Write Your Character, Then Live It

I get lost in thought a lot. I think about things until I just land at the conclusion that I have no idea. But sometimes I hit bedrock and feel like my thoughts now only have one place to move and that’s up. Eventually that upward thinking lands me on practical grounds where I can implement those thoughts into life through some sort of action.

This is probably sounding very abstract but the example might help. Read this with an open mind because it’s just where my thoughts go, not a conversation about right or wrong. Drum roll please: how to have direction in your life… like all the time. There’s A LOT to unpack here so strap in and enjoy a little trip into my brain.

I’ve always loved how Jordan Peterson (put politics aside for literally 5 seconds, he’s an amazing thinker) says that people will say “I just want to be happy” and his response is “just happy?” “JUST?!” Like it’s some simple thing that isn’t too much to ask for. Except it’s everything to ask for. It’s literally the ultimate goal. The thing people search for in everything they do. Career, partner, leisure activities, purchases, etc. You want to be happy. This is no easy feat.

So, we all would say we want to be happy or content or peaceful or some other synonym. But let’s pause here for a second—define that for yourself. I realized that I didn't want to be any feeling in particular. My question was what kind of person do I want to be? When somebody thinks of you, you want them to think “Oh, [your name here] is such a ___________________ person. My answer would be positive, productive, and good. That thought right there dictates a lot of my decisions in life. And it’s not about putting the focus on what other people think about you, but other well-intentioned people are a great way to get an accurate “unbiased” look at ourselves. Our ego will distort our self image so the more people you have saying you are something, the larger the sample size, the more reliable the data.

Getting back on track here—you said you would want people to say you’re such a ________ person. What does a __________ person like that look like? How do they conduct themselves? How do they act? How do they respond to stressful events? What would their morning routine look like? You get the point. Picture what it is this person would do or how they would handle various life scenarios that you also come across. Does this person wake up and go on their phone? Do they get angry at traffic? Is that activity conducive to being the person you want to be? Be skeptical. Give yourself reality checks. If you don’t know who or what you want to be, you have no metric to use to know whether or not you’re moving towards that person or away from them. Be brutally honest here.

See there’s six ways in which I feel you can improve your life adopted from a talk by Earl Nightengale:

1. Set a definite goal
2. Stop running yourself down
3. Stop thinking about all the reasons you can’t and start thinking of all the reasons you can
4. Track your attitude back through childhood—when did you first think you can’t be successful?
5. Change the image of yourself by writing a description of the person you would like to be
6. Act the part of the successful person you have decided to become

So we’re jumping over a lot here getting right to the #5 and #6. But this is what’s been on my mind. I don’t want to get too lost in the specifics so let’s get back to the thought:

Once you’ve written out the description of the person you would like to be, you have something to look at every time you face a situation. I think a lot of issues that arise today around feelings can be settled through this. We live in an age of validating feelings. To a point in my opinion that has taken focus away from (again, in my opinion) what matters most: our response. We can feel any type of way about anything and for the most part we can’t control that. Feelings happen first. As the stoics would refer to it “propatheiai” which are involuntary, neutral, and innate initial reactions or "pre-emotions" that are not under conscious control. And that’s why the focus is on the response, not the feelings. You don’t need somebody to validate your feelings. They’re yours, they exist, end of story. That’s like telling somebody they’re invalidating that your name is whatever it is. If somebody tries to do that, run the other way cause that’s a crazy person. The only thing that somebody can speak to (and if they care about you they will) is the way you respond to your feelings. And how is it that you should respond? That all depends on the description you wrote of the person you would like to be. How would this person respond? That’s how you become that person. You’re not changing the way you feel, you’re changing the way you respond, and that is the key to becoming a person that you’re truly happy with and (yet again, in my opinion) that you’re happy being.

That’s it. Go be whoever you want to be.

~ Bonde