A Million Little Things

I have been feeling really anxious, agitated and frustrated lately.

Anyone else?

It seems like every little thing turns into a big deal. It’s left me feeling confused, angry and searching for answers.

I think this is something that a lot of us do to ourselves. With a lot of meditation, prayer, and conversations with some great people, I have started to learn a few things about myself. I’ve got a few ideas on how to make it stop.

I internalize all the little annoying things that happen throughout my day and turn them into personal failures. I write these moments off as “annoying” or “stressful” but what I am really saying internally is “I’m a failure. I screwed up again. If I was better, that wouldn’t have happened. What’s wrong with me?

I’ve already done it while writing this blog post. When I opened up my Chrome browser, I got a notification. You know those annoying notifications you get at the top of your screen from Facebook or YouTube or whatever. I thought I had turned this off. Matter of fact I know I did, but yet here we are. It’s still happening. Instantly I get pissed at myself. What is wrong with me? Why can’t I figure out how to turn off my notifications? I did what google told me to do. Why isn’t it working?

Frustrating yes. Personal failure no.

Sometimes it’s true that something is missing. I don’t have all the information yet. But is that my fault? Does that make me a bad person? Is that a failure?

No. Not at all. It just means that I haven’t learned everything in the world yet. I have a little more studying to do. But how am I supposed to make myself accountable to know things that I don’t even know about yet? That’s a battle I can never win. But placing these impossible expectations on myself, I set myself up for failure. It is the only possible outcome.

I need to learn that if I don’t know something, then it’s not a failure. It’s just something I still need to learn. That really is all there is to it.

It happened another time while writing this post. I used some incorrect grammar (which I do a lot) while typing that first paragraph. Instantly I judged myself. Anger. Frustration. What is wrong with me? Why am I not smarter? If I was smarter I wouldn’t be messing up grammatically and having to spend time fixing all my mistakes. Isn’t it ok to make mistakes? Do I have to have perfect grammar to be ok? No. And besides, they make awesome apps for that now. Grammarly anyone?! :)

A million little frustrations become a million big failures

I take these super small annoying things that happen throughout my day and turn them into big failures. I do this a million times a day and it all adds up to a million failures. And by mid-afternoon, I am emotionally exhausted and trying to figure out why. Maybe it’s because I just spent the first half of my day railing on myself for every little thing I could find wrong. This leads to anger. Depression. Anxiety. Frustration. Agitation. And generally just feeling like an absolute loser.

Here are just a few examples of the way I do this every day. Do any of these sound familiar?

Dropping something in the kitchen, bumping into some furniture, my computer freezing up, when I misread my GPS app and take a wrong turn while driving, when a client questions me, when a student quits their lessons, when someone doesn’t call me back, when I forget the words to a song, when I play a wrong note on the piano, when I fumble on my words when talking to someone. And on and on it goes. A million little things turning into a million huge failures. Every day. Day after day.

Make it stop!

The good news is now that I am aware of this, there is something I can do about it. I need to practice catching these little things as they happen. Acknowledge the frustration and then speak the truth. These are not personal failures. These are just a part of life. I am a human being who makes mistakes. I am a human being who is still learning new things. I am a human being who needs to practice being kinder to myself.

The keyword here is “practice” This is not going to happen overnight. But if I can start making this a daily practice, I can start catching more and more of these little frustrations before they become huge self-deprecating moments.

So my new practice is to acknowledge these little things and to be kinder to myself. If I can do this a million times a day then everything changes. And right now, a change sounds pretty good to me.

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How To Not Die When You Retire

How many times have you heard this story?

Some dude, let’s call him John, works super hard his whole life. He climbs the corporate ladder and ends up a top executive at his firm.

As he gets older, his wife begs him to retire so they can relax and travel more. He resists as long as he can but eventually, he takes his leave.

The company throws him a nice party at the Holiday Inn. They give him a shiny watch and he gives them some cliche speech about how he has enjoyed his time with the company.

Then he makes some joke about his golf game. Everyone laughs. “Oh, John. We are going to miss you around here,” says everyone he chats up as he leaves the party that night.

The next thing he knows, he finds himself waking up on a Monday morning with absolutely nothing to do.

At first, this idea seemed fantastic. Finally, he would have time to do all the things he has been putting off. He can clean the gutters and repair the shed like he has wanted to do for years. But when the actual day came, he woke up terrified. The only thing he could think was…

What do I do now?

He tries to take up some hobbies. He joins the country club and starts to work on his golf game. But something is missing. He is bored. He is restless. He grows more and more depressed and anxious.

He begins to get snippy with his wife. Maybe he takes up drinking to fill the time and to feel a little better. He’s miserable and he is a miserable person to be around.

One day, he seems to be sleeping in a little later than usual, so his wife goes to wake him up and get him going for the day. But when she tries, she notices he is cold to the touch. He died in his sleep. That’s it. His life is over.

It had only been 8 months since he retired. They were supposed to spend their golden years traveling the world and now he’s gone. He was in perfect health.

What happened?

It turns out he had nothing else to live for besides his job. When that was taken away, so was his purpose in life. He had nothing left. And no matter how hard he tried to find it in menial hobbies, he couldn’t. He gave up. And when our soul gives up, our body is quick to follow.

This is such a sad story that happens time and time again. We hear about it all the time. Without a purpose, something to live for, strive for, we wither up and die.

Humans are not meant to just exist. We are meant to grow and achieve great things. We live for a challenge. We have to have a goal on the horizon in order for us to feel some hope. Without hope, life starts to feel pretty pointless.

It’s ambition that keeps us alive.

What would have changed the story for John? I don’t know exactly. But I do know that we need something more than a job to live for. Jobs will come and go. Careers can change. We need something deeper than that to hold onto. We need a personal mission statement.

What is our life about? What do we care most about? What legacy do we want to leave when we are gone? If we can answer these questions and put them into a statement we can remember, then we have a fighting chance. We have something bigger than ourselves that we are living for.

Here is my mission statement:

To be a light where it is dark
To make as much music as I can that inspires and encourages people who are hurting
To be constantly improving on my craft of writing, performing, recording and mixing
To provide a community to those who feel isolated and alone
To be THE leader in the positive hip hop movement
To be 100% debt free
To have $3.8M in the bank and be financially free
To travel the world
To make my record company a successful business and do it fulltime
To start a company that helps others pay their medical bills
To weigh 220 pounds and maintain that weight for life
To spend every waking moment of every day fulfilling this purpose.

It’s not perfect and it is always evolving, but it gives me a true north to head towards. It gives me purpose and fills me with hope. It inspires me on days when things feel pointless. It gives me life.

Everybody wants but nobody tries.

If you don’t want to end up another tragic story like John, there is something you can do. Sit down and write out your mission statement. Have you ever done that? It doesn’t have to be perfect, just get it started. Get something down on paper.

Read your mission statement every day. It will keep you centered and focused. And when that day comes where you want to retire, you can do so with peace because you know you are just retiring from a job. You are not retiring from the ambitions that drive you.

There is no watch shiny enough that could ever get me to retire from those.

Generosity: The Lyrics

Generosity

I hold on tight don’t want to let it go
‘Cuz if I do I might begin to let it show
All of my fear has come to stay
There’s got to be another way

If I look up and I begin to fly
Would anyone know the reason why
All of my fear has gone away
By giving I get another day

I try so hard but I can’t believe
That you and I are just meant to be
In different times and realities
When we’re both here right now, you see

I want to know what’s in your mind
What you love and what you find
Each day you travel through this shrine
But we don’t seem to find the time

I don’t see you and you don’t see me
When we’re trapped inside
You could be me and I could be you
It’s just a matter of time

I hold on tight don’t want to let it go
‘Cuz if I do I might begin to let it show
All of my fear has come to stay
There’s got to be another way

If I look up and I begin to fly
Would anyone know the reason why
All of my fear has gone away
By giving I get another day

What will it take for us to change
To share our joy and share our pain
To take the time right now feels strange
We can’t keep on doing the same

Everything I have is a gift
I wouldn’t have it if it wasn’t given to me
Everything I see is a lift
I wouldn’t be this high if God wasn’t with me
Every day I live is a chance
And I wouldn’t get it if I didn’t listen to the truth that is all around
Blocking out the lies
And I hate the sound of fear in disguise
Here’s what I found
See, you and I are pretty much the same being
Sometimes we’re up and sometimes we’re down
But if you look around you can see it’s the same thing
The world will make you lonely if you let it
It took some time for me to get it
You can’t just set it and forget it
‘Cuz we need each other
Bet it

I don’t see you and you don’t see me
When we’re trapped inside
You could be me and I could be you
It’s just a matter of time

I hold on tight don’t want to let it go
‘Cuz if I do I might begin to let it show
All of my fear has come to stay
There’s got to be another way

If I look up and I begin to fly
Would anyone know the reason why
All of my fear has gone away
By giving I get another day

By giving I get another day
By giving I get another day
By giving I get another day
By giving I get another day

Generosity is principle #11 of Chris Swan’s 12 Core Principles to a happy, fulfilled life.
To learn more about the 12 Core Principles, please click HERE.

© 2019 Soul Motivation Records
Written by Chris Swan
Published by Luped Up Music/ASCAP
All rights reserved