Stand Up Straight
Stand Up Straight
Sometimes it seems like life is conspiring to do us in. I know a few men who have been struggling financially for a while. One of them recently had a setback in his business and now has no means of income. He has a family to feed. What he has is an actual problem that can lead to depression. The rest of the men have not had a stable income for years. They always have little or no money and don`t even know how they will get through the next week. They have been living this way for years. I have had a feeling that one of them was having suicidal ideas. I had to invite him to come spend some time with me. My feeling was right. Life is hard for some people and I know what it means to try to keep living as an adult without an income. It is not good. Some people need help.
Maybe such people struggling through life are losers. Or maybe they are not. But even if they consider themselves losers, they don`t have to continue thinking like that. Maybe they have a bad habit. Maybe they are a collection of bad habits and need to ask themselves two questions. The feeling of defeat is not necessary now. Situations change. If they slump around feeling defeated, people can pick up on that feeling and assign them a lower status. Their brain produces less serotonin and this will make them more sad and anxious, and less happy. In that state they are more likely to back down when they should stand up for themselves. This renders them more likely to abuse a substance, drug or alcohol. They live in the present drowned in the uncertainty of the future. They are living in chaos and that is not good.
Stand Up Straight
Circumstances change and so can you. Positive feedback loops, adding effect to effect, can spiral counterproductively in a negative direction which can end up destroying you. On the other hand, positive feedback loops, adding effect to effect, can compound in a productive manner and change your situation for better over time.
Watch your body language. If your posture is poor for instance – if you slump, shoulders forward, chest tucked in, head down, looking small and defeated – then you will feel small and defeated. People size each other up, hence, if you present yourself as a loser, then people will react to you as if you are being defeated. If you stand up straight, then people will look at and treat you differently.
One may object thus, “How can you just say stand up straight? The experience of being at the bottom is something real for people. A mere change of posture will do little or nothing to fix their problem.” It is fair to say that. But standing up straight is not only something physical. Your being is made up of a body and a spirit. Once your spirit is down, all you see is chaos. It is one`s spirit that is essentially defeated. The undesirable situation is calling on your spirit to rise, to stand up straight. This means voluntarily accepting the burden of the challenge. If you succeed in doing this, your nervous system responds in an entirely different manner. Rather than preparing for a catastrophe, you respond to the challenge.
Stand Up Straight
Step forward and accept the terrible responsibility of life. There is a potential in that circumstance even though you may not see it. Step by step, you can decide to transform the potential of that chaos into the reality of order, an order you can inhabit. That involves willingly undertaking the sacrifices necessary to produce a meaningful reality.
If you stand up straight, you will assume, as well as other people, that you are able and competent. You receive positive responses and strengthened by them, you will start to be less anxious. You are then more likely to meet people, interact with them, and impress them. This may be what needs to happen for your situation to start changing for good. In short, the probability that good things will happen to you increases.
Pursue you rightful destiny in spite of your challenges. Act. Click