108. How do I react when things don’t go my way ?

When things don’t go my way, the natural course of action in my case is that I get irritated which further leads to a state where I get negative.

That is not just me but any general human reaction and since it is an ever happening phenomenon, so I have devised methods to save myself from it.

There will always be plans inside the human mind, there will always be expectations and there will always be times when nothing will ever happen as we thought it should happen.

The best solution for it is to move on and immediately engage our mind in something that can shift our thought process to somewhere else.

In my case, I start doing something else.

Of course, there have been times when I had nothing to do and since the expectation of something happening was so huge that I could not divert my mind.

At those times, I refuse to think inside my mind.

I start to think on paper.

I take out my diary and start writing about it like what future course of actions I will take to avoid such kind of things again and what my next action plans will be.

Recently I applied for a screenplay competition inspired by a famous film director Ang Lee who won the awards for his screenplays when he was struggling and it changed his life. The interesting part was there were three winners but the first and the second award were both won by Lee.

I didn’t win but I worked hard on the concept. The entry fee was high but I still applied for it despite not earning much currently. It was devastating.

The moment I saw the mail I was sitting at someone’s house and I sank so low that I stopped talking to everyone.

It took me two hours to come out of it.

The moment I reached home, I saw the mail again and it again turned me off.

Later, I took my phone and deleted the mail. I then went to trash section and deleted the mail from there too. I didn’t want to see it again.

We should learn from our failures and move on, but we should never remind ourselves of our failures. There is no better method to lose your confidence than to remind yourself of your failures.

I picked my diary and started writing my next strategy for the future. Next day I completely forgot everything about it and now it doesn’t bother me anymore.

There will always be things that won’t go according to our plan but that doesn’t stop life and one should keep moving.

After a few days, the entire incident will appear trivial and you wonder why you got so tensed about it. Later in life, you will laugh over it.

One important thing is that when something doesn’t happen your way and you feel pissed off, never discuss it with anyone rather keep it to yourself.

That is why I recommend diary. People will remind you of such instance again and again and also everyone will judge you because of it.

There are also chances that they will show sympathy to you, which is the worst form of consolation. Everyone seeks the sympathy of others in life whether one agrees to it or not but sympathy only makes one feel miserable after a while.

Those who understand it, avoid sympathy. I avoid sympathy pats too. They are the worst.

So when things don’t go my way, I seek isolation, pen and a piece of paper, that solves my problem every time. Try it some time.