Life is very difficult. It happens that everything piles up at once – both debts, and troubles at work, and difficulties in the family. There is so much to do that it will never be redone. How to be?
Feeling stuck is one of life’s greatest stressors. It would be more correct to say “feelings”, because they are as diverse as the circumstances that caused them, as well as the internal causes that gave rise to them.
They say there are no hopeless situations. This sounds, perhaps, too optimistic. But in most cases there is a way out. You just need to focus right.
To say that I can give advice would be too presumptuous. In general, this is almost the first rule of impasse: do not seek help from another. Remember Beckett’s play “Waiting for Godot”? Two friends are in a desperate situation. They think that if they had decided to throw themselves from the Eiffel Tower back in the 90s, they would have been among the first, but now they won’t even be allowed upstairs. That is, there are already whole crowds of such desperate people. But these two are waiting for Godot. What exactly they asked him for, now I can’t remember. It looks like they wanted to make some kind of prayer. Godot promised to come on Saturday. But he is not there. From time to time a boy appears and says that Godou is busy today, but he will certainly be tomorrow. These two are always trying to go somewhere. “Well, let’s go?” Estragon says. “Let’s go,” Vladimir replies. Both of them don’t move. Because: what if at this very moment Godot will come, explain everything and it will become clear what to do.
A hopeless situation that exacerbates the sense of impasse and paralyzes the will. You can only destroy this dark alley on your own.
Most often: an exorbitant number of urgent cases have accumulated, while still significant. The term of the ordered work expired yesterday, and also the horse did not roll. They promised to pay on the day of delivery – just to pay off the loan. Not repaying the loan in a week means getting interest. Mom is sick, and even her stepfather took to drink there. Must go. When? And you will not stay with her for several days. Need a nurse. Money again. Besides, my stepfather drinks. For once, my wife and I went to the theater. What the hell is theater now? She feels it and is already angry in advance. They just got better. And also, it’s scary to think … Well, and so on.
In one such situation, I received advice from an older friend of mine. Since then no one has given me the best. Although this advice looked too school-like simple: make a list of urgent cases under the numbers – first, second … tenth – and take on the first item. Forget the rest for now.
Checked. Helps. Forced formalization (because after all, everything is important, everything comes first) saved me from a headache for a while. This work list went down as if by order of the boss that woke up in you. We’ll figure it out along the way. Because at the same time you know that you are your own boss and you can change the numbers at any time. But now only one thing is important – to follow the order. In addition, the list is shrinking day by day, which in itself gives rise to optimism.
But there are situations that are immeasurably more complicated: a wedge in relationships at work, when, for example, it’s a pity to quit your favorite business, and it’s unbearable to stay. It is even more difficult when relationships with loved ones approach the fatal line. Everything requires a specific solution. The general, in my opinion, comes down to a few points.
First, don’t be inactive and don’t rely on things to sort themselves out somehow. Doctors say that the body with almost all exclusively diseases can be saved only in motion. A sense of impasse is an undoubted symptom of the disease. It can be overcome in action, in moral effort. A person who focuses only on the feeling of his own guilt, or, on the contrary, nurtures and perfects a guilty verdict to another, obviously loses. Because in both cases it is a search for the guilty. Well, let’s say the culprit is named and even named correctly. What’s next? This will not save the situation, it will not lead out of the impasse. In doing so, we work against ourselves, against our goal, without realizing it.
Of course, if you plead guilty, this can serve as an impetus for action. But what if the state, boss, mother-in-law were found guilty?
I said at the beginning that you need to focus properly. So, this is just the wrong focus, not on that. Sometimes focus means more dispersal. Let not the outward paradoxical nature of this proposal confuse you. This word in dictionaries means the same thing: decentralization, location in small parts in a large space. That is, not absent-mindedness, but conscious action.
Here, perhaps, the most important definition is “in a large space.” In a situation of impasse, it is not worth exacerbating what many of us are so inclined to do precisely in unsolvable situations, making them completely hopeless. Try to mentally detach yourself from the local event, expand the context to the limits of your life as a whole, and even in the whole life of people. Put a personal event in a row, in a string of similar ones. See what usually precedes such events and what most often follows from them. This removal alone will allow you to look at the plot from a humorous side, which, as a rule, is not given to an unfortunate person.
It is worth considering in your mind the characters and interests of all participants. Try to honestly define your own interest. It happens that after such an operation in the imagination, the conflict loses its original significance and sharpness. Perhaps he, as they say, is not worth a damn, and the way out is unexpectedly easy and obvious.