Do Something…Or, Shut Up
Daily Meditation 589–10/7/2023
“I’m so fat, omg. I just cannot find a nice outfit for the life of me and I’m sick of it!”
“My wife apparently has been secretly seeing some other guy. I tried to talk with her about it last night, but she punched me in the eye and smacked the crap out of me. She even tried to push me down some stairs. Yeah…just like a few years ago and back in high school.”
“So sick of this friggin job. My boss gave Abigail the promotion over me. He’s probably banging her. I deserve more money and a better shift. So tired of the bullshit.”
These all are probably familiar-ish refrains we hear with some minute variations.
And when hear them, they’re often countered with logic and attempts at solutions.
“Well, perhaps you ask your doctor about good diets and seek out a personal trainer?”
“Sounds like it’s time to walk away from that one. Cheating is one thing — to say nothing of doing it more than once — but abusing you and trying to push you down stairs is just too much, mate.”
“Let’s meet up this weekend and brush up that resume! There’s a lot of great openings for similar jobs. Turn in your 2-weeks-notice and move on.”
And nearly always, what do we hear?
“Oh no — I just can’t!”
I can’t afford it.
I’ve got kids.
Dieting “just doesn’t work” for me.
Exercising is nonsense.
My spouse can change.
Even if I hate my job, I can’t afford to quit.
I don’t want to go through a new orientation.
Et cetera, et cetera…
And it’s sad.
We are provided all the evidence and strategy we need to solve the problems we so hate, yet we go to war for the status quo.
Change is very often the solution to our issues.
Just look at addiction — one of the best ways to improve the odds of overcoming it is to, well, remove the status quo environment, friends, and so on…to change. To maybe move. To go somewhere without all the previous patterns.
If there is something we truly are unhappy about in our lives, why fight for it? Especially if there’s a solid solution to it.
Certainly, some of the solutions will absolutely involve pain.
Eating less and being a little hungry sucks.
Sore muscles and dedicating time to working out sucks.
Watching less TV, playing fewer games, and reading more improvement stuff sucks.
Drinking more water and less pop sucks.
Divorce — whether or not there was cheating or abuse — sucks.
Leaving a job and venturing into the unknown of a new job sucks.
If you are unwilling to change or to try to enter a better situation and are defending your status quo, you’re better off just quitting whining and “dealing with it.” Why complain at all if you won’t try to improve things?
Change is terrifying.
Change (generally) sucks.
But, it represents the possibility of something greater.
The transitioning into a new stage of life is much like the chrysalis of the caterpillar — he stops eating, loses his ability to freely move, and is forced into a tight spot…
But, ultimately explodes forth as a creature widely recognized for unparalleled beauty and grace — a butterfly.
We so often fight to avoid our own “chrysalis” stages, believing the slow crawl of our caterpillar phase is better, safer than the “what ifs” of becoming something we’ve never been.
Change will likely be painful for you, my friend.
But I almost certainly assure you, in 5, 10, 25 years you will be glad for whatever new burden or difficulty it is, today.
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These are distillations from my coming book “YouDaimonia: the Ancient Philosophy of Human Flourishing.”
