People sometimes ask me about self-improvement. Maybe they’ve made a New Year’s resolution or set a new professional goal. Others want to see change toward a healthier lifestyle. One way or another, they want to move on from where they are today. I think we all do. While there’s no shortage of self-improvement hacks, I’m convinced that there are two more fundamental questions to ask before you consider any of them. Let me start by explaining why.
When Jim Carrey announced the nominees for Best Motion Picture in Comedy at the 2017 Golden Globes Ceremony, he made a joke that everyone in the room knew was all too real. He said: “You know, when I go to sleep at night, I'm not just a guy going to sleep. I'm two-time Golden Globe winner, Jim Carrey, going to get some well-needed shuteye. And when I dream, I don't just dream any old dream. No sir. I dream about being three-time Golden Globe winning actor, Jim Carrey. Because then I would be enough. It would finally be true. And I could stop this terrible search for what I know ultimately won't fulfill me.” Cue nervous laughter.
Feelings of hopelessness usually catch people by surprise. It’s as if we assign those kinds of negative feelings to a certain personality type and we assume that we’re immune. But dark clouds can settle in on anyone’s outlook. The question is what you can do about them.
In the days following Will Smith’s slap of Chris Rock at the Academy Awards, almost every aspect of the altercation was dissected. Did Chris Rock know that Pinket Smith had alopecia? Did the domestic violence that Will Smith witnessed as a child trigger his passion in defending his wife? Was the Academy to blame in not removing Smith from the ceremony? Fellow actors have rushed in to express their feelings of outrage or support. Analysts plot Smith’s next moves. And everybody seems to love “being concerned.” But there’s a question that nobody’s bothered to ask.
There are many things that make work hard. There are pressures, deadlines, expectations, and crises to deal with. While those things make work difficult, it’s almost always the people problems that make work unbearable. Conflict with coworkers keeps you up at night and makes you dread getting up in the morning. So, what can you do about it?
Stress can weigh on almost every aspect of our lives. It interrupts our sleep. It affects our digestion. It causes aches in our bodies. It also impacts our relationships and our performance at work. According to a recent poll, about 1 in 4 Canadians said that they feel quite stressed or extremely stressed most days. Women reported feeling stressed by expectations, relationships, and family concerns while men were more stressed by layoffs, pay cuts, demotions, and financial difficulties. The question is: What do you do about it?
“Tell your wife and kids you love them tonight. I shall do the same as I really don’t know if I will have many more chances to do so.” Those were the words of a man exposed by the 2015 hack of the Ashley Madison website. The site was started by a Toronto-born entrepreneur with the slogan: “Life is short, have an affair” and boasted tens of millions of users in more than 50 countries. When it was hacked, their entire database was released online and there were reports of suicide, divorce, and online shaming of users. While the forms of sexual temptation vary in each generation, the reality and painful consequences of it don’t. I fear that we’re missing some of the Bible’s old-school wisdom in this area. Consider these principles from the Book of Proverbs.
Nobody wants to look back on their decisions with regret, but often we struggle to understand the right direction. I read one article that gave a list of ways to make better decisions. It began with the following:
Don’t fear the consequences
Go with your gut instincts
Consider your emotions
If God doesn’t care and it’s all up to us, maybe that’s the best that we can do. It’s not hard to see how that advice for decision-making could end very, very badly, however. The Book of Proverbs gives us a far more reliable grid through which to process our decisions. Consider these 3 principles.
Are you spending more time with cyber friends than neighbourhood friends? Are you focused more on quantity of friendships than quality? Are you listening to the kind of voices that are fuelling your anger? Or have you let charm and beauty take the priority that character and God’s grace were intended to have in your thinking? Let the Bible’s ancient wisdom guard your interaction with social media today.
The late Nelson Mandela once said, “It is never my custom to use words lightly. If 27 years in prison have done anything to us, it was to use the silence of solitude to make us understand how precious words are and how real speech is in its impact on the way people live and die.” Although we’ve all experienced more solitude and isolation over the last two years, we haven’t necessarily grown in our respect for the impact of our words and how we use them.
