Try to change your life or adapt, leaving everything as it is? This choice is easier to make for those who are attentive to themselves and other people, cognitive psychologist Sergey Kharitonov is sure.
Psychologies: Does each of us have the opportunity to find the life that suits him? Are we always able to change the situation?
Sergey Kharitonov: Living your life by and large means the ability to manage the situations that arise around us. Everyone can learn this, but you need to give yourself time, provide opportunities, make efforts. If a person does not stop in front of his fears, if he is ready to sacrifice comfort, he moves one step forward each time and surely finds what he is looking for. At the same time, it is important to try different behaviors, regularly asking yourself: how do I interact with other people, does this suit me?
By what signs can we know that the life we live is not suitable for us?
S. H.: These signs are easy enough to recognize: a growing sense of dissatisfaction, feelings of bitterness and longing. Obstacles on the path of life always arise, but if overcoming them brings us joy, it means that we are going in the right direction.
Interview
Sergei Kharitonov – Cognitive psychologist, leader of the Assertiveness Training, or Confident Behavior.
What can prevent us from finding the life that suits us?
S. H.: It is more difficult for those who get used to doing obligatory things instead of living, striving to please others instead of listening to their desires. We often communicate too little, lose curiosity … And sometimes we leave ourselves only one or two aspirations: to earn money and occupy a certain position. For example, asking yourself the question: “Shouldn’t I go to another job, where the salary is higher?” – we essentially remain hostages of the same model in which we are already unhappy. You can change jobs, but again there will be no time to communicate with family, with friends – life will remain in place. Some people tend to be afraid of any change: their fear is provoked by self-doubt. To the question: “Do I have the right to influence the course of events, can I afford it?” – they usually answer themselves: “No.”
The history of our country has many episodes, as if created in order to let a person understand: little depends on us personally in our life …
S. H.: No other country has had the experience that we have, and this has made our psyche flexible. Perhaps that is why the ability to act in a variety of situations in the most insecure Russian exceeds the capabilities of the most confident foreigner.
How to overcome the tendency to unjustified conformism?
S. H.: Allow yourself to be free – to live, and not to perform a “mandatory program.” In Japan, there is an expression “a person in a cage” (a cell means chess) – when a person exists in a given structure. He is an element of a certain community, for example, a company, he knows the cells on which he can “walk”. And he expects from life what is suitable for his social group, does not require more – everything is calculated perfectly. But despite the fact that Japan is one of the most prosperous countries in the world, it also has the largest number of people in the world suffering from
Maybe sometimes you need to take a break in life to sort yourself out?
S. H.: A pause as such is unlikely to solve anything radically: we need the ability to hear ourselves. If a person does not know how to listen to himself, he will think about the same thing during a pause: “position, achievement, status” … It is important not to be a hostage to the ideas of your parents, teachers, friends, but to answer yourself the questions: “What am I really want?”, “What is acceptable for me and what is unacceptable?” If you try to hear and understand yourself, treat yourself carefully, the decision about what exactly to change in life and whether to do it at all will come by itself.