This and That (From The Kid)

Man, just chill.

Life is stressful. Obligations, people, schedules, the future, the past.

Man, just chill.

It is hard to heighten your perspective in the moment. We are wired for reaction; to act on our emotions in the moment. We have such a narrow scope of what is happening to us and around us. We get worked up, we stress, we make emotional decisions, only to realize in the future that hindsight is always 20/20.

A quote I read some time ago has been resonating with me lately. “Things are never as good as they seem, and things are never as bad as they seem.” We get caught up in our shallow emotions that influence us to act on them in the immediate only to gain some real perspective as time passes. I am working on detaching myself from the moment, to think before acting, and to see everything with my objective eye rather than looking through a subjective lens. Heightening my perspective per say to get clarity before making decisions.

We can not control the emotions that arise in the moment, but we do choose how we respond to these emotions. We choose to be offended. We choose to let anger overtake us. We choose to let stress turn into procrastination and find comfort in our phones knowing we are just causing more stress to be dealt with later. Emotions actually lend us to not use our rational thinking and judgement. It is important to understand this reality in the moment. This is why we typically make bad decisions when we are emotional. Self-awareness of the emotions we are feeling and disassociating these feelings from our identity is a great first step in heightening your perspective. Realizing that though I am feeling this way, I do not have to act on this or let it overtake me.

So the phrase, “Man, just chill,” is something I say to myself often. Talking to myself in the third-person, acting like I am giving advice to myself. Whether the emotions are good or bad, I am trying to stay neutral and remove myself emotionally from the moment to gain perspective. I think this is a good practice for anyone.