One of the most comforting thoughts there is, I find, is that your life—however boring, stupid, insignificant, or ugly it may seem for the moment—is your life. And that… that is enough. It is a life worth living. Everyone has their own, unique story, and that’s precisely what connects us all. The basic ingredients are pretty much almost always the same: love, hope, desire, headwind, tailwind. Knowing that you are but a knot in a gigantic cosmic tapestry, which could’ve been somewhere else without disrupting the pattern, has something immensely consoling about it.
Do you know the word “sonder” and what it means? I learned about it by listening to the podcast S-Town, a beautiful documentary about the life of a unique man who, without this podcast, would’ve probably remained pretty much unknown. “Sonder” is the realization that each random person is leading a life that is just as vivid and complex as your own—filled with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries, and folly. We owe this marvelous word to John Koenig, the man behind the amazing project The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. Koenig coins words for emotions for which existing language comes up short, with the goal of helping us better understand each other and making us aware of our enormous emotional palette. If you haven’t seen his TED Talk, I highly recommend that you do so.
Realizing that each of us is leading a life that is worth living, no matter what, makes you feel connected to other people. You play a part in many different narratives, likely without being aware of it. Whenever you feel small, insignificant, and measly, let this be somewhat of a consolation. You’re living a life, and it is a unique life.
// Social Media Detox
Don’t swipe yourself a depression
I’m not someone who sees the devil’s hand in social media. I don’t believe “likes” will be the downfall of civilization. Thanks to social media, I’ve gotten to know amazing people, found inspiration, discovered new teachers, and ended up in places I wouldn’t have known otherwise. For example, I once roamed Tokyo for a day with a Brazilian-Japanese girl who had announced, via a message on Instagram, that she was reading the international edition of Happinez. We ate at local spots with her friends, and she showed me around temples where I would’ve never ended up as a tourist.
But social media is downright bad when things aren’t going well for you. Everyone seems happier, more organized, fitter, younger, hipper, more successful, and smarter on the days when you don’t feel that way about yourself. In addition, social media also has the power to turn everything into cookie-cutter uniformity: How many people can possibly love brass palm tree hooks, pink velour sofas, green hanging plants, and red-and-white-checked Ibiza dresses?
If you’re not in top form, your soul can short-circuit with too much social media. Our soul isn’t made to blend into the crowd, and social media can lead you jarringly far away from your originality, from what you find beautiful, from what truly is a part of you. On a bad day, this happens ten times faster. You lose yourself, and that always feels terrible.
When I notice that social media is starting to annoy me or suck up my time, an alarm bell goes off in my head. I too have days when I hang on the couch, phone in hand, and swipe, swipe, swipe. Not many things are as time killing and soul crushing as scrolling and swiping: Suddenly it’s 10:30 a.m., and I haven’t eaten or done anything. Social media platforms seem custom-engineered for bad days: They offer a mix of effortless, repetitive action and constant, tiny pleasure shots, perfectly blended to lull your mind into a state of half slumber, one that doesn’t feel like waking or sleeping. In other words, a drug. Sedation for your lesser days.
The effect of social media on our brain is still being researched; online terms such as “Snapcrack” and “Instagrams” are being thrown around. Social media sites appear to micro-dose us with little fixes, like other drugs, stimulating our brains to produce dopamine.
In 2014, I attended a Wisdom 2.0 conference, a meeting in San Francisco about conscious living in the modern age, at which teachers like Jon Kabat-Zinn and Byron Katie shared a stage with engineers and CEOs from tech firms like Google and Facebook. The topic of conversation was how we’ve manipulated our minds. And sure, you might just find that one uplifting quote or funny picture that drags you out of your inertia, but let’s be brutally honest: Using your smartphone for answers in an absentminded state is worse than looking for a needle in a haystack. You have to scroll through 574 photos before finally getting your shot.
So however hard it may be on a bad day, pull the plug. Put that thing aside. Seek out places to be unplugged, or create one for yourself. In the time you save, you can start liking your own thoughts for a change. Perhaps it’s time to determine your self-worth, without your ego’s subconscious tricks and the parameters of others with their amazing homes, new lovers, and cool jobs. Social media sessions are binge fests for egos that love comparison and belonging, that thrive on attention, confirmation, novelty, and contact.
If you can resist the temptation to binge? You’ll have spare time, vast oceans of hours you can devote to things that actually are good for you. Like sleeping. Conversations with real people. Exercise. My most relaxed vacations were those when I stayed somewhere with super crappy Wi-Fi. After the first twenty-four hours of shock, it was a gift from heaven. You can stand under that waterfall without trying to add a catchy caption in your head. And you can free yourself from knowing whether the world is on fire, because there’s nothing you could be doing about it anyway.
Bad Days vs. Social Media
If you recognize some of these statements, maybe you should put your phone away:
You think “Why don’t I have that?” instead of “Good for them!”
You feel the need to spruce up your own reality.
You regularly check how many followers others have.
You keep hitting “refresh” to see your likes increase.
You think you’ve put up a unique picture, but stuff others are posting is almost identical.
To reduce the time you spend scrolling, try some of these tips:
Turn off your notifications. Don’t be pushed.
Do not use the apps; instead, use the desktop versions of Instagram, etc., if possible.
Set a timer on your Wi-Fi.
Place your phone in another room.
Unsubscribe from 90 percent of your newsletters.
Do not open your social media until you are up and running or already winding down after a long day.
Keep track of how much time you spend on social media for a week, and think about what you actually could do with that time.
Unfollow, unfriend, or mute people whose contributions don’t bring you anything. Dare to be picky, and consider what you want to spend your precious attention on.
Choose which social media platform suits you best, and leave the others for what they are. (I deleted my Twitter account years ago, because it does not suit me.)
Consider what you do want, and strategically use social media for that purpose alone.
Choose a few topics for which you want to find inspiration or motivation, and focus on those for a while. Unfollow when you are satisfied or have moved on. When I was moving, I followed a lot of interior décor and style accounts. Now that my house is more or less finished, these just make me greedy; following them no longer serves me in a positive way.
// Turn Off the News
Make your world small
We are living in an era of abundance and of being always and constantly on—not abundance of everything and not everybody is always on, but generally it’s the state of our current culture. We have access to a limitless selection of chocolate spreads, sock colors, toothbrushes, bike bells. The same applies to information. Media-wise, in all possible ways, in all possible forms, colors, and languages, news stimuli are flowing into our heads: through social media, the radio, news tickers, screens. Whatever is happening in the world, it’s coming to you.
I’ve been a news addict for a long time. I pride myself on reading a lot
of newspapers and magazines, keeping an ear to the ground at all times, and scouring the internet for intelligent reviews, columns, and podcasts. I have a background in journalism, and I often joke that what I really have is a degree in curiosity. Though I never worked for a newscast or news medium, I find those news stimuli wonderful.
And I should confess that the tabloids were also part of my regular roundup. Some people smoke, some drink coffee, some people get their quick news fix—I’m among the latter. Opening up my search engine and… just a quick peek to see what’s going on in the world, as well as with Beyoncé and the entire British royal family. At some point, the news turned into the background noise of my life. I checked it when I woke up in the morning and late at night before falling asleep.
I’ve heard that of the thousands of news stories you consume annually, only a few are truly relevant for your own personal life. Each day, there are countless events taking place, but the chance that one of them happens to you or has an impact on you doesn’t increase or decrease by you being more or less up to date on the details of all the others. What really matters will surface eventually, even if you limit your attention to set moments in the day and a handful of high-quality sources.
Only it doesn’t feel like that of course. The news stimulates you and is often addictive. You are eager to know how a story develops and how it ends, and so you stay tuned. The trouble is that this can be to the detriment of your creativity and your problem-solving skills, which benefit from free space, sans distractions and preconceptions. News wakes you up, makes you alert, and gives you a sense of involvement and connection. But with what? Continuous news cycles trigger stress hormones, disrupt your concentration (and can in the long term even diminish it), and create noise in your day-to-day routine.
News is often addictive: Bad days don’t benefit from news that doesn’t positively contribute to your well-being. If you aren’t in a great place emotionally, taking a news break is a smart idea. What good does it do you to know that, somewhere in the world, there was a mass murder or that Rihanna got a haircut? It doesn’t change your life, here and now, except that it colors your day. It invokes emotions that don’t belong to you and that don’t benefit your here and now. It would be better to direct your energy inward, to focus on whatever news broadcasts and headlines pop up in your inner world. On bad days, I leave the world events for what they are, and invite you to do the same.
// Losing Sleep over Money
It’s both important and unimportant, all at the same time
Money is a difficult subject. Talking about it is so… so vulgar. “Hey, it’s just money!” I try to cheer myself up when I find a hefty parking ticket in the mail or when the end of the month is looking austere. And, instinctively, something as mundane and practical as money can seem far removed from matters of personal growth and inner peace.
Then again, spirituality and money have a complicated relationship, as if they’re two opposites on a line between heaven and earth. To some, one’s attitude toward money is a measure of enlightenment: If you worry about it, apparently your confidence isn’t high enough. Afraid of scarcity? Well, that means you’ve got some soul crafting ahead of you. But try saying something like “Money can’t buy you happiness” to a single mother on welfare. Your soul can overflow from trust in abundance all it wants, but it doesn’t buy you a loaf of bread.
We have to deal with money—that’s just how it is. Money is a fact of life. You need it to feed yourself and to live, if you don’t have the desire for a completely alternative lifestyle. Worries about money can be a genuine cause of a bad day. Or perhaps on bad days you use your money in exchange for some soul soothing—in the form of takeout sushi, a new pair of shoes, or a random online purchase for which you just clicked “check out” without removing a single item from your loaded cart.
If, for you, money and bad days are related, it may be helpful to remember that money in and of itself is neither good nor bad. It’s a tool. In essence, money is a sort of energy that’s being exchanged. You do something and receive money in return, or you spend money, for which you receive something in return. Our relationship with money—good or bad—is caused by what we associate it with. If money is making you angry or sad, it usually has to do with larger issues: There’s an imbalance between effort and reward, or between spending and income. Somewhere something is awry. During lesser days, you sense more acutely where exactly the balance has been lost.
Still, I know myself well enough to realize that I too harbor a fear of scarcity. Not because I couldn’t live more simply—several times in my life, I’ve given up my financial security and luxury to follow my heart—but because I’m scared of not being able to provide my kids with security and continuity. What really matters to me has nothing to do with money, while at the same time, money enables me to live according to my core values. I don’t desire abundance, but I also don’t want scarcity. I want freedom. Shortage is dependence. It’s complicated!
These days, I’m more or less ambivalent when it comes to money. On the one hand, I don’t worry about it: I don’t need more than I have right now; I can provide for myself and my children. On the other hand, my situation is not so carefree that I can buy and do everything I would like. It feels balanced.
That’s what it comes down to—balance. Enough but not too much. I’m not interested in business spirituality or prosperity gospels that promise you can make a million in a year while working only six hours a month. (Note: Spiritual money gurus make those amounts because you fund them; to a certain extent, these are pyramid schemes. At the base are the “losers” who apparently weren’t able to build a business from their soul.) The trick is to figure out your equilibrium. What, for you, is enough. Lynne Twist, activist and author of the book The Soul of Money, wrote the following: “When you let go of trying to get more of what you don’t really need, it frees up oceans of energy to make a difference with what you have.”
Learning to recognize that abundance and money are separate entities can help you through bad days. It may be a cliché, but it makes sense: True wealth is love, friendship, sunlight, beautiful clouds, glistening water, a horizon. Not everything of value can be monetized. Your bank statement says nothing about who you are.
Money Woes
Is money something you struggle with on bad days? Ask yourself these questions:
How do you use money as energy? Do you use it to comfort yourself, to impress, or to distract? Or do you use it to express yourself as well as you can?
Do you dare to ask for money in return for your efforts without feeling uncomfortable about it? Do you see it as a form of reward?
What is at stake when you don’t have enough money? What stories do you tell yourself about scarcity or about your self-worth when money is tight?
If you won the lottery tomorrow, what would you do? What desires come alive in those daydreams? Freedom? Travel? A career switch? Luxury and pleasure? Would it be possible to satisfy these desires in a way that doesn’t involve lots of money?
Would you consider alternatives like bartering or buying and selling secondhand? You may be able to transform your personal economy by handling your cash flow differently.
Do you have a clear grasp of your finances? Do you know what is coming in and what goes out, and how you’ve divided your priorities between past, present, and future? Spending money isn’t hard, but whether what you receive in return is of any real value is interesting to contemplate. Make sure you know where your money (which, in essence, is energy) is going. Check if that is where you want your energy to be spent, in both the short and long term.
Having clear and honest insight into your finances will have ramifications for your life as a whole. How you handle money often mirrors how you’re feeling. It will give you comfort and a sense of clarity to know how the foundation of your financial behavior was laid. This doesn’t necessarily mean you have to involve Excel spreadsheets; a survey of your personal finances can take various shapes. T
he question isn’t how but whether your financial situation is transparent.
Compile a list in two columns. In the left-hand column, list all the things you spend money on; in the one on the right, write what you’re actually buying. “Grabbing a coffee in the city” might represent “social contact.” You might think of “new shoes” as “self-expression.” Then make another set of lists. In the left-hand column, copy the words from the right-hand column of the first set. In the new right-hand column, come up with alternative activities or items that could yield the same result but that require a smaller or no financial investment. For example, “social contact” can also be a walk in the park, meeting in the public library, a phone chat with a friend. Manifesting, if you can, what is important and valuable to you—independent of money—will make you more creative and will expand your world.
// What’s Your Panic Room?
And also some notes on the “emergency list”
If you’re not feeling good on the inside, it’s comforting to be in a safe and soul-soothing environment. You can always pull the covers over your head, but that will quickly become suffocating and sweaty. Instead, I recommend that you designate other, airier spaces as panic rooms. That way, you’ll always have a place to go.
The comfort of a safe space probably has something to do with a childlike need for confinement. Do you remember how it felt to sit inside a blanket fort? What it was like to drape a few bedsheets over some chairs, pin them in place, and drag a bunch of pillows into your little home? An itty-bitty safe space, where you can hide as everyday life continues outside. A perfect place for sulking or for taking some alone time. The combination of a hard floor and the smell of laundry detergent is the perfume of my bad childhood days. Try finding something like that today for yourself: a tent in the middle of the living room—we adults prefer to say tepee—is something most of us encounter only while browsing Instagram.
The Handbook for Bad Days Page 13