Life’s really not that deep
How to relieve the stress that’s blocking you from a good life
Life becomes easier and more enjoyable when you can control your stress levels.
Honestly, life is shit when you’re stressed. I’ve wasted far too much of my life worrying and stressing — and I don’t want you to do that.
When you’re stressed, it’s hard to do anything. It’s hard to think clearly and to be happy when you’re stressed.
This is what makes it such a vicious cycle.
When you’re stressed about money, you make risky moves and try get-rich-quick schemes.
When you’re stressed at work, you can’t focus, so you don’t get work done.
When you’re stressed in your relationships, you can’t put your ego aside and calmly work through the problems.
Stress is a never ending loop of issues.
Controlling your stress, on the other hand, will make your life better in every way.
When you’re calm, you’re smarter, more effective, happier and make better decisions.
But how do you just calm down when the stress is exactly what’s preventing you from fixing the problems that cause it?
The only way is to approach stress from a deeper place.
The Story of the Salt in the Water
A story from Buddhist and Hindu cultures — adapted by Eren Candansayar
There was once a student constantly troubled by his problems.
One day, a wise teacher asked him to fetch a handful of salt. When the student returned, the teacher told him to put the salt in a small cup of water and take a sip.
“How does it taste?” the teacher asked.
“Bitter,” the student replied.
The teacher then took the student to a nearby lake and asked him to throw another handful of salt into it.
“Now take a sip.”
“It’s fresh,” the student said. “I can barely taste the salt.”
The teacher smiled and said, “If you’re too zoomed in and self-centred — like drinking from a small cup — it will taste bitter and overwhelm you. But if you expand your perspective, the bitterness lessens. Look at your problems in the context of the whole lake — the vastness of life itself. When you zoom out, you’ll realise it’s not bitter at all.”
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How to Stop Worrying So Much, and Become Better at Navigating Life
My favourite way to relieve my stress is thinking about the most basic building blocks of life.
“At the most basic level, the world is a quantum soup,”
— Deepak Chopra
When you really think about it, everything is made up of the same building blocks. The things you can’t see with a microscope.
The seat you’re on, your coffee and your brain are all made up of mysterious Quantum Lego blocks.
A table is made of wood — but what is the wood made of?
You have a brain and a body — but what are they made of?
The air around you is comprised of many gases — but what are the gases made of?
This means nothing is separating you from the chair you’re sitting on, or the air you breathe. It’s all made from the same thing.
You can use the same Lego blocks to create a house, a rocket ship or a lion. The only difference is how you arrange them.
Now, if everything is assembled with this Quantum Lego, how can our problems be important? Isn’t it all just make-believe?
Our jobs, our social status, our ups and downs — all make-believe. We think of ourselves as different from animals and separate from Earth. But the reality is, we’re no different from the lush forest, the barren desert and the vast oceans.
We’re no different from fish in the sea, or the ant in the colony.
Doesn’t this knowledge instantly relax you?
Personally, the absurdity changes my whole worldview whenever I bring it back to my conscious mind. It almost makes me laugh how absurd it is that I am stressed in this mystical world we live in.
How can a report deadline make me feel stressed when I am just a collection of organised atoms?
How can my bad outfit make me feel upset and self-conscious when I’m no different from an ant?
Suppose an ant came to you complaining about how it was stressed about the amount of jobs it had to do, and that it was self-conscious about how it looked today.
You’d say “Dude, it’s all good…you’re literally just an ant. It does not matter.”
You see?
So when you get worked up, stressed, anxious, upset, or self-conscious — remind yourself that you are just part of the mysterious quantum soup.
Life is not serious at all. How could it be?
You are no different from an ant, like a Lego house is no different from a Lego lion.
And what would you tell an ant if it asked you for advice?
You would tell it to go out and enjoy itself. To settle down, to not worry so much and to just do things that it finds fun — because there are no obligations in life.
Do not get stuck in the trap of thinking you are something more than you are.
We’re just atoms organised in a particular way, moving around. We’re so lucky that we even get to experience things. It’s a miracle. What are the odds you’re even reading this right now?
If an ant got teleported into your consciousness right now, it would be overwhelmed by the amount of computational power you have — by the sheer amount of joy and experience you’re capable of.
Don’t take that for granted.
And with this knowledge, how can we possibly stress about meaningless things? About a family argument, about overdue work, about bad feedback, or about a bad hair day.
We should focus on the fact that we are alive, that we can think, that we can feel, that we can love.
That is what’s worth paying attention to. Not the issues, not stress.
Joy. Fun. Experience. Excitement.
Life is incredible. Even with the tragedy and sadness. That’s part of it.
Don’t waste your life by taking it too seriously.
Sincerely,
eren
(PS. If you want some help understanding your natural traits and uncovering your unfair advantage — I have a free guide you can use.)
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thank you so much for reading and for your kind words, Angie
Very nice way of looking at how life should be taken by visualising our place in this vast cosmos…this immediately clears the doubts we harbour that we are the centre of this universe…it is is very distressing to say the least…👍