Stay focused.
That’s it.
People keep asking me where I think this is headed.
You know my view.
It’s unknowable.
And every second you spend thinking on unknowables is a second you’re wasting from focusing on what most matters.
Will it get worse?
Better slowly?
Better quickly?
It’s unknowable.
Literally, where it is headed from here is as unknowable as it was to know a year ago that we would be in this situation.
People readily accept that we couldn’t have predicted this.
Yet, how much mental energy is then wasted on trying to predict where it will be a year from now?
Truth—whatever you think on these topics says nothing about the world, and everything about you.
Red lights, green lights
A favorite quote is from Albert Schweitzer—
An optimist is a person who sees a green light everywhere, while a pessimist sees only the red stoplight… the truly wise person is colorblind.
Meaning, if you see the world through an optimistic lens, you’ll have a certain view.
Through a pessimistic lens, another view.
Then, typically, your brain will seek out information that matches your view.
Angry people are angry, fearful people are fearful, depressed people are depressed, and they’ll keep seeking out information to support their worldview.
So if you are a more optimistic type, you’ll seek out opinions, data, viewpoints that support your lens.
Often convincing yourself that you formed your opinion based on that, rather than seeing you filtered the world based on the color of your lens.
To be colorblind
Means to simply let go of all that.
To say it is what it is.
Wherever it is headed, while the person seeing green wants to imagine it will be all good, and the person seeing red is imagining it all bad, you see it for what it is.
As a client said to me, “So it was like that, now it’s like this, but still every day I’m just doing my best.”
Exactly.
And this is the problem with the red or green lenses.
Optimists, pessimists in disguise
Truth—many peope who call themselves optimists are fearful.
They are often just as fearful and negative as pessimists, but they are doing their best to convince themselves and others.
Meaning, rather than get stuck in that negative red light mindset, their brain flips it to hoping for the positive.
It’s certainly a better strategy than staying stuck in the red.
Yet, it can also burn an enormous amount of time and energy just trying to stay optimistic.
Trying to convince yourself and others.
Hunting around for information to help support your view it will be all good.
It will be all good
No matter where this is headed, it will be all good.
Why?
Because we always make it so.
It’s the anticipating that messes with the human brain, yet when things happen we quickly adapt.
If someone had said to you a year ago that this would happen 9 months from then, your mind might have gone into holy fc mode.
But now it happened, and you’re looking back on months of it, we’ve all just adapted.
Point being, it’s not optimistic to think it will be all good.
It’s realistic.
It’s fact.
No matter what happens your brain will make it all good.
You make it the best good by staying focused
That’s my point, right.
Wherever this is headed is unknowable.
Whether you think red or green about it, you’re wasting time on things that are unknowable.
Know that is just your brain trying to get some semblance of certainty and control.
When you can be certain that no matter where this is headed…
You’ll make the best of it focusing on what you control!
btw, another reminder, you might get value from this free Focus Tools program, which are my most powerful mindset tools.