Adversity

“What Am I Sad About?”

March 8, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

When you’re struggling with sadness, part of your feelings may involve experiencing a lot of distress and shame about how sad you feel.

You probably won’t even realize it’s happening, but you’ll feel like “I shouldn’t be this sad” and that “my sadness is a weakness.”

It shouldn’t always feel like it’s just you.

When you acknowledge your sadness, you can actually perceive how you’re tunneling yourself into more gloom. Then you could do a much better job of accepting your sadness as it is, as the Bohemian-Austrian poet and novelist Rainer Maria Rilke reminds in the masterpiece Letters to a Young Poet (1929):

How could we forget those ancient myths that stand at the beginning of all races – the myths about dragons that at the last moment are transformed into princesses. Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are only princesses waiting for us to act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.

So you must not be frightened if a sadness rises before you larger than any you’ve ever seen, if an anxiety like light and cloud shadows moves over your hands and everything that you do. You must realize that something has happened to you; that life has not forgotten you; it holds you in its hands and will not let you fall. Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any miseries, or any depressions? For after all, you do not know what work these conditions are doing inside you.

Thinking through “What am I sad about?” can help you get happier

Try to redirect the blame from yourself and recognize that sadness is a natural and reasonable response to the miseries of the world—some of them personal, some collective.

Yes, believing in yourself in the face of self-doubt can be challenging. But the extent of sadness isn’t immutable.

You can trigger a vast shift in how you feel by dropping self-criticism and embracing a more kind, non-judgmental relationship with yourself. Sadness isn’t a state of sin.

Change “I can’t do this” to “this will be a challenge for me; it’s normal to feel anxious.
Accept “I hate this” with “this is a tough situation to handle, and I’m doing my best.”
Persuade yourself to substitute “I hate myself” with “I’m overwhelmed with low self-esteem at the moment, and I need to cheer myself as I would a friend.”
Instead of repenting, “I can’t believe it slipped my mind again,” let yourself off by acknowledging, “it’s difficult to balance so many things. Perhaps I need to let go of some of them.”

Idea for Impact: Befriending your feelings and not identifying with these feelings as your self can affirm not only who you are but also what you believe you can be. Even when you feel disturbed because you’re falling back into past patterns, bear in mind that simply being aware that you’ve retreated into going over the past is a precursor of growth. Self-awareness can pave the way to a great leap forward in your personal transformation.

Don’t Be So Hard on Yourself

February 20, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

It’s okay to be wrong about things. It’s okay to be upset. It’s okay if things don’t go the way you purposed. It’s okay if you say something embarrassing. It’s okay if you make a fool of yourself. It’s okay if you failed. It’s okay if you disappointed a loved one.

We’ve all made mistakes—rushed decisions, careless oversights, and lapses of judgment. Even after taking the thoughtful time and overanalyzing them, we’ve not been able to avoid faults.

And after their immediate effects come to pass, our minds are assaulted by those woulda-coulda-shoulda ruminations.

Mistakes are a natural part of your journey. They’re patches of rough and bumpy ground that will eventually help you get where you need to go. Life is a long game, and you’ll never know what your current experiences will mean over time.

Mistakes can offer a kind of insight and perspective that nothing else does. After all, you don’t learn quite as much from a right decision as you do from a wrong one.

Curb the idea that you have to be successful at everything you attempt. In the grand scheme of things, no one’s going to care about your failures, and neither should you.

Idea for Impact: Don’t be so hard on yourself. You are not your mistakes. Perhaps, when life rejects you from something good, it may be redirecting you to something better, whether or not you realize it at that time. Seek ways to move forward.

How Can You Contribute?

January 25, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

The celebrated management guru Peter Drucker urged folks to replace the pursuit of success with the pursuit of contribution. To him, the existential question was not, “How can I achieve what’s been asked of me?” but “What can I contribute?”

Drucker wrote in his bestselling The Effective Executive (1967; my summary,)

The great majority of executives tend to focus downward. They are occupied with efforts rather than with results. They worry over what the organization and their superiors “owe” them and should do for them. And they are conscious above all of the authority they “should have.” As a result, they render themselves ineffectual. The effective executive focuses on contribution. He looks up from his work and outward toward goals. He asks: “What can I contribute that will significantly affect the performance and the results of the institution I serve?” His stress is on responsibility.

The focus on contribution is the key to effectiveness: in a person’s own work—its content, its level, its standards, and its impacts; in his relations with others—his superiors, his associates, his subordinates; in his use of the tools of the executive such as meetings or reports. The focus on contribution turns the executive’s attention away from his own specialty, his own narrow skills, his own department, and toward the performance of the whole. It turns his attention to the outside, the only place where there are results.

Peter Drucker: Focus on Contribution - How Can You Contribute? Focusing on contribution versus (or as well as) typical metrics of success pivots you away from self-focus and helps engage in meaningful relationships with your employees, peers, and managers.

In his celebrated article on “Managing Oneself” in the January 2005 issue of Harvard Business Review, Drucker clarified,

Throughout history, the great majority of people never had to ask the question, What should I contribute? They were told what to contribute, and their tasks were dictated either by the work itself—as it was for the peasant or artisan—or by a master or a mistress—as it was for domestic servants.

There is no return to the old answer of doing what you are told or assigned to do. Knowledge workers in particular have to learn to ask a question that has not been asked before: What should my contribution be? To answer it, they must address three distinct elements: What does the situation require? Given my strengths, my way of performing, and my values, how can I make the greatest contribution to what needs to be done? And finally, What results have to be achieved to make a difference?

Idea for Impact: Take Responsibility for Your Contribution

Focusing on contribution instead of efforts is empowering because it compels you to think through the results you need to deliver to make a difference and identify new skills to develop. “People in general, and knowledge workers in particular, grow according to the demands they make on themselves,” as Drucker remarked in The Effective Executive.

Choose Pronoia, Not Paranoia

January 18, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Pronoia is a weird, incredible feeling that everyone out there is helping you and cheering you on. The world is showering you with blessings.

Yes, that’s the antithesis of paranoia.

Pronoia is the delusional sentiment that people are conspiring in favor of your well-being, speaking nice things behind your back, and rooting for your benefit. The American astrologer Rob Brezsny has written, “Pronoia is the understanding that the universe is fundamentally friendly. It’s a mode of training your senses and intellect, so you’re able to perceive the fact that life always gives you exactly what you need, exactly when you need it.”

Pronoia is a convivial orientation—one exemplified by feelings of hope, trust, confidence, and affection. Choosing to cultivate optimism thus opens up a new identity. You no longer harbor bitterness and misgivings towards others.

Idea for Impact: Embrace the mindset that life is happening for you instead of against you. It’s a fantastic way to experience life!

Constraints Inspire Creativity: How IKEA Started the “Flatpack Revolution”

November 2, 2020 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

In the mid-1950s, Gillis Lundgren (1929–2016) was a draftsman living in a remote Swedish village of Älmhult. He was the fourth employee of a fledging entrepreneur named Ingvar Kamprad.

Kamprad’s business was called IKEA, an acronym combining his initials and those of his family’s farm and a nearby village. He had founded IKEA in 1943 and got his start selling stationery and stockings at age 17. In the 1950s, Kamprad had launched a low-cost mail-order furniture retailer to cater to farmers.

Constraints have played a role in many of the most revolutionary products

In 1956, Lundgren designed a veneered, low coffee table. He built the table at home but realized that the table was too big to fit into the back of his Volvo 445 Duett station wagon. Lundgren cut off the legs, packed them in a flat box with the tabletop, and rushed to a photoshoot for the IKEA furniture catalog.

And in so doing, Lundgren unintentionally birthed the flatpack furniture industry. He modified his simple design and drew up plans for a disassembled version of the table. Lundgren’s Lövet table (now called Lövbacken) became IKEA’s first successful mass-produced product.

IKEA and Its Flatpacking Took Over the World

IKEA’s trademark, easy-to-follow assembly instructions are a central ingredient to the company’s success. Manufacturing and distributing prefabricated furniture via flatpacking has proved enormously successful. It has dramatically facilitated the shipment and storage of pieces that otherwise took up much more space.

According to Bertil Torekull’s Leading by Design—The IKEA Story (1998,) the concept of ready-to-assemble furniture is much earlier than that. But IKEA was the first to systematically develop and sell the idea commercially.

Flatpacking contributed to many of IKEA’s products’ enduring popularity—they’re affordable, sleek, functional, and brilliantly efficient. In 1978, Lundgren designed the iconic Billy bookcase, the archetypical IKEA product that currently sells one in three seconds.

IKEA’s aesthetic of simplicity and efficiency reflects in its exclusive design and marketing approach. IKEA constantly questions its design, manufacturing, and distribution to create low-cost and acceptably good products.

The method has been adopted by numerous other business enterprises, transforming how products are made and sold globally.

Out of Limitations Comes Creativity

One problem with creativity is that sometimes people face an open field of creative possibilities and become paralyzed. Constraints can be the anchors of creativity [see more examples here, here, and here.]

Constraints fuel rather than limit creativity. Use constraints to break through habitual thinking and promote spontaneity. The mere experience of playing around with different constraints can stretch your imagination and open your mind’s eye for ingenuity.

Idea for Impact: Use constraints to help stimulate creativity. As the British writer and art critic G. K. Chesterton once declared, “Art consists of limitation. The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame.”

How to Bounce Back from a Setback

August 12, 2020 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

How to Bounce Back from a Setback When life deals you a blow, and you can’t seem to make yourself move on, consider these simple actions you can take.

Think positively. Allow yourself a modest amount of disappointment, but don’t wallow in it. Whenever negative thoughts enter your brain, say “Stop” and turn your attention to something constructive, hopeful, and optimistic. Focus on what you want, not what you fear you’ll lose.
Be grateful for everything life has given you and for every step forward you can take. A conscious focus on gratitude can remind you of unassuming plusses that get lost in the vicissitudes of a hurried life.
Let go. Don’t look back too often. Keep yourself open to today’s new opportunities. Know what’s beyond your control.
Take decisive action. Tackle each critical task with an explicit goal; don’t avoid problems. Scale back your expectations; alas, sometimes you simply won’t be at your best.
Take a long-term view and re-examine all those short-term decisions. Don’t get hung up on a particular outcome, event, person, or experience. Stop focusing on what you don’t have or don’t like; focus on what you do have and do like.

Idea for Impact: Often, just knowing that you have some control is enough to change your perspective from bleak to hopeful. What’s important in life is not what’s happened to you, but how you’ll react. What’s a baby step you can take to improve your situation?

What’s Wrong With Giving Advice

August 10, 2020 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

“It is a pleasure to give advice, humiliating to need it, normal to ignore it,” somebody once remarked.

What really happens when you offer advice is … you instinctively send a message to the other person that they don’t have the resources to solve the problem themselves.

Your advice is probably rooted in your expectations, not in the understanding of the other

The best way to give advice is to not give any advice at all but to listen attentively and emphatically.

People who relate their problems don’t really want your advice, even if they seek to sound you out about a problem.

They want you to listen to their problem, perhaps ask open-ended questions to help them think through the problem, and help them explore the options they have.

People Want You to Listen, Not to Talk

Clinical psychologist Lisa Damour notes that parents can’t help but offer direct solutions to their kids’ problems. In her insightful ‘Adolescence’column for the New York Times, Damour suggests,

Rushing in with suggestions carries the risk that it may strike our teenagers as a vote of no confidence when they are mainly seeking our reassurance that they can handle whatever life throws at them.

Instead of proposing solutions, we might bolster adolescents as they sort things out. Saying, “I’ve seen you get through things like this before” or “This is tough, but you are too” can effectively loan teenagers a bit of perspective and confidence when their own feels shaken.

Even teenagers who have already addressed a problem may still seek our reassurance. [A teenager] said she sometimes tells her parents “about a situation and what I did to solve it” in order to get validation that she made the right choice. When this happens, she says she’s “not really looking for their solution, just checking that they think I did the right thing with my limited problem-solving experience.”

Adolescents often feel vulnerable, perhaps especially so when they open up to adults about their jams and scrapes. In these moments, well-intentioned guidance can land like criticism, and lectures or “I-told-you-so”s—however warranted—may feel like outright attacks.

More often than not, offering our teenagers an ear, empathy, and encouragement gives them what they came for. If your teenager wants help solving the problem, divide the issue into categories: what can be changed and what cannot. For the first type, focus on the needs your teenager identifies and work together to brainstorm solutions. For the second type, help them come to terms with the things they cannot control.

Often People Want You to Listen—Sharing is an Act of Self-Reflection

When people open the door of their confidence, tread delicately.

Open the ear of your heart. Don’t impose your perspective, but help them find a solution that works for them.

To empathize, say, “You are in a tough situation,” “gee, that stinks, it totally not fair to you,” “I understand why you feel this way,” “You have every right to be offended,” or “I’m so sorry you have to face this kind of difficulty right now.”
To help clarify, say, “I might be wrong, but it seems to me …,” “Are you concerned that …,” or “what if ….”
To expand perspective, say, “This may seem like a big deal at this time, but how will you feel about this in a week? A month? A year?” or “what do you think is the worst fallout of this?”

Idea for Impact: Often, the Best Advice You Can Give is Not Providing Any At All

If pressed to offer an opinion, tease out the options they’re considering. Ask, “What do you think you ought to do?” or “What would you like to happen?”

Don’t offer a solution that pleases you more than it does the other. The best solution to a problem somebody is facing is the one that works for the other person, not you.

The Power of Negative Thinking

May 21, 2020 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Stoic philosophy recommends a practice called premeditatio malorum (“the premeditation of evils,”) i.e. intentionally visualizing the worst-case scenario in your mind’s eye.

The first point is to acknowledge that misfortunes and difficulties could, rather than certainly will, come about. The second is to envisage your most constructive response should the worst-case scenario transpire. For instance, if you’d lose your job due to coronavirus, what resources could you rely on, and how could you handle the consequences?

The direct benefit of premeditatio malorum is in taming your anxiety: when you soberly conjure up how bad things could go, you typically reckon that you could indeed cope. You’ll not dwell in the negative thoughts. Even the worst possible scenario couldn’t be so terrible after all.

Another surprising benefit of negative visualization is in raising your awareness that you could lose your relationships, possessions, routines, blessings, and everything else that you currently enjoy—but perhaps take for granted. This increases your gratitude for having them now.

This Stoic exercise has an equivalent in Buddhist meditation-based mindfulness practices that encourage nonjudgmental awareness of unpleasant sensations (the vedanā.)

Your emotions, sensations, and events are in flux. They arise and pass. You’re merely to regard yourself as the observer of these thoughts and feelings, but you’re not to identify with them. You are not your thoughts … you are not your feelings. The Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield writes in The Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology (2015,)

Thoughts and opinions arise but they think themselves and disappear, “like bubbles on the Ganges,” says the Buddha. When we do not cling to them, they lose their hold on us. In the light of awareness, the constructed self of our identification relaxes. And what is seen is just the process of life, not self nor other, but life unfolding as part of the whole.

Idea for Impact: Could you benefit from reflecting on how you think of potential negative events?

An awareness of the possible—and the self-determining attitude—can be quite liberating. Premeditatio malorum is a surprisingly useful technique, if only with a scary name.

“What then should each of us say as each hardship befalls us? It was for this that I was exercising, It was for this that I was training,” as Epictetus philosophized in Discourses (3.10.7–8.)

What You Learn from Failure

February 3, 2020 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

One common theme among people who cope particularly effectively with failure is their ability to acknowledge the failure, put it in perspective, and seek causes, not blame. As the Dalai Lama XIV writes in The Dalai Lama’s Little Book of Inner Peace (2009,)

If a misfortune has already occurred, it is best not to worry about it, so we do not add fuel to the problem. Don’t ally yourself with past events by lingering on them and exaggerating them. Let the past take care of itself, and transport yourself to the present while taking whatever measures are necessary to ensure that such a misfortune never occurs again, now or in the future.

American investor and superstar hedge-fund manager Ray Dalio writes in his very instructive Principles: Life and Work (2017,)

I learned that everyone makes mistakes and has weaknesses and that one of the most important things that differentiates people is their approach to handling them. I learned that there is an incredible beauty to mistakes, because embedded in each mistake is a puzzle, and a gem that I could get if I solved it, i.e., a principle that I could use to reduce my mistakes in the future. I learned that each mistake was probably a reflection of something that I was (or others were) doing wrong, so if I could figure out what that was, I could learn how to be more effective. I learned that wrestling with my problems, mistakes, and weaknesses was the training that strengthened me. Also, I learned that it was the pain of this wrestling that made me and those around me appreciate our successes.

In short, I learned that being totally truthful, especially about mistakes and weaknesses, led to a rapid rate of improvement.

Much is written about the notion of failures as gifts, but the key to dealing with failures is to attribute those failures to weaknesses in a thought process, not to personal flaws. Failures expose a weakness in your underlying process, which you can now fix. Fine-tune your tactics until you find out what doeswork. Dalio instructs,

When a problem occurs, conduct the discussion at two levels: 1) the machine level (why that outcome was produced) and 2) the case-at-hand level (what to do about it.)

Idea for Impact: Don’t rationalize failures and magnify them in your mind. Fix them. Then, reflect on what they teach about what didn’t work. Inquire, “What was missing?” rather than “What went wrong?” The latter results in finger-pointing. The former opens up possibilities and results in personal growth.

This May Be the Most Potent Cure for Melancholy

August 13, 2019 By Nagesh Belludi 1 Comment

Never Feel Sorry for Yourself or Engage in Self-pity

The American writer and Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison, who poignantly explored the African-American experience, passed away last week. Her best-known novel, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Beloved (1987) is one of the few works of non-fiction that I’ve read. This captivating novel is much-admired for calling to mind of the inhumane violence of the institution of slavery. It’s a true story of a post-Civil War escapee-slave who, after she is recaptured, kills her infant daughter to liberate her from slavery and oppression. Read it (or watch its 1998 film adaption starring Oprah Winfrey.)

Morrison’s celebrated essay in the 150th-anniversary issue of The Nation suggested a potent antidote to suffering and loss. Here’s a précis:

On the day after Christmas 2004, I was in an extremely dark mood, feeling helpless. When a friend, a fellow artist, called to wish happy holidays, I told him, “I’m not well. Not only am I depressed, I can’t seem to work, to write; it’s as though I am paralyzed, unable to write anything more in the novel I’ve begun. I’ve never felt this way before, but the recent reelection of George W. Bush …” My friend interrupted me and challenged, “No! No, no, no! This is precisely the time when artists go to work—not when everything is fine, but in times of dread. That’s our job!” I felt foolish the rest of the morning.

[All the trouble in the world makes it difficult to stay grounded and productive.] Still, I remember the shout of my friend that day after Christmas. This is precisely the time when artists go to work. [While being aware of the world’s plights and the struggles of people,] there is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.

I know the world is bruised and bleeding, and though it is important not to ignore its pain, it is also critical to refuse to succumb to its malevolence. Like failure, chaos contains information that can lead to knowledge—even wisdom.

Acceptance Can Set You Free

Sorrowing Old Man (At Eternity's Gate) by Vincent van Gogh When events have a downer-depressive effect, they can leave you in the throes of helplessness and depression. As Morrison suggests, acceptance and looking-forward is a compelling remedy to life’s many tribulations.

As I’ve stated in previous articles, even in the face of some of the worst misfortunes that could strike you, attempting to endure pain is a far superior choice than getting absorbed in feeling victimized and powerless.

After a reasonable period of grief, confronting your fears and facing up to the worst possible scenarios can bring about some tranquility.

You can deal with your troubles by diverting your mind with escapisms or cheering yourself up with distractive remedies, but these things can relieve suffering only for a short time. They do not alleviate grief but hinder it. You would rather end it than distract it.

In other words, it’s better to conquer your sorrow than to deceive it. If simply masked under self-gratifying pleasures and diversions, your haunted mind eventually comes back at you stronger than ever.

Idea for Impact: In facing life’s many troubles, acceptance can set you free. Perhaps the most potent cure for melancholy is to ask yourself, “What’s the one positive step I can take now?”

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Adversity

It shouldn’t always feel like it’s just you.

Thinking through “What am I sad about?” can help you get happier

Wondering what to read next?

Wondering what to read next?

Idea for Impact: Take Responsibility for Your Contribution

Wondering what to read next?

Wondering what to read next?

Constraints have played a role in many of the most revolutionary products

IKEA and Its Flatpacking Took Over the World

Out of Limitations Comes Creativity

Wondering what to read next?

Wondering what to read next?

Your advice is probably rooted in your expectations, not in the understanding of the other

People Want You to Listen, Not to Talk

Often People Want You to Listen—Sharing is an Act of Self-Reflection

Idea for Impact: Often, the Best Advice You Can Give is Not Providing Any At All

Wondering what to read next?

Wondering what to read next?

Wondering what to read next?

Never Feel Sorry for Yourself or Engage in Self-pity

Acceptance Can Set You Free

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