3 Waste of Time Thoughts

How to banish your routine emotional garbage, lighten-up and lose your misery.

Here is a straightforward look at how people self-sabotage their good intentions by letting emotional garbage pervade their thoughts. I call this ‘emotional garbage’ because, I believe, you can really do without it, and the following arise as a result of skewed/over-thinking, low self-esteem or negativity.

Although the above issues are worthy of attention, the resulting unhelpful thoughts and judgments are all too common, and will only increase your misery. So, if you want to be happy and smart, here is what you need to banish from your mind today — and what to replace it with.

1. Labelling Yourself

People love to do this. They say, ‘I’m an extrovert’, ‘I’m an introvert’, ‘I don’t do weekdays’, etc, but in the end, none of this is helpful to an individual’s personal growth or future experience, as they identify themselves within certain limits that aren’t really there.

This stops people from seeing new opportunities and horizons, alternative ways of being in the world and keeps them ‘playing small’. It does nothing for the imagination either.

What to do instead: Think of yourself as a wonderful body of human potential and ‘an unknown but exciting work in progress’ — and enjoy it. Even if labels make you feel more comfortable, I bet they don’t make you feel as exciting as someone ’without limits’.

This doesn’t mean you have to try and become ‘into’ things that you really don’t like, it just means that you stay open to and pay attention to, new possibilities, instead of automatically saying ‘that’s not for me’ and not moving an inch from your comfort zone. Remember, at best, living in your comfort zone and labels is pretty dull.

2. Making Comparisons

Don’t compare yourself or your life to anyone else’s, even if you think their life has run a similar course, they’re really still nothing like you.

They have a different heart, mind, body, soul, genetic makeup and unique sensitivities, and they’ve been in different environments with different people, problems and blessings. Furthermore, you can only see the side of people that they let you see.

Ultimately, no one can fully appreciate or understand how another person experiences the world, so it’s pointless trying to compare or align yourself with them. It won't help you thrive but it will clog up your mind with irrelevant and useless information.

What to do instead: Firstly, you can console yourself with the fact that what you think you know about someone else (i.e. ‘the comparison’), you really don’t. You’ll always be way off the mark — and that’s a good thing.

Most people are a mystery to themselves, so how anyone thinks they can get into someone else’s head and understand the fine tunings, is anybody’s guess. So you can laugh that off, and not waste your time.

Care for yourself

No matter how you feel, it’s best not to compare yourself with anyone at all, ever. If you do this naturally and often, it may be because your self-esteem isn’t great at the moment and you aren’t valuing or caring for yourself enough.

In this case, you need to pay more attention to your own needs and stop focusing on and valuing what other people are doing instead. A great way to re-focus your attention is to spend more time on things you enjoy. Ultimately, the better you feel about yourself, the less inclined you are to be interested in comparisons.

Conversely, people with high self-esteem are usually happy for other people that are successful in any way, as they don’t see comparisons or competition as a threat, after all, we’ve all got different strengths. Even if they do come up against a perceived challenge, these people find it exciting rather than depleting.

Your personal perception

In order to feel good, you need to do everything you can, to see yourself in the best possible light. This way, comparisons lose their grip on your interest, which is ideal.

For a spiritual lift, imagine you’re simply fabulous at everything you do. Visualise what that would look like in your head. Have fun thinking about it and then ‘live out’ this new improved version of yourself.

Imagine everyone wanting to be like you and thinking you’re the top dog in the field; sort of brilliant and untouchable. Hold that thought, and it should make you smile. After all, you don’t know who secretly admires you.

3. Complaining that life isn’t fair

Life isn’t fair, never has been and never will be — but it can still be great. Once you understand and appreciate this statement and are wise enough to not become bitter, self-pitying or cynical, you can get on with being productive and enjoying life.

We all know of situations that are drastically unfair in the world, but if we keep complaining about things that we cannot personally do anything about, it’s simply contributing to world misery and nothing more. We will also have no energy left to enjoy or notice the good things — and there are plenty of inspiring things going on in the world, but many people aren’t predisposed to notice.

Furthermore, what we focus on always gets bigger, so it’s best to make sure that our focus is on something positive and helpful, rather than the easy option of criticizing whatever comes our way.

What to do instead: Once or twice a a day, make a list of ten things you’re grateful for in your own life. It doesn’t matter what they are, or if they’re serious or trivial things, as long as you feel grateful for them.

By doing this, you train your mind to notice all the good aspects of your life, big and small. You’re not looking for perfection, you’re just appreciating things that bring you joy. Once you’ve done this exercise a few times, you’ll realize that your list seems to get bigger and bigger, which is wonderful.

The benefits of a positive attitude

When you can easily think of things you’re grateful for, you’ll have made a significant positive change in your perception and focus, and your whole outlook will improve.

Having a positive and grateful attitude will improve relationships and make us better company to be around, as nobody enjoys being with someone who keeps complaining and putting the world to rights.

These sort of conversations are pointless, don’t go anywhere and are time-fillers for bored people that have nothing inspiring to say. So it’s best not to go there, for everyone’s sake.

One Last Thing

Finally, allow yourself to watch TV world news for ten minutes a day, but not much more, as this doesn’t usually make people feel good. Where possible, it’s best to limit your exposure to anything negative in your environment.

Good luck, and I hope that’s the end of the garbage!

© America Zed. Other Self-Help Stories by America Zed.