Today's thought is about work and how it makes you feel, and what you can do about it.
If you have the sort of work (as most people do), where you're just doing some shit for someone else, this should apply to you. If you're one of the fortunate few who does something that you truly love and value, I expect you'll look at things a bit differently.
When I started working in IT, I used to worry a lot.
I used to worry that I'd break something, whether I'd get told off, whether I was 'good enough', but most of all I worried about what people thought of me.
It felt as though my emotions were a little paper boat being blown around by what was happening at the time. This thing would make me nervous, that thing would make me anxious and the other thing would take away my confidence.
This is pretty normal, right?
100,000 years ago these automatic negative feelings were useful as it gave us the instinct to quickly run away when were about to be eaten or fucked by something bigger than we wanted, but it's not helpful anymore.
So after living like this for a few years I realised there was a better way.
It's kind of hard to explain, but essentially, there is no reason why we HAVE to feel shit about things at work.
When we're thinking about the prospect of doing a presentation, or we're aware that we didn't do something very well, we don't HAVE to feel shitty about it.
How we feel is something our brains do, not the external situation; we do it to ourselves. And because that's the case, it means we could just NOT do that instead.
So how do we do that?
Instead of doing things like normal humans, how about pretending that you're an actor. If you really were an actor, you wouldn't get upset by your fictitious boss, you'd just play the part. You say the words and walk around and stuff. Acting.
So how about we do that at work? We decide the character we're going to play, and play the role of a good little employee who says and does all the right things.
I know this sounds very stupid, but try it. If you decide that you're just playing a part then you're impervious to all of the silly little things that used to upset or worry you.
You're still doing your job just as well, and in fact you can probably do it better because you are in control of yourself and are not wasting brain power with all of the unwanted emotions.
Of course you don't want to apply this to the happy stuff, just the stupid stuff.
It actually becomes a really amusing little game that you can play. It can be your secret and nobody will ever know. When you say 'oh no that's terrible, how can we resolve this' or 'Nigel did a terrible thing that made me really sad' it's just words. You're just acting.
You know it but nobody else does. They might wonder how you keep so calm and in control but they will never know. Unless they read this email of course.
You can even select a slightly different character. You could be someone who sees the funny side of things and makes people giggle. You could be the uber-professional bellend. Anything you like really.
And the more you do this the better you get at it. It can really be a superpower.
So I wonder, is there anything else in your life that you can apply this to? Do you need to spend a weekend with the in-laws? Do you need to deal with your noisy neighbour? Try to emotionally detach yourself from these sorts of things, choose your character, decide what you're going to do and enjoy the process.
What you'll find as a result of that is that you have loads of spare brain power left to use for much more important things. Like giggling at the tree branch that looks like a cock, or the expression on a dog's face when he unloads his bum, or helping your friends and people you work with.
Give this some thought, you might think it's a load of wank, or it might help you detach from the things that are negatively affecting you. When you feel that something has made you feel sad or angry, maybe it hasn't. Maybe it's your brain that made you feel that way, and maybe you can just choose to ignore it and choose to giggle at something instead.
Emotional energy is finite and limited, use it consciously, don't waste it. In other words, you only have so many fucks to give, use them wisely.
You might wonder what this has to do with Mr. Inappropriate. The whole point of Mr. Inappropriate is to help you feel happy and have a giggle, which is a lot easier if you're not full of shitty feelings.
Until next time, take care of yourself (at least once a day).