Category Archives: Thoughts On Life

Unique and Interesting Observations or Perspectives

Strength Over Escape

May 28, 2019Thoughts On LifeSolomon

I do not pray for a lighter load, but for a stronger back. – Phillips Brooks

Often times, in the face of problems, we wish the problems would go away on their own. We wish we had fewer problems. Realize something. When you’re weary and tired, it makes sense to wish for less work so you have time to rest. But the reason you rest is not to have less problems. The reason you rest is so you can get stronger. And when you’re stronger, be able to face those problems and triumph. Wish for strength. Wish for the opportunity to heal and strengthen. Wish for growth. Not for a life of weakness, where problems scare you and you wish them away rather than rise up, face the problem, and overcome it.

Recently, I’ve wondered why I do better when I practice alone with no stress than when I’m performing in front of others in order to get something. Why is it that stress causes me to underperform so much? What follows in today’s post is my research into this topic

https://www.competitivedge.com/why-athletes-do-better-practice-performance

the focus of concentration has shifted. In practice, your focus was in the moment on what you’re trying to do. In competition, your focus is on the outcome and what your hopes and dreams are, which distract you from fully concentrating on the task at hand.

https://www.competitivedge.com/why-do-i-do-so-much-better-practice-competitions

See and react. Problems occur when thinking comes in. And over thinking. When it’s competition time, just do.

https://www.positiveperformancetraining.com/blog/mental-toughness-issue-1-playing-well-in-practice-but-not-in-games

Address your self talk: Don’t have negative thoughts, don’t focus on the negative outcomes you don’t want, and assess what your focus is right before your performance to evaluate which focus topics lead to success and which lead to failure.
Also, acknowledge what you’re going through. You can’t lie to yourself. Self Empathy

People who personality wise hated losing would choke only when they might win big (they see it as losing a huge opportunity). People who personality wise were unafraid to lose would choke only when they might lose big (they panic at the prospect of huge losses).
Therefore, recognize which type you are, and reframe your perspective to the one that works for your personality type. Instead of ‘winning big’ think of it as ‘losing big.’ Instead of ‘losing big’ think of it as ‘winning big.’

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-new-you/201507/how-stop-choking-under-pressure

How do novices and professionals respond to distraction? External distractions bother novices but not professionals. Internal distractions bother professionals but not novices. If you ask a professional to pay attention to what they do and how they do it, they will perform worse.
Slow down, be more deliberate, and unlock success. When soccer penalty kick players took more time to place the ball down on the grass before kicking, they scored goals more often.
Repeating positive statements about yourself has been shown to decrease the likelihood of losing your confidence, which can keep you focused throughout the game. Remember, the statements should be based on fact. It’s not just positive thinking that helps, it’s positive statements that are true.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/super-bowl-psychology-why-athletes-choke-and-how-to-avoid-it/?redirect=1

When novices take their time, they do better. When professionals take their time, they do worse. Professionals need to go on autopilot and let that take control.

I hope this helps ease your problems in life!

The Power to Create

May 18, 2019Life Advice, Thoughts On LifeSolomon

In times of trouble, in times of need, in times of struggle, it takes something new to change the status quo. It takes something new to change the situation. If everything stays the same, then what will happen will happen. If you want to change what will happen, then you must introduce something new. You must create the change you wish to see in your circumstances.

I think the natural response to despair is to blame. To blame others, to blame the situation, to blame God. Overcoming blame is tough. It takes a combination of mental, emotional, and resource healing to gain strength. It is strength that overcomes blame. Blame at its core is a call for help. When someone turns to blame, they are saying they are too weak to move on. And that’s OK. It is OK to be weak. We are all weak sometimes. When you hear someone else blaming others, don’t attack the person for choosing blame as a coping mechanism because you’ll only weaken them further. Instead, find ways to support them. Strengthen them. So that they can become strong. When someone is strong, they might hold someone else responsible, but they won’t get stuck in the past, blaming the person responsible. When someone is strong, they can assess the situation, and move on. Strength allows you to overcome blame.

The next natural response to rationalize through logic, morals, culture, etc. This is a coping mechanism too. It’s called acceptance. It’s very effective and powerful in allowing you to accept the reality of the situation and move on from it. From a practical standpoint, acceptance is effective. It solves the problem by acknowledging it. And it frees you from being trapped in the past so that you can live in the present. And by living in the present, you can create a brighter future.

I think there is a better way. A third way. And that is to create. When there is a problem, rather than look for a target of blame, rather than look for reasons why to accept the situation, I would want to create solutions to the situation. Find ways to solve the problem. Find something out of nothing. Create what you want. What you need.

An example of creation is persuasion and influence. If you need something from someone else, and you can’t afford it outright, you can respond by blaming, or rationalizing. Or you can respond by talking, communicating, and persuading and creating within the other person a desire to help you and therefore get what you want.

Another example of creation is negotiating. By having a conversation and understanding the needs and wants of the other party, you can better position yourself to make an advantageous trade. Google for negotiation resources.

Another example of creation is energy and relationships. If someone else isn’t behaving the way you want, or isn’t responding to you the way you want, use your own energy to create an environment that enables the other to behave the way you want. If someone is not energetic, you should be energetic to raise their energy levels with your own. If someone is sad, don’t blame them, don’t accept that they are sad, work to create joy for the both of you.

Creation can do more than just give you what you want. Creation can free you from entitlement and pessimism and despair. Creation says: rather than demand things from the world, create them for yourself. Demanding is an ineffective method of achieving what you want. It requires power, the power to overcome the power of another person. Any time you try to achieve something through force, you’re wasting the world’s resources because you’re expending power and someone else is expending power against your power. When you achieve through creation, you save the wasting of energy fighting and transform the energy that would have gone into fighting into energy that goes into cooperation and relationship and community building. Creation says: rather than think the world will head towards danger, be the reason the world doesn’t head towards danger. Creation says: rather than think the terrible world you live in is permanent, change that world to be the treasures you seek.

Creation is outside the box thinking. If a solution existed within the box, then it would have been used. Everyone works with the best options available to them. If you find that the options available to you are unsatisfactory. Don’t blame. Don’t accept. Create the option you want for yourself.

Coping with Unfairness in Life

April 8, 2019Thoughts On LifeSolomon

Devastating unfairness is crushing. You feel helpless. You feel worthless. You feel wronged. You feel hurt. Attacked and Harmed. You feel like the world isn’t right if it allows this to happen, and since the world did allow it to happen then you feel like the world isn’t right. You question, you doubt, and you lose trust for the world and its people, things, organizations, places, etc.

You want sympathy. You want love and care and support. You want someone to help make things right. You want compensation for your loss. You want first aid so you can heal. You want healing. You want more than what you lost to make up for the time and emotions lost in addition to the loss itself. You want acknowledgement of what happened. You want a community of people who care about you to acknowledge what happened and prove their care for you through their response to hearing what happened to you.

You want retribution for what happened to you. You want the person or organization or thing that did the harming to face the consequences of their actions. You don’t care what they face as long as they face a consequence. If you are emotional about what happened then you may have specific ideas for what they should face; time will relax your emotions so you can care less about specific outcomes. Ideally you want the perpetrator to acknowledge what happened, apologize, offer to help, take action to help, provide and facilitate the healing process with you, announce their transgression to the rest of the community so that you can feel more secure in the validity of your feelings, your account and perspective and story on what happened, and so you can feel more confident that the community will and does in fact take your side of the situation.

You want to feel protected. You want to feel safe. You want to feel you can trust the world and the people in that world and the people in your world and in your community.
You want a lot of things.
You want. A lot. Of things.

But life is cruel. You will most likely receive more pain on top of the pain you already feel. You will face a world where people won’t listen, won’t help, and tell you to deal with it alone. You will face a world where justice will not be served. You will be uncared for.

You will have to work to rebuild yourself. You will have to make your own repairs. You will have to heal yourself. You will have to eat the loss. You will have to take the setback. You will have to lose. Then, from that loss, start again.

Here’s what I’ve learned from going through the above process repeatedly over my life.

Key life lessons:
The people who hurt you don’t know that they hurt you and they don’t care that they hurt you and they don’t want to do anything to make it up to you.
There is good in the world, not all people are bad, you will meet a lot of bad on your way to the good, but since there are good people to find, make your way to the good.
Get Out and Get Better and Get Away. Staying in pain achieves nothing.

Common reasons for staying in pain are: you can’t help it, you want sympathy and compensation for your loss so you communicate to the world the severity of your pain by staying in pain, you protest against the unfairness of the world by staying in pain. You lose the will to live or continue or you give up. You lose confidence in yourself and you question everything you’re doing so you stop taking action and instead just question all actions. You fall into a trap. You want there to be someone to show you compassion and care and kindness and love in order to redeem mankind and the world to you in your mind. You want someone to change your mind about how life isn’t worth living. You want someone to bring confidence to the actions and steps you’re taking to continue to live in the way you’re choosing to live. You want all these things. You will get none of it from other people.
Lesson: You save you. You are your superman. You are your hero. You are your redeemer.

Here at AttemptedLiving we are working on trying to create a better world. We wish that someday people who face unfairness can get all that they want from the community and people around them. As of 2019, the reality is no-one helps other people anymore. You are on your own. Good luck.