“Caelan, you are LAZY.” This is a phrase I heard from my family all the time throughout my childhood. “Caelan, you are such a hard worker.” Another phrase I heard from my family when I was growing up. Confused? I would be too.
The truth is that I am an extremely hard worker...when it is something that I like or want to do. However, in every other circumstance, I was as lazy as anyone you could possibly imagine. For example, when it came to team workouts and practices, I could confidently say that most of my teammates would agree that I was one of the hardest workers on every team I have been a part of. However, when it came to any sort of chore around the house I would whine and complain, I would procrastinate, and I would ultimately do a very poor job. If anyone got up to go to the kitchen, I would immediately make food or drink requests from the comfort of the couch. If I was asked to take out the trash, I would throw the bag over our backyard wall and into the alley instead of taking the time to open the gate and put it in the trash can. The list goes on and on, but clearly I am not kidding or exaggerating when I say I used to be incredibly lazy.
Today I am a firm believer that habits in one area of your life can not be completely compartmentalized no matter how good you might think you are at doing it. If you are lazy or have negative tendencies in one area, I believe it is likely that it will bleed into all other aspects of your life. For me, I clearly did not want to do work that seemed inconvenient or boring. I believed that if it wasn’t worth my time, then it wasn’t worth my effort. I was clearly a selfish individual in that regard.
Even though I excelled at basketball and working out, I can honestly reflect and admit that I neglected little things that could have made me great. My lack of desire to tackle tedious tasks ultimately held me back from reaching my full potential. I don’t have regrets about it, but I am grateful to now learn from it. I have found that the tendency to be “okay” with certain bad habits in areas we believe that we are “choosing” can lead to unfortunate situations throughout life, especially in regards to mental health.
So I will get straight to my point this week…
I believe that we live in a society that is conditioned for comfort. So much so that it makes significant impacts on how we deal with adversity, struggle, and ultimately our overall mental wellbeing.
Think about it for a second. Fast food, delivery services, sleep number beds, streaming platforms, iMessage, Facetimes, self-driving cars, the list goes on and on. Advancement in technology is a beautiful thing, but we have to be real with what is going on. Everything in our life is designed for comfort and convenience. All the things I mentioned and didn’t mention are designed to give us what we want when we want, and exactly how we want it. Rather than cook a meal, we opt for fast food. Rather than leave the house to pick up the fast food, we have it delivered. We now have the ability to control how soft or firm our mattresses are and at what angle any part of our body gets to lie. Rather than having to wait for a tv show to come on like when we were kids, we have control of when we get to watch, if we want to pause it, and then “more shows like this” get recommended to us as soon as it finishes. The next show even starts playing automatically if we make Netflix wait too long. Furthermore, one of the most common questions asked when going over to someone else’s house is, “can I get the wifi?”. We are so conditioned to having things available at the snap of a finger that it is of the utmost inconvenience that we would EVER have to wait on something to load. We act as if we never had to deal with the annoying sounds and lag time of dial-up internet, so waiting on an Instagram story is completely ridiculous if we only have 2 bars of service when visiting with our friends.
Now don’t think that I am some perfect person that doesn’t indulge in any of this, I am just as guilty as anyone else. However, I was lucky enough to go through a mental health crisis that opened up my eyes to what I was being conditioned to. I played the victim in almost every situation of adversity that I faced, and when something didn’t go my way it was the end of the world. What I began to realize is that the frustration I would feel when I didn’t get my way in relationships felt oddly similar to the frustration I would feel when I got the wrong size t-shirt sent to me from an online order. It felt oddly similar to the feeling I would get when someone cut me off on the freeway, and it felt oddly similar to the feeling I would get when a waiter or waitress got my order wrong. The expectancy of comfort was bleeding into bigger and more complex areas of my life. We are so used to so many facets of our day meeting our exact specifications, that we begin to expect the same in all areas. Now if you haven’t realized this, there are MANY things in life that are simply out of our control, and that poses this problem: how are we supposed to act accordingly to rejection or struggle when every day we are conditioned for comfort and self-satisfaction?
In my experience, I could not act accordingly because I was not aware of why I felt the entitlement that I did. I ruined relationships and hurt people because I was only able to see and expect love to MY specifications. In my healing journey, it took time, but I was finally able to realize that sometimes things aren’t going to go your way and that is okay. I chose to be less resistant to the circumstances I was facing and that actually opened my eyes to how reliant I was on the convenience in other aspects of my life.
In response, I began to practice not getting what I wanted. This started by creating boundaries for myself. I had to cut leisure out of my life in order to make room for positive structure. Rather than come home to lay on the couch and watch tv or go on my phone, I made it mandatory for myself to read at least a chapter of a book a day. Now some days I found this enjoyable and fulfilling, but other days it seemed more like an annoying task. However, a commitment to choosing and acting on something I didn’t necessarily want showed to pay off in the long term. I read many books that opened my eyes to new ideas and perspectives that have contributed to me growing into a more well-rounded human being. Additionally, whenever I was “wronged” by a stranger I committed to a new mantra. When someone would cut me off on the freeway, be rude to me in public, or any other situation...I would simply repeat “they are confused”. I had to make the active decision to not get upset, honk, or return rudeness even though those are things I definitely wanted to do. I had to practice getting outside of my selfish mindset and realize that those strangers did not wake up that morning with “Ruin Caelan’s Day” on their checklists. It may sound bizarre, but I am now okay with people wronging me...I sometimes even desire it. The reason being is that when someone wrongs me now I have the ability to show them love. This can be confusing to the “wrong-doer”, but it also allows it to be highly impactful.
Another way I have practiced not getting what I want is through my morning routine. I was never much of a morning person, but I have recently committed to working out early in my day. I would be lying if I said that I WANTED to get out of bed every day at 5:45...but I do it anyway. Sometimes it looks like miserably dragging myself out of my bed and down to my car to head to the gym, but at the end of my workout I am always glad I did. Then, after the workout, I take an ice-cold shower. I LOVE what this simple routine has done for my life. Even though it is uncomfortable almost every single time, cold showers have enhanced my mental health almost as much as anything else I have experienced. I always have the option to turn the handle a little bit more to experience a nice warm shower, but by choosing not to, I condition myself for mishaps and unexpected surprises throughout my day. In the actual act of taking a cold shower, I also find that when you embrace something you don’t want, it actually makes it more tolerable. The less I tense up under the cold water, the easier it is for my body to adjust to the temperature. I believe that in the same way, when we become more accepting of undesirable outcomes, they actually become less undesirable. That might sound a little confusing, but what I am trying to say is that when we become more okay with outcomes that aren’t our first choice, all outcomes have the ability to be seen as “good” or “acceptable” despite our preconceived notions. By being more open to more than just “our way or the highway”, we expand our minds and our capabilities to experience the good of every situation.
Now everything that I shared is not expected to work for every single person, but this is what has worked for me and impacted my life. The main point of this writing is just to bring awareness to the conditioning that happens in our lives that can have adverse effects in other areas. In my life, there have been many times when I say I “want” something, but I have been unwilling to put in the work to get it. I believe this is because when things come easy, we expect them to stay easy. However, we then lose the opportunity to learn how to work for what we want and grow. An easy life is great until the rubber meets the road and our world gets turned upside down. Becoming an accepting person to unfavorable outcomes has made significant impacts on my life. I no longer want what I want for myself, but I want what God wants for me. The freedom that comes with that has become invaluable to me. If any of this resonates with you, I would love to connect and share on ideas that might work in your personal life.
And that’s all I gotta say about that. (Forrest Gump voice)
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