Embracing The Quality Of Your Negative Experiences

In today’s session we contemplate the quote, ‘The quality of your life is not determined by the quality of your positive experiences, but by the quality of your negative experiences. To get good at dealing with negative experiences, is to get good at life.’ From Mark Manson, an American Author. This track is taken from my course, ‘Daily Contemplations For Living An Examined Life’, available now via my profile.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the session.

I invite you to take a seat or lay down and get yourself comfortable.

You can close down the eyes if you wish and take a deep slow breath in through the nose and out through the mouth.

And just gently begin to open your mind to today's quote.

To contemplate the words with a free and open and supple mind.

To welcome in possibility and expansion and growth.

And to allow yourself for the next few minutes to just sit and be with whatever arises.

In a moment I'm going to share with you a quote to contemplate and then we'll just sit in silence for a minute and let it percolate.

Then we'll talk about that quote and see where the discussion leads us.

Today's quote comes from Mark Manson,

An American author,

And it goes,

The quality of your life is not determined by the quality of your positive experiences,

But by the quality of your negative experiences.

To get good at dealing with negative experiences is to get good at life.

The quality of your life is not determined by the quality of your positive experiences,

But by the quality of your negative experiences.

To get good at dealing with negative experiences is to get good at life.

This quote hints at the core of pipe dreaming,

Rather,

Versus reality.

It's very easy to desire a wealthy lifestyle,

The house,

The car,

The fancy restaurants,

Etc.

Or to imagine being a world-class athlete,

Or a best-selling author,

Or a professional coach,

Or a professional coach,

Or a world-renowned artist or poet,

Musician,

Etc.

The CEO,

A good parent.

Whatever it is,

It's very easy to look at the positives,

Look at the end goal,

Look at that final state with lust,

With jealousy,

With desire,

With hope.

Then you will get and attain that space,

That place,

That status.

These are the positive experiences that often push us.

Because yes,

Wouldn't it be good to have those things?

Or at least the aspects of those things that we value.

For me,

It's teaching,

It's coaching,

It's poetry writing.

There's aspects in this space that really appeal to me.

The positive experiences of the feedback,

Of the connection,

Of the expression are divine.

Making this course,

Speaking to you right now,

To get meta for a little bit,

Is wonderful.

I enjoy this process.

But what about the negative experiences,

The stuff that comes along with it?

Now we're going to talk about negative life experiences in general,

But what about just the negative life experiences that come along with the positive?

After I finish this talk,

I'm going to have to sit and edit my words,

Get rid of all of the vocal tics,

The background sounds.

It's a process.

I'm going to have to do some writing up,

I'm going to have to upload it.

All of this takes time and all of it isn't as great as the act of expression and instruction with you right now.

Same thing is true for other things I do in life.

My poetry,

My coaching,

My teaching.

All of these things have amazing positives,

But they come with a lot of less than ideal and sometimes negative experiences as well.

Take a professional athlete.

Yeah,

Wouldn't it be great to be winning the championship game,

But perhaps it's less great to be doing the repetitions by yourself,

Day in and day out,

When no one is watching.

Can you put in the long hours to be the CEO?

Can you drop what you need to do to be the good parent?

Basically,

Can you handle the bad aspects of what you want to become to attain the good?

To get good at dealing with negative experiences is to get good at life.

Now,

We've only spoken about the bad aspects of good experiences,

But let's go a little bit deeper,

Because no matter what you want to achieve,

Even if you just want to just get by in life,

Bad things are going to happen.

A,

You're going to have to deal with it.

B,

You're going to have a reality of this world,

Of this universe,

Is that time continues.

Atrophy exists.

Trauma happens.

Even if you live the perfect life,

That perfect life will be tinged with sadness.

It could be said that if your life is 51% good,

Then that's above average and you'll probably want to live it again.

Because a perfect life involves connection with others,

Involves love,

Involves attainment,

Involves growth,

But all of those things inherently have a downside.

Every connection you make will eventually be broken by time,

By loss,

By death.

Even the connection to yourself,

Your body is aging and eventually it will pass.

You will get sick.

You will face loss and downturn and injury and sickness,

As too will the people around you.

Your country and indeed the world,

The universe,

Will go through ebbs and flows.

So perfection isn't really granted over a lifetime,

But in the moment.

The point is that negative experiences will arise,

And how you handle those negative experiences determines experiences determines much of your life.

Indeed it is your life.

It's not like life is only the good things,

But it's also the bad things.

It's all life.

This moment,

And then the next,

And then the next,

And then the next.

Be they good or bad,

Are the life.

And how you handle those negative experiences pushes you forth into new aspects,

Into new places.

If you hang on to the negative aspects,

The negative experiences,

They will tint and sort of taint and corrupt the positive experiences because you're trapped in your past.

If you're ruminating or worrying about the future,

It's now impacting your future,

Thus impacting more positivity.

If you can take the negativity in stride,

If you can accept it,

Feel it,

Integrate it,

And move on with a lesson learned,

With wisdom,

I mean that's the best could be said for a physical flesh-based entity that we are.

Perhaps this goes against your spiritual beliefs,

But you and me in this body right now,

We are bound to the flesh,

And the flesh inherently has negative experiences associated with it.

I train martial arts,

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

I train three to four times a week.

I also exercise because those experiences are joyful,

But every day I wake up in a little bit of pain.

My joints hurt,

My range of movement is limited,

Sometimes I get injured.

I could quit,

I could turn away,

I could stop,

But to run from those negative experiences rather than accept them as a part of the process would be to chuck everything out,

The good with the bad,

Because if I was not to do those activities then my body would deteriorate in other ways,

And it's going to happen anyway.

So why not look at those pains,

Those issues,

Those injuries as part of the process,

As part of the journey.

At the time of recording I am coming out of what would be described as a dark night of the soul.

A bad event after bad event,

After bad luck,

After bad advice,

And a whole variety of things happened all at once in my life,

And it was challenging to say the least.

But I survived,

I've learned,

I've come through the other side of the dark cave that was my experience in my life in my mind.

Better for it,

Things have opened up internally,

Reconnection and reintegration of parts of my body.

That negative experience,

Processing it,

Learning from it,

Accepting it,

Whilst it was terrible,

Has become one of the best things that I've experienced,

Because it's led to tremendous amounts of positivity.

Now I don't know if my interpretation of this quote is in line with the author's intent,

But the point of this course is to present you with a quote and to get you to contemplate it,

To contemplate along with me,

And then to consider the ramifications of the intersection between those things.

So let's read it again and sit in silent contemplation of it for another minute and see where that leads us.

The quality of your life is not determined by the quality of your positive experiences,

But the quality of your negative experiences.

To get good at dealing with negative experiences is to get good at life.

So well done.

This brings us to the end of the session.

At the bottom of your screen,

You'll see the option to view the classroom or to ask a question.

Before moving on,

I invite you to take a moment to click through and share your insights,

To read answers from the other students,

And to hear my replies.

Remember to start your responses with Mark Manson or to restate the quote so that we all know which one you're referring to.

This is an opportunity for deep learning,

Further introspection and insight,

So please don't miss out.

I look forward to seeing you in the next session.

Thank you.

This track was taken from my course,

Daily Contemplations for Living an Examined Life.

It's out now on InsightTimer and available via my profile.

I invite you to join in.

Reviews

Mark Manson
Very well spoken and thought provoking. Thank you