We live in a culture of complaints. It is easy to tell the world the ugly. And before you go on a rant to me about how social media “dresses everything up in a pretty little box and makes me feel inferior to my family and friends,” cut that ish out.
You define you’re narrative. You get the freedom and luxury to change the direction of your life. And a decision to remain stagnant is on you.
Let me repeat.
The decision to stay where you are is simply because you are refusing to move.
So why do people dwell on the negative?
1. It is comfortable.
It makes you “human.” It is easy to complain about the bad in your life because for some – it seems like there is all there is. It is being consumed by the negative and it is a place of comfort and familiarity.
2. It is easy.
Choosing to see the glass half-empty is easy. Choosing to believe that it life still has something out there for you amidst difficult circumstances is hard. Trying to pull yourself out of what seem to be impossible circumstances is hard. Choosing to just complain about all the things you can do something to change, but refuse to? That’s easy.
3. It helps you stay the victim.
Ouch. If you continue to share with people and the world about all the ways life isn’t measuring up to what you thought it would be, you get to play the victim in your own story which garners sympathy, empathy, and people ready to come to your aid like a damsel in distress. Drama stirs up attention and as human beings, we thrive on it.
So how do you redefine your narrative?
1. Embrace change.
And accept that life does not just happen to you. Yes, sometimes you are dealt a pretty raw hand of cards. But that is not an excuse to curl up in a ball and wait for life to pass you by. Work to be in a constant state of progress and change.
2. Accept the human condition.
Whether in the literal or figurative sense, remember that this life is NOT ALL ABOUT YOU. All people experience difficulties. Everyone experiences pain. Jen Hatmaker says it best:
“We will all suffer. It is not exceptional or rare; it is absolutely the human condition. The question is: what will we do with our pain? Did we accidentally let too much in and now it is our entire substance? Or can we take in what we need, learn and listen to it, then send it back out?”
What are you choosing to do with that pain and how are you choosing to channel that into the best life you could possibly have?
3. Be better than your yesterday self.
Wake up each day and vow to do better than you did yesterday – complain less, do more, proactive not reactive, living a full life, focusing on the positive, resisting the negative, and working every single day to redefine your narrative.
It is easy to keep reading the same book – you memorize the pages, commit the plot lines to memory, and you are soon repeating lines from the book as if you were the author. But it is time to write your own story – to rewrite the narrative that you thought you always knew.
You were made to move.
And doing so always begins with a single step.
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