Your Way

What to do when things aren’t going your way?

You’ve got a lot of options. So-called self-help gurus and personal development bloggers will likely tell you a variant of the following:

• Change your perspective.
• Change your situation.
• Redefine “your way.”
• “Chin up, it won’t last forever.”

I’m not saying this is bad advice, but there’s another approach.

If something’s not going your way it’s fine, at first, to react naturally. That is to say: wallow, get upset, get angry. It’s OK to feel temporarily insane.

It was Seneca who said, “Anger is brief insanity.” He meant it like it’s wrong. Reacting naturally shows you’re alive, that you’re human, that you feel emotion.

If you’re walking down the street late at night and somebody jumps out in front of you you’re going to react, right? This is normal. Your walk didn’t go your way.

The challenge is to get out of these states before they’ve dominated your life. After a brief period of wallow or anger it’s fight or flight. Change your perspective, change your situation, redefine “your way.”

“Chin up, it won’t last forever.”