Life Is Tough, Or Is It? Choosing Your Perspective

This talk explores the age-old question: Is life inherently difficult, or is our experience shaped by our perspective? Join us as we delve into the power of mindset, resilience, and the transformative potential of choosing how we view life's challenges.

Transcript

Welcome to the Happiness Podcast.

I'm Dr.

Robert Puff.

I want to share something with you which might surprise you.

Life can be tough sometimes.

Sometimes it feels pointless.

Sometimes it feels cruel.

Sometimes it just sucks.

And you right now may know someone or you yourself may be listening to this podcast and say,

You're right,

Dr.

Puff,

Life sucks.

And this is a part that's going to surprise you.

You're right.

But Dr.

Puff,

I thought this was a happiness podcast and you're supposed to help us make us happier.

What do you mean life sucks?

I didn't say life sucks.

I said,

You're right.

If you think life sucks,

Life sucks.

Now the next thing I'm going to say might make you mad.

Hopefully you'll hang in there and listen to the rest of the podcast to understand what I'm talking about.

If you think life sucks,

You're right,

Because your thoughts are going to feed that.

Our minds are so powerful.

They really do create our reality.

Have you ever known someone who's really depressed?

I mean clinically depressed.

Obviously,

Given what I do,

I've known lots of people that struggle with severe depression.

And you'll be amazed how difficult it is for them to see life in a positive way.

For them,

Everything is dark.

Everything is gloomy and their lives are hard.

They're very challenging.

And though I love working with them,

The truth of it is,

Though I definitely can help them,

They do resist the help.

Our thoughts are so powerful.

And our thoughts feed and generate certain emotions inside of us.

So if our thoughts are negative,

We're going to feel negative things.

We're going to definitely think that life sucks.

I want to share a story about my own experience with this that happened once when I was in graduate school.

I have two master's degrees and a PhD,

But my first master's degree was in comparative religion.

When I was working on my master's degree in comparative religion,

I went on a summer trip to countries around the world to visit different cultures that had different religious backgrounds so that I could study the religions in that culture.

Well,

I'd been about eight weeks in the Far East studying the various religious cultures of those countries.

I was on an extremely tight budget and it was very hot.

So I think after eight weeks,

My body was just done and I needed to get out of there and get home.

So my ticket wasn't for another week,

But I decided to go to the airport and see if I could get a flight home earlier because I was just ready to go home.

I'd actually really enjoyed the trip,

But I just reached a point where I said I need to get home.

So when I got to the airport,

This is where my thoughts got me in a whole lot of trouble.

I put my name on the waiting list for the flight to go home a week early and they said they had no idea if I'd be able to get on and I would just have to wait.

Well,

When I started waiting and thinking about having to stay another week,

And mind you,

I'd had a nice trip up to that point,

But my mind decided it was time to go home and I needed to get on that plane and if I couldn't get on that plane,

It was going to be dire consequences.

And prior getting to the airport,

I was okay.

The whole trip had gone quite well.

I thought it'd be nice to get home a week early because the heat was getting to me.

Well then my mind went a little wacko.

I mean,

I actually observed it going like,

I need to get home.

I need to get home.

It just kept repeating that.

I need to get on that plane.

I need to get out of here.

It felt like I was going a little crazy because it's like,

I just needed to get on that plane and get home.

There was no other option.

I had to get on that plane.

I couldn't sit still.

I was just pacing back and forth.

I kept going up to them,

Finding out that they had space on the plane.

They kept saying no and no and no and then they started filling up the plane and the plane was almost ready to leave and they called my name and I got on that plane and there was such a relief once I got on that plane.

But I remember almost immediately as I was sitting on that plane,

I thought,

What happened?

Why was I so upset and needing to get on that plane?

It wouldn't have been a big deal if I had to stay another week.

My mind had created a story that my life was really sucking right then.

If I hadn't gotten on that plane,

It would have been horrible.

It only happened to me once,

But I really remember it.

But the sad truth is,

There's a lot of people out there,

Perhaps you listening to this podcast right now,

That are stuck in very dark thinking that life does suck and if you think that's true,

It's going to be true for you.

But the truth is,

There's alternate truths.

Over the course of my life,

I've missed so many planes and had to sleep in so many airports.

I can't even tell you how many times this happened to me.

And so many times when that happens,

I just do that.

I wait for my flight.

Now I'm at least able to get a hotel room if I get stuck.

I mean,

They may be a little irritating,

Of course,

But they're not upsetting.

They're not incredibly depressing and I don't see it as life sucks.

I just see it as life and something that I have to adjust to,

Which is easy to do when I don't fight life,

But I flow with life.

Now you may be thinking,

Well,

Dr.

Puff,

Missing a plane is not that big a deal.

You don't understand what I'm going through right now.

I'm going through a divorce.

I just lost my job or I've been diagnosed with a very serious illness.

But this is where the power of perspective is so influential.

One of my son's friends just graduated from college and he's been applying to a lot of jobs,

Hundreds,

And only gotten five interviews so far.

Now,

If he had a negative perspective thinking that life sucks,

He would probably give up and quit trying.

And don't we all know people that that's happened to where they lost their job and they never really got back into the workforce again?

Not that they couldn't have.

It was hard.

It was challenging.

But they gave up because their perspective,

Their thoughts said,

Life sucks.

And they gave up.

My son's friend has not given up and he won't give up.

And sooner or later,

He's going to find that job.

It's inevitable.

Or another acquaintance of mine who I know through Facebook,

She has been divorced twice.

She has kids from both husbands.

And I think for a lot of people,

After two times,

You might just give up,

But she didn't give up.

And I woke up this morning seeing pictures of her on Facebook,

Getting married for the third time,

And they looked so happy.

I don't know how it would turn out,

But it looked good.

And she hadn't given up.

At a deeper level,

What we're exploring here is the difference between a fixed mindset that would say life is just hard to a growth mindset that would say challenges are opportunity for growth.

You know,

The funny and sad thing about people that get stuck in life sucks mentality is they really think their lives are harder than anyone else.

That's why their life sucks because their life has been really hard.

The truth of it is all of us go through hard times,

Sometimes really tough ones,

But when we don't give up,

Yes,

It's going to look very different.

You and I both know a lot of people who lost their job and just gave up.

Life sucked and they just didn't try anymore and probably their finances now are quite tough.

There's lots of people out there like that,

But other people have lost their job and they didn't give up and they kept trying and they kept putting forth effort and then something turned out,

Something worked and they were able to move forward.

So yes,

It's super powerful and you're right when you think life sucks,

But you're also right when you think it doesn't suck and if we don't give up,

There's always going to be a solution to anything life throws at us and we can have beautiful lives.

Can you imagine the energy we bring to our lives?

If that was our philosophy,

If that was our perspective,

That no matter what comes our way we can handle it,

We're going to get through it and we're going to do well.

But as I started this podcast,

Both have energy with them.

Both have truth to them and if we believe life sucks,

Our lives probably will suck.

If we believe that we can grow from adversity and overcome anything life throws our way,

That will be our life too.

So the reality at which we experience life doesn't come from what life is presenting to us.

It comes from the way we interpret life.

So what's important is to ask ourselves,

How am I interpreting my life?

If we believe that the world is a hateful,

Cruel place that we just need to survive at and no matter what we do,

It's just going to be challenging,

Difficult and pretty much bad,

Then that will be our experience.

If we believe that life has opportunities,

Ways that we can grow and that when challenges come,

They're there to help us get better and improve.

And no matter what life brings to us,

We got this,

We can overcome this.

That's what we'll experience too.

So I want to use the remainder of this podcast to be very practical on how do we do this.

So when we have challenges,

Let's use that word,

Not that life sucks,

But we have challenges,

We have to first look at them and see how we're interpreting our life right now.

Do we believe there's a lot of scoundrels out there that are just out to get us?

And if we don't keep our guard up,

They're going to get us.

We need to be really careful and cautious and make sure we're keeping the bad guys at bay.

Then we need to ask ourselves,

Is this feeding my soul?

Is this making my life better?

Because often what happens is we get attracted to that which we think is out there.

Don't we all know really negative people that keep dating really negative people and get in such incredible dysfunctional relationships,

But they hate the world.

We have to keep bringing people in their lives that feed that hatred.

See not only do our negative thoughts make us stuck and make us unhappy,

They also can make us make decisions that are silly,

That aren't good for our soul.

So if we,

Every night after a long day of work and we hate our work and we hate our lives,

Go to the bar every night and hanging out with other people that may be in our same situation,

We're probably going to reinforce that negatively very strongly because some of the people there might be scoundrels or at least acting like scoundrels.

So we can't change something unless we're aware of it.

So the first thing we need to do is get to know ourselves and see what am I thinking about all day long?

Are these thoughts feeding my soul?

Are these thoughts negative and dark and leading to a life of sadness or depression or anger?

Then after we're aware of what we're thinking,

Then we say,

How do I reframe this if it's negative?

How do I see it as a growth opportunity?

For example,

Let's say we're going through a divorce.

The way we could reframe it if we're stuck in negative thinking is,

Well,

A lot of people get divorced.

It doesn't make me a bad person.

It just means that relationship didn't work.

And so how do I learn from it?

So if I decided to get in another relationship,

I'll make better choices for myself and I'll be a better partner.

Do you see how we reframe things into more positive and walking away from the negativity thoughts that we have in our head?

Each are true.

That's the part we have to remember.

But if we realize that,

Oh,

I can actually reframe this,

Then what will happen is we will get a different result.

So here's some really tangible things that we can start cultivating in our lives.

We can start practicing gratitude,

Waking up every morning,

Going to bed every night,

Looking at the things we're grateful for in our lives.

There's always something we can be grateful for.

Then we can work on cultivating optimism and look at the bright side of things instead of the negative side of things,

Because when we don't know the outcome,

Something could turn out well.

And then we can work on getting good social support in our lives,

Being with people that are more positive,

That are more optimistic,

That have a growth mindset.

We are affected by the people we're around.

If we're around people like us that want to have a good life,

We have a much stronger possibility of having a good life.

And then humor can be so helpful.

Sometimes we get on a roll and a lot of things go bad right after another,

But laughing about them and saying,

Wow,

This wasn't the best day,

But tomorrow ought to be better.

Using humor can be so helpful.

And then I think what can be also helpful is studying people that have gone through what we've gone through and come out of it on top,

That are doing well,

They're having great lives,

Even though they went through the same suffering that we're going through.

When we have hope,

When we know it's possible,

Then we don't give up.

And then if we need a little extra help to get through our days or through our lives,

Seek professional help from a really good counselor or a psychologist that can help you get better.

We can get better,

But sometimes we need a little help and that's okay.

Later on,

We can help others that are going through a tough time.

So in conclusion,

If we can remember that if we think life sucks,

We're right.

But if we think life brings us opportunities to grow when life is hard,

We're right too.

Why don't we choose the latter?

So that way,

When we take our last breath and we look back over our lives,

We can say,

That was a good life.

Thank you for joining me on the Happiness Podcast.

Until next time,

Accept what is,

Love what is.

Reviews

Thank you!

This has the same message as Loving What Is by Byron Katie, but I find it so much kinder and clearer.

Always excellent

Helpful!
Thank you 🙏🏼

Thank you for bringing such wise words through your message. The timing for me was just right. I aim to look at my perspective through the lens of gratefulness

🙏🏾

Thank you 🙏

Another great podcast filled with wisdom 🫶