Not making life more difficult than it needs to be

Pressure is a choice.

If we complain that life is crazy and we’re stuck in the weeds and we’re feeling so far behind in everything, that’s on us.

I’ts nobody else’s fault that we’re bogged down.

Pressure is an elected attitude. And yet, we act as if the fear of missing out is some disease we catch like the common cold.

But it’s really just a self inflicted wound. Television is the example that enrages me most. People devote entire weekends to catching up on shows. They put all this unnecessary pressure on themselves to binge watch so they can avoid social shame.

What do you mean you haven’t seen all six seasons of Bangkok Realtors? 

But this absurd first world pressure has reached clinical proportions.

Hulu recently did a survey that found people frequently lie about having watched a particular show. Out of a thousand people, about fifty percent admitted to lying about having watched a particular program. Because god forbid somebody feels left out when their friends are gabbing about the latest show.

And so, they just go along with it. And they wonder why they’re stressed.

It’s because pressure is a choice. People are organizing their lives based on arbitrary social standards, not what they actually want. They’re building their schedules around other people’s purposes, not their own.

Weiss writes in his book on life balance that time is either valuable or wasted, depending entirely on your discretionary use of it. We’ve lock ourselves into an uncomfortable penitentiary, where we agonize in self inflicted hard labor to maintain what we believe to be our proper home.

But it’s just a story we tell ourselves. This isn’t about not watching television, this is about not making life more difficult than it needs to be. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
How would your life be different if you accepted that pressure was a choice?