out of control, resulting in four surgeries and thirteen months of rehabilitation to walk again?) is how we learn to respond rather than react to such events. From the ashes can rise the Phoenix. Learning to respond from a position of strength, calmness and with reasonable rather than raging emotion can take us further along the path towards our goals.
I work often with investors and traders. The singular, most important component to success in those endeavors is learning to respond with analysis, instead of reacting with fear or greed. In other words, executing a plan, analyzing numbers on the screen, and tweaking strategies after careful deliberation and research, beats cheering the market when it’s up and hitting the bar to cry in your beer when your positions lost you beaucoup bucks.
So can you turn that frown upside down? Can you take the negative events in your life and learn to respond rather than react to them? Can you take positive events in your life and learn to enjoy them rather than crashing after the brief state of euphoria wears off?
An old Buddhist saying relates to this. Before enlightenment, you chop wood and you carry water. After enlightenment, you chop wood and you carry water. Keeping that even keel, responding to negative events with strength rather than fear, and learning to express and receive emotions with intelligence instead of being buffeted by them, brings greater success in all areas of life!