Things will be better when…

[dbobfish]

Things will be better when I have a bigger car.
Things will be better when I have a bigger house.
Things will be better when I have more time.
Things will be better when I’ve had a holiday.
Things will be better when I get paid at the month end.
Things will be better when I have a new job.
Things will be better when the summer comes.
Things will be better when….

Funny isn’t it how we often expect things will be better when…..

I do this quite a lot, and I laugh at myself for doing it because I realise how ridiculous it is.

Like almost everyone else I see visit this forum everyday, I am trying to get my life more organised.

I thought things will be better when I have a swish new laptop computer.

I got one. It’s fantastic. It has so much potential to do so many things – some of which I will never need (or fully understand!)

So, now I have it, I’ve noticed a huge change in the way I work.

Just as I’d hoped I am now at the cutting edge of organisation. People often remark on how well organised I am, and how they always know I can get a job done.

I now go to bed at night two hours earlier than I used to because those two hours are spare – surplus to my requirements because I am so ahead of the game.

I sit around often wishing time would speed up a little – things seem to pass me by in bullet time now because I’m so fast and able – so ‘on the ball’.

No ok, so I’m being sarcastic. The new laptop didn’t make all that difference after all. Now I have a laptop which looks up at me saying ‘ok, I’m fast and powerful, lets tear up the road – what do ya wanna do?’ and I sit there looking back saying ‘er’..

Yep – I now have this ‘go anywhere – do anything’ fancy piece of hardware, and I don’t know where I want to go or what I want to do!

I own technology that my Grandfathers would have marvelled at. My Great Grandfathers might have cowered away from the lights and display thinking it was magical and yet, it seems, they did so much more than me without all of these technological ‘advantages’.

They had to endure greater hardships in the lifetimes and work harder for less income and for no where near the same level of recreation as we have today.

Mind boggling.

Never mind… It’ll be better when I….

 

[mcogilvie]

Things will be better when I have a bigger car.
Things will be better when I have a bigger house.
Things will be better when I have more time.
Things will be better when I’ve had a holiday.
Things will be better when I get paid at the month end.
Things will be better when I have a new job.
Things will be better when the summer comes.
Things will be better when….

Funny isn’t it how we often expect things will be better when…..

Congratulations- you've discovered the power of negative affirmations! Next step is "Things will never get better because I'll never have.." and then you'll be black belt! Seriously, it's great that you're aware of your behavior and can laugh at yourself.

How about "Every day I am learning more about/getting better at/making progress towards ..." instead? It's amazing how turning around a negative thought can really help.

 

[dbobfish]

mcogilvie -

Yep you got me. It's just so ironic though isn't it.

Like you say, it's all about attitude and your general outlook on life etc.

I like your comments re 'everyday I'm getting better at...' puts me in mind of Anthony Robbins hour of power routines.

It's also ironic though how sometimes I soak up all of this information but then forget to put it into practice! Doh!

These day's I'm surrounded by tech toys - all kinds of gadgets, some of which I used to dream of having, and yet I expect there are guys in the Australian outback making better daily use of their more basic tools than I make of my hi-tech gear! :-D

Knowledge and tools have a certain similarity in that having them doesn't make us any more effective - but how we use them does! :roll:

Bobfish

 

[unstuffed]

dbobfish, you mention your grandfather and great-grandfather, and then say "Mind-boggling" - and you've inadvertently hit the centre of the issue.

Yes, our grandparents and great-grandparents had physically difficult lives (some of them, at least). My gran got up at 5 every morning, did washing for a family of 6 (including three men working in a garage) in a copper, for which she had to pump water from the tank and boil it on the stove. And so on.

Yes, our lives are physically much easier. But we have far more things tangling our minds, which is what makes modern life so difficult and often unpleasant. For instance, just a couple of decades ago, if one wanted a phone connection, one rang the (singular) phone company and they connected it. There was no need to evaluate different offers, no need to think about likely usage patterns, just one company, one call.

And they'd provide the phone, so there was no collecting information or decision-making there either. The contracts were simple: they'd provide the service, and you'd pay for what you used. Have you read a phone contract recently? If so, then you know how ghastly they are.

Sounds trivial, but that's a single example of the unnecessary complexity that's being shoved on us in the name of 'freedom of choice'. None of these ex-public utilities are offering different products, the difference is only in the pricing. So we have spurious choices and nagging things to think about. Plus all the "what if"s that come because our current society is astonishingly unstable: what if I lose my job, what if the economy collapses, what if there's another mad cow scare, what if, what if, what if. So much to worry about.

Multiply that by thousands, for the thousands of things we do each day, and you begin to see why our heads feel so full of fuzz all the time. We're being pushed and pulled by a whole lot of unnecessary issues.

I know this shows my age, but I keep thinking of that old Devo song, Freedom Of Choice. It seems as the years go by that we have a surfeit of choice about things that don't matter, and less and less choice about things that do.