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Most things won't be as easy as you think
Saturday, 11 August 2007
You know what really upsets me? When things don't turn out the way my optimistic side expects them to. When the girl I thought liked me just wants to be friends, when the job I thought I had in the bag goes to someone else, and when that cool party I was planning flops.
We're strange creatures us humans. We're full of hopes and dreams, yet reality has a nasty habit of disappointing us. Indeed, most things I get into turn out to be a lot more difficult than I initially expect.
So why bother? You may ask. Good question.
To which I answer, because even if the cost of the reward is higher than I initially expect, usually the reward still turns out to be worth it.
When I was at school, I thought becoming successful in the adult world would be easy. I was a smart guy. I'd just start a highly profitable business ... or something. Then I started working and found even dealing with a badly-paid low-responsibility job was a lot harder than I expected. A challenge I thought would be small in fact loomed over me like some unscalable mountain.
But I stayed optimistic despite all the difficulties. I circled that mountain, walked up dead-end trails, and listened to other travellers. Eventually, I found my was up to a place where I was making good money in a job I enjoyed.
Adult relationships were another area I thought would be easy. I'd just get into high-school and magically an attractive girlfriend would appear in my arms.
Boy was I wrong. Like everyone else, I found out that male-female relationships are extremely difficult. And finding someone you're attracted to who's also into you isn't easy.
But I kept plugging away and eventually, satisfying relationships came along.
And don't think this disconnect between how hard I think things are and how hard they turn out to be has ended with age. All the time, I still have a tendency to under-estimate the difficulties I'll face when entering a new field.
The real-world is a difficult place, and getting even a small amount of what you want can take incredible effort. But if you just keep plugging away, you'll usually receive some satisfaction.
And there's another hidden reward among all these difficulties. Not easily achieving your goals may be frustrating. It may make hot tears stream from your eyes and anguished cries emerge from your mouth. But through it all, you become a better and stronger person. You learn that you're actually a lot tougher than you expected to be. With work, your competency increases, and with it your self-belief.
And maybe that's the reason why the world always insists on being so darn hard all the time.
 | Look for the underlying pattern | | We humans are pattern-spotting machines. The world can often seem complex and random, but if you look under the covers, you can sometimes find an underlying pattern for its behaviour. In fact, it's the discovery of such patterns that have driven our development forward in many areas. |  | Don't get too easily discouraged | | Occasionally, you may come across someone who appears as if they were born an expert in something. Perhaps it's sport, meeting people, business or family. Some of us just seem to be stars, while others are common. | | Test yourself out on the real world | | Each of us lives in two different places. The real world in which our bodies are firmly anchored, and a shadow-world of fantasies, rules-of-thumb and strategies that flows in the space between our ears. | | Fill your life up with interesting stuff | | We all feel a bit down sometimes. "To be or not to be, that is the question;" Shakespeare's Hamlet famously said. "Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer, The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing, end them." |  | My eight best negotiation tips | | Negotiation is a part of life we all have to deal with. Being able to do so successfully can make a big difference to our outcomes. Here are eight tips that have helped me. | | Is there something you want? Why not ask for it? | | One of the big differences that I've noticed between those who get what they want and those who don't comes down to one simple behavior - whether they're willing to ask for it. |  | Understanding the games people play | | A very interesting book, for anyone who's interested in the psychology of human relationships, is Games People Play by Eric Berne. Dr Berne is a psychiatrist who developed the theory of transactional analysis, which looks at the ways people interact with one another. Specifically, he's interested in the psychological games people play. | | Generally, it's best just to tell people what they want to hear | | Some people live to tell others what they're doing wrong. They see themselves as some sort of ivory-tower dwelling soul, gazing mercifully down on the rest of us and having the generosity to point out our faults when they see it as necessary. I'm sure you meet such people all the time. | | Be adaptable in a changing world | | When I look and listen to the people around me, I get the impression that many of them are terribly afraid of change. You can see it in the way they cling desperately to a job they hate, keep friends who are obviously bad for them, and stay in abusive relationships. | | It's not going to just fall into your lap | | I meet a lot of people who are dissatisfied with their lives. They feel they don't have enough money, enough love or enough recognition. They see others around them getting all the rewards while they're passed by for the good things in life. |
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