I’m a very positive guy. I never lose hope. I’m optimistic all the time.
So when I get a question like…
I’m driving myself to insanity with over-thinking, self-analysis, self-doubt, self-loathing, internal misery and zero action. What the heck can I do to completely change my brain and actually enjoy my life?
…it’s hard for me to come up with a good answer based on experience.
However, I believe hard questions force us to come up with better answers, so I kicked empathy into high gear and gave this one a go.
The one thing I noticed about the question was that it was asked in a very self-absorbed way. The questioner lists a whole bunch of negative, self-associated traits, which leads me to think he or she is stuck in a vicious, mental cycle.
Now that problem I know. And I know what always helps me.
Try this:
Turn the spotlight of your inner perspective away from yourself and on to others.
When you’re spinning in circles inside your own mind, it’s time to get out of your head and show yourself your life is of value — both to you and to others.
I put myself in your shoes and asked myself:
What’s the smallest step I can take to practice kindness?
Here’s what I came up with. It only takes a few minutes.
Step 1
Open Twitter.
Step 2
Type ‘sad’ into the search bar and hit enter.
Step 3
Set the search to ‘latest.’
Step 4
Scroll through, and see thousands of tweets of people who post that they are sad too.
Step 5
Reply to those tweets you can relate to, tell them you’re sad too and that you’ll both be okay.
Step 6
Watch what happens. People will like your tweets, appreciate your words, thank you and start a conversation.
Within a few minutes, this will show you:
- You’re not alone. Everyone gets sad sometimes.
- You’re valuable. You can make other people’s lives better.
- You can get better. You’re not the only one who’s failing. But in the grand scheme of things, any individual failure doesn’t matter so much, as long as we can pick each other up again.
No matter how sad you are, you can still be kind to others and that kindness creates a ripple effect.
It will improve you, help others and make the world a better place.
When you realize all it took to teach yourself this lesson was a tweet, you’ll start seeing the world with different eyes.
It’s okay to be sad. We all get sad sometimes. Even me. I fail too. I hope you’ll still have a good day.
And I hope you’ll open Twitter.