Life sucks. For no identifiable reason that we can come up with, life sometimes just absolutely sucks.
Maybe we’re working hard but not getting the results that we want, and maybe have never gotten the results we want.
Or, we just lack clarity. We don’t know what to do, and not knowing what to focus on is as bad as not getting the desired results.
Maybe we’re just down, we don’t know why, or we just can’t seem to create the life we want no matter how hard we try, and we’ve come to the realization that life sucks and all we can do is deal with it or end it.
While life does suck, as it’s filled with failure, disappointment, loss, tragedy, and evil, the ‘suckiness’, however, even of these horrible things, the failure, disappointment, loss, tragedy, and evil, is subjective nonetheless.
There is good, there is nice, and there is good for you.
Bad things often do you more good in the form of acquiring knowledge and toughness, resilience and grit, than those things we’d deem as good. (read: 15 Steps to Become a Better Man)
Life Sucks. How to Make it Suck Much, Much Less
When everything is going wrong. When you feel like a failure, like you’re doomed to fail for eternity, and you’re lost and discouraged and depressed, detach.
1. Detach.
The other day I saw a video of an extremely large lady fist fighting with her ex-boyfriend. The video’s hilarious. I sent it to a buddy of mine, we laughed our asses off, and broke down the video’s contents, the hilarity of an extremely fat lady chasing a guy she was mad at for not wanting to be with her.
I made the comment, “Imagine how important these idiots think this moment is.”
Yes, they’re idiots. We’re all idiots in some ways, myself as much as anyone.
One of the worst things we do when everything is going wrong is we view the situation as vital, important, even the most important moment in our lives. It doesn’t matter if it truly is a moment, or if the ‘moment’ has gone on for a couple years now. At some point, if we continue to make incremental improvements, we’ll forget this feeling of despair running through us right now.
It will soon be insignificant. It will be forgotten by space and time because life goes on, because it doesn’t care about our feelings.
The best thing to do right when depression kicks in or if you just feel like crap, is to detach both from space and time.
- View your problems from 100 feet above, then 1,000 feet above. You’re a speck. You’re one of 8 billion people, and you’re one of the most fortunate of those 8 billion people. At the least you’re not one of the most unfortunate. And, there are people going through worse than you are right now, that are happier than you are right now. Man up. Take your emotions out of the equation and situation and deal with it.
- View your problems from 10 years in the future, then 20, then 30. This is the most helpful to me. I view myself as the man I want to become, will become, in the future. With everything I’ve achieved and accomplished and I am him looking back on the moment, barely remembering it, but attributing it to my eventual success because it, like all ‘bad things’, made me better.
About these bad times…
They are not actually bad, when you think about them. Within every moment there’s opportunity. In that light, the struggle is good. Within struggle is where you build character, where you’re forced to adopt better principles, become more disciplined, and even artificially stay positive.
Ray Dalio, in his book, Principles, wrote this:
“Most of life’s greatest opportunities come out of moments of struggle; it’s up to you to make the most of these tests of creativity and character.”
Dalio is a self-made billionaire, one of the world’s most financially successful humans. He’s worth listening to.
2. Act as that thing you want to become.
Winners act like winners before they become winners.
Just because life sucks in this moment, doesn’t mean that you too have to suck. In fact, you shouldn’t. You should act above your situation. Dress successful. Look successful. Act successful. Act happy. Act strong. Act calm and stoic. Act as if you are what you want to become.
Develop the habits that the winner would have. Develop the discipline. Develop the mood. Read, learn, study.
Most of all, don’t be lazy. If you think that you deserve a day off, time to sulk, you’re wrong. That will just dig a bigger hole that’ll be tougher to climb out of.
3. Win your morning.
When you win your morning you set yourself up for a great day.
You create a feeling of achievement when you have a successful morning that helps you succeed throughout the day.
For me, this requires a routine.
My routine is as follows:
Rise between 5 and 530 am.
Read for 1 hour.
Workout (5-6 days a week, sometimes 7. I need to sweat daily or I just feel useless).
Eat.
Work for 2-3 hours straight without break, without answering emails or checking anything that doesn’t have to do with the one thing I’m working on.
That is a morning won. That happens every day. It’s habitual. It isn’t a decision that needs to be made, it’s just a normal morning. (Read: How to Be Successful in Life)
4. Train your body every day.
Do something physical every day. It doesn’t have to be a workout in the weight room. It can be a hike, a run, time on the bike, whatever. But you should be lifting weights at least 4 days a week. You’re a man, you need to be stronger.
Strength helps men be men. It helps us protect, provide, and endure. (Read: It’s Not Easy Being The Alpha)
5. Focus on something to work on, anything will do.
Find a project that you need to complete. Give it at least 3 hours of your uninterrupted time every day. Give it your all whether it motivates you and inspires you or not.
Just work at it.
We’re being who need work. We need achievement. It’s like air for our brains, our souls. You have to be working on something in a methodical and productive fashion every day.
Aimlessness is a real problem. When we don’t have something to work on and work toward we feel useless.
6. Find the humor in it.
Humor is how humans deal with hardship. We laugh at the horror of situations. We’ve done it in Concentration Camps in the Second World War. We laughed during horrific battles in the First World War.
We’ve found humor where it shouldn’t belong, and it’s helped us struggle through what we should not have been able to endure.
7. Man up. Stop being a pussy.
Finally, you’re a man. Whatever you’re going through, I’m sure it feels like hell, and it may be hell.
That doesn’t excuse you from having to struggle through it, rise above it, solve it. You’re a man. You’re a provider and protector.
Men just like you have endured more. They’ve overcome greater obstacles, risen from deeper depths.
Stand up, as a man, and deal with it. Solve it. Work your way out of it. Decide that you are not this despair. You’re something greater.
Create the habits that will bring you out of this hell hole and commit to doing them every day without fail. Man up. (Read: 15 Signs You’re an Alpha Male)
