“I mean, how could she do that?! When you were not here, this is what she asked her boyfriend to do. No common sense, I’m telling you.”
As I woke up yesterday morning, I could hear my flatmates’ feeble voices. They were cribbing about someone and having a hearty laugh over some remark. As I dragged my sleepy soul from my bed towards the place where they were sitting, I saw them talking in hushed tones, passed a smile and then thought to myself, “Ah! Again, that criticism session is on.” After forcing a laugh or two, I resumed my work.
As I was getting ready for work, there was a train of thoughts that kept bugging me. And I’ll tell you those things. They are really important. Life-changing, paradigm-shifting, poop-your-pants and call-your-mother important. Something that you and I have been doing unknowingly every day but never rectify it; things for which we’ll have to pay a heavy price later on.
Let’s have a peek into those traits:
1. Complaining and finding faults in everything
If you go to a person and ask him/her to find a fault in something, he/she might go and on. Complaining about the job, people, city, food, room, apartment and what not. Basically, anything and everything under the sun.
What good comes out of it? Nothing. You do realize that you have an opportunity to change something that is bugging you, right? Then why don’t you? Seriously, stop cribbing. Take charge and do something meaningful.
2. Blaming others
We’re all flawed creatures and making bad decisions is a part of our life, but blaming others for that is nothing but immaturity. As Paulo Coelho said, ‘It’s always easy to blame others. You can spend your entire life blaming the world, but your successes or failures are entirely your own.’
It’s not your job, your parents, the circumstances that are to blame. It’s you being counterproductive. The day you overcome this, you’ll realize your true self, get better and change anything in your life.
3. Quit/ Make an excuse
To rise above any resistance you meet is a very difficult task to do. Many times in your life, you face situations that pull you down, and it seems that all routes to success have been blocked.
Or, many times, a tragedy may occur that is so vicious that it annihilates our lives, and therefore, we give up. Because we are too demoralized to work again, too convinced in our heads that it’s not possible. But is it? Or is it just you being too lazy to dream again and work your ass off?
Don’t quit because you don’t get lucky, you create circumstances that make you lucky.
4. Procrastinate
We often don’t do things that we should do. It often isn’t until the 11th hour, until someone screams at you, that the equation shifts. It is human nature to keep postponing important tasks, and we like to believe that we’ll have enough time later on.
But, we do not realize that we’re just piling up things for the future, and in all probability, we’ll never even have time for them later on.
5. Expectations
We expect so much from everyone. We think along these lines – ‘We did so much for that guy, he should also do the same for us.’ And when that guy doesn’t live up to our expectations, we feel sad. We swim in those he-is-so-wrong waters, not realizing the fact that it’s a precursor to all disappointments. We should aspire, but expect? NO.
6. To remain an average person
Never yearning to become extraordinary, the awesome you that you can be, is the self-damaging thing you can do. ‘Living the same life for 75 years and calling it a life’ is the best advice I got. This is the single insight you need to change your whole life.
Being an average person is the easiest thing you could do, right? Because being extraordinary requires efforts, which sadly, not everybody does. We don’t work according to our potential.
See, I don’t expect you people to implement all of these into your lives right after reading this article, but, I do expect you to at least change yourself for your own good. It’s hard to rebuild yourself, but trust me, your efforts won’t go down the gutter. After all, that’s what adds value to your existence, right?
And everything worth fighting for is hard.