Why you shouldn't try to avoid it, but rather embrace it
MARK MANSON
I've been recently listening to an audiobook by an author by the name of Mark Manson. And it's called," The subtle art of not giving a F***,". Sounds outlandish, vulgar at first sight doesn't it? But the idea of the book could not have been captured in a more meaningful than this. Life is short, and EVERY, SINGLE thing you choose to care about matters.
CAN'T GIVE A DAMN
Worrying about whether that stranger thought wrongly of you for laughing too loudly with your friends in the MRT is one of those instances. That stranger probably forgot about you, you're too unimportant in their own world of problems. Your courage to do novel things that might be looked upon with weirdness by others rises when you realize how little they actually think of you. Each man to his own has a demon to grapple with. You grapple with yours.
HIGH
I went a bit off tangent there, but the main lesson I wanted to impart was on suffering. We think negative experiences like failing an exam, getting rejected (from ANYTHING, not only what you're thinking about, I KNOW what you're thinking about, but that's NOT IT), and making a fool of ourselves all are bad moments we want to AVOID. And if we do experience such events, we try to distract ourselves with momentary highs. My source of a high was blasting rock music on the train as I made my way home because I was constantly getting rejected for many things.
LESSON
The debate team, the student council just to name a few. And because loud rock made me feel good at the moment, I did not give time to process the pain induced by such negative experiences. And because of that, I didn't do anything to improve my speaking skills or my leadership potential. I had this falsely positive mindset that I was a man on his way to greatness, and such failure was to be expected. So the other high I gave myself was the illusion that failing meant I was winning. God. I took the rejection at face value and decided to not go through the suffering needed to motivate me to become better. Let's hear that again: I distracted myself with highs because I thought I was too "UPBEAT" for failure. Because I never felt pain, I never realized WHAT was wrong, and hence there was no incentive to act upon it. Lesson: PAIN BREEDS CHANGE.
TAKEAWAY
Don't run away from the pain. After reading the book, I found it absurd why people feared suffering, why they shunned it, and why "pain" was looked at as something bad. But I realize the more we come to learn how wrong we are about ourselves and go through the pain of processing it, the faster we can find a motivator to catalyze change in our lives. That was a mouthful. I hope you loved it. Signing out, Your fellow student