Action and physiology

Today I will share with you an idea that keeps revisiting me every time I am in trouble and whenever I need help.

This idea is not in my conscious mind most of the time, however, once I am in trouble, it reveals itself and rises to the surface of my mind, leaving me to wonder how (or who) chose for it to appear at exactly that moment when I needed it?!

A few weeks ago, life was normal and there was no "threat" facing me, I was walking tall, smiling, and doing my thing until things went downhill. I switched from wearing shirts to hoodies that covered my head and I was staring down while walking with headphones on. All signs that I wasn't feeling great. I was starting to face problems that started to beat me. Stability turned into chaos and I was anxious and distracted often...

Then, the following words -magically- came to mind:

"Today I will be master of emotions. And how will I master my emotions so that every day is a happy day, and a productive one? I will learn this secret of the ages: Weak is he who permits his thoughts to control his actions; strong is he who forces his actions to control his thoughts. Each day, when I awake, I will follow this plan of battle before I am captured by the forces of sadness, self-pity and failure :

• If I feel depressed, I will sing.
• If I feel sad, I will laugh.
• If I feel ill, I will double my labor.
• If I feel fear, I will plunge ahead.
• If I feel inferior, I will wear new garments.
• If I feel uncertain, I will raise my voice.
• If I feel poverty, I will think of wealth to come.
• If I feel incompetent, I will remember past success.
• If I feel insignificant, I will remember my goals.

Today I will be master of my emotions."

I realized that the headphones that I started always using meant "please don't talk to me, I don't want to interact with anyone" and the hoodie was to hide me...I wasn't singing when I felt depressed as the passage suggests, I was hiding.

Therefore, and once the recognition of the situation I am in took place, I took the advice: I wore my best fit -although it didn't feel right,- I stood up straight, did my work to the degree possible, and quit slouching around.

Things did not immediately get better, but they stopped getting worse! and it was a slow climb back to normal from there.

There is evidence for the effect of posture, for example, on how we feel and perceive ourselves, however, what captivates me the most about the idea of action driving our emotions instead of the other way around is the philosophical implication:

"To stand up straight with your shoulders back is to accept the terrible responsibility of life, with eyes wide open. It means deciding to voluntarily transform the chaos of potential into the realities of habitable order. It means adopting the burden of self-conscious vulnerability, and accepting the end of the unconscious paradise of childhood, where finitude and mortality are only dimly comprehended. It means willingly undertaking the sacrifices necessary to generate a productive and meaningful reality."
-Jordan Peterson

I stood up and decided to face the problems that were in front of me which were either:

1. practical issues that needed taking action upon
2. things that I could not do anything about, so worrying about is a waste of life

What cleared my thought was half an hour of writing my issues down on paper which stopped them from needlessly circulating in my thought, and conversations with good friends that were there to listen. Thank you, heroes!

📕 Book: The Greatest Salesman in the World

The passage from the previous section is from this book.

The advice here is not for salesmen, it is for everybody who is trying to live a more fulfilling life using the principles discussed in the book like: "I will greet this day with love in my heart" and "Today I will be master of my emotions."

The delivery of the ideas is one of the best I have ever seen and the lessons it teaches never left me since I read the book 3 years ago.

💭 Quote of the week

"I will laugh at the world.
And most of all, I will laugh at myself for man is most comical when he takes himself too seriously...Will my concern for this day not seem foolish ten years hence? Why should I permit the petty happenings of today to disturb me? What can take place before this sun sets which will not seem insignificant in the river of centuries?"
-Og Mandino, The Greatest Salesman in the World

Have a meaningful week ✨,
Laith