How to take more action in our lives

I tend to find that on my days off, I usually clean the house or do some sort of therapeutic work to keep myself busy. Well maybe 10% of the time, usually it’s a Lord Of The Rings marathon and eating a tub of ice cream. Anyway… One day as I was listening to an audiobook and my mind got lost on this random idea that came to my head. I don’t exactly remember how it came to my mind, but I remember being inspired by what I was listening to.

As a general rule, humans tend to make bad decisions when we let emotions decide what is right for us. Almost every choice I made or didn’t make due to anxiety, fear of embarrassment I often regret. It is usually tricky to always take a step outside of our emotional state when our emotions are ignited. They make poor decisions like over eating because we are sad, avoiding that challenge from fear of failure and can even give us the feeling that its right to verbally abuse someone.

I remember as a kid, going to friends houses to do stupid boy stuff and play video games all day. It was great, although I wasn’t a big gamer I generally loved watching other people play video games against each other. I remember always egging them on to do stupid things like getting themself blown up because it would be funny for me to watch. I used to never understand why they wouldn’t do it, like it’s just a game right? I remember when it was my turn, always being the one taking dumb risks when it was my turn, I didn’t really give a f**k. If there was a 100 metre drop of a cliff to level up that gun, I would take that chance even if it meant dying horrifically. I was looking back on this time and I started thinking, why is it that I am so reckless when playing games?

I then started to think about my own life and reminisced, and I started asking why I take myself so seriously sometimes? I started to think about what I would do if I had my own controller. What choices would I make if I were to go back on some situations? Would I have drunk called that ex? Would I have gone back and said how I was truly feeling when someone or something pissed me off? Would I have taken some risks that I thought were too much at the time?

I kinda got lost in this thought process. Now obviously it sounds a little silly to think of yourself in a game, but I really started to think. There have been many circumstances where I really got into my own head too often. I would waste time thinking about what I thought other people would be thinking of me, avoiding what I thought needed to be avoided and saying things that weren’t needing to be said.

Lately, I feel the need to catch myself whenever I feel so certain about something. It may seem silly but I honestly started to try and be comfortable with simply “not knowing”. I know this currently doesn’t make sense and that’s okay, but bare with me. At first I started to feel anxious with the whole “not knowing anything”, but I persisted and I started to get a new perspective on a few things going on. I started to figure that I really don’t know what is going on, and neither do you and thats okay. I also learnt that we should be cautious with the idea of pure certainty.

We see it day to day when someone talks a big game, but can never follow up. The paradoxical term for this is called hypocrisy, and it essentially means “all bark & no bite”. We see it in fighters often when they are so certain of how great they are but they aren’t willing to test that theory because it will threaten their identity. It is also why people who have nothing to lose are the scariest people to compete with, there is no pressure on them to win so they have the ability to see the thought of losing and not let it bother them. Competing with the thought of “needing to win” can play detrimental to our performance and it just adds unnecessary pressure. How would things play out if we were able to take action in spite of our identity being threatened?

I started to think that if I had a controller, what I would do with my character. Maybe I would quit my job and travel around the world, maybe I would’ve told that girl how I really felt, maybe I wouldn’t of skipped training so often. I found that a lot of the times when I feel held back was due to emotion. Now I’m not arguing that emotions need to disappear, emotions are important and they keep us alive. According to my gaming habits it keeps me from jumping off a cliff for fun. But acting in spite of our emotions may be something we as humans need to get better at.

What will you look back on and think how glad you are you didn’t let emotions get in the way of something meaningful. Every now and then, think about yourself sitting on a couch on a lazy day and imagine you with that controller. Now think about the character you are playing. What sought of job would your character have? How would you talk to people? What friends would you have? What adversity are you willing to go through? Would you give up on from a minor set back?

There are so many times where we get caught in our own minds. We can be so oblivious and confused about something that’s clearly right in front of you. Sometimes we need to just say f**k it and take a chance. Time is eating us second by second and one day you will die.

You always have the controller, and you are responsible for what you do next whether you like it or not. The more we avoid that responsibility, the more of a weight it will put on our shoulders.