Do you find life a little too stressful sometimes? Maybe a question can at least make it a little easier for you …
Life is not a sundae that we gleefully lick away from start to finish. It presents us with tasks and problems, breaks things that we have painstakingly built up and loved, and it's rarely fair. Still, it's such an unlikely gift that we can't help but be grateful, no matter how difficult it is sometimes. Besides, it might not be entirely wrong to be challenged by life, because – who knows? – otherwise we might screw it up ourselves. In any case, at least some people seem to have an easier time creating or finding problems than solving them …
We can also make it easier for ourselves
The good news is: Just as we can ruin our life and make it difficult, we can also make it as comfortable and easy as possible – in good times and bad. One way we can do this is to put our energy where it makes sense and focus on the things that matter most – and learn to identify them we can with the simple question:
- Can I do anything about that?
This parable of two circles has been handed down from the stoic philosophy of antiquity: In our life there is a very small circle of things that we can influence and change. In this circle we are of course ourselves with our thinking, our perception and everything that defines us as a person. It also contains all of our actions that have an external impact: our behavior towards others, our performance at work, social or political commitment, purchase decisions … This small circle is however enclosed by a huge circle that symbolizes everything we do cannot influence: the behavior of other people, weather, wars, pandemics, diseases …
We may and should be interested in what happens in a large group, as long as we have the capacity for it – after all, what we do and decide in a small group can radiate beyond its limits. On the other hand, we can often react to things that we observe in a large circle, on a small scale: If a pandemic prevails, we can keep our distance, does factory farming lead to massive environmental problems, we can buy organic meat or eat a vegetarian or vegan diet. But everything that takes place in a large circle and we cannot change immediately should never upset us or absorb us so much that it slows us down or even paralyzes us in a small circle.
It's all a question of perception
In fact, concentrating on the small circle not only has a practical energy saving effect, but also a psychological one: If we are constantly dealing with things that we cannot change and wreaking havoc, we feel frustrated, overwhelmed and powerless in the long run – and find life difficult in the first place. On the other hand, let us focus on ourselves and our small circle, i. H. Everything that we can influence gives us drive and motivation as well as the feeling of being able to achieve something (which we can!) and self-confidence – and so we may not perceive life as an ice cream sundae, but at least as a Adventure that we can create to a large extent ourselves.