Urgency & Pessimism
A Sense of Urgency & Pessimism. When I am pessimistic I get anxious, I start believing that whatever it is I’m doing or thinking about is precious or at-risk. Worse yet, I get a sinking feeling that something is so precious that there just is not going to be enough time to do everything, that things are getting worse, that everything has to be done now.
This takes away from a world of possibilities. Every time I get into this mode of a pessimistic sense of urgency, I always found it to be a self fulfilling prophecy, I get distracted by what I can’t do, instead of seeing and embracing what I can do.
The typical cycle:
- Fall behind on the ‘critical stuff’, aka sleeping, eating, exercising, resting, relaxing, family, friends, and relationships.
- Challenges at work or home then become excuses for not being able to keep up with any of the ‘critical stuff’
- Things start getting real dark, pessimistic real fast.
- Focus is on- never enough time, only too many things to do, everything needs to be done….NOW!
- Reach exhaustion point, get sick, who knows, break the vicious cycle with a not so pretty ending. (if it happens enough, you might even think it’s normal!?)
This just isn’t a productive sense of urgency, it is a stress-induced sense of urgency, it is past the plateau of productivity in ones daily stress. Insert chart here about stress and productivity (you can imagine or Google).
The additions into this that have helped in challenging times over the past few years for me have been reconnecting, whether by reading reflections I’ve made in the past, writing about the experience I’m in currently, or connecting with my partner, friends, or family. Really getting back into that mindset, that hey, there’s more to life, things are possible, tomorrow’s a new day, however you describe it, that small change in perspective, reminding myself that the world is one of possibilities, both positive and negative, mean that there’s no reason to assume the worst all the time. I can’t solve my life’s challenges with a change in perspective, but putting myself in the best position possible to manage what gets thrown at me, is a game of inches, and I know that I’m those inches mean the world of difference when life is a long and gradual game.
When we cease to believe that the world, the future, and our lives hold a world of possibilities, to learn, to grow, and to make mistakes we end up working against ourselves and what we want to achieve.
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Nicholas Muy leads Product Strategy for Enterprise Security @ Expedia, Inc. His passion is for driving industry-leading change, looking at the big picture, simplifying complexity, or digging into difficult challenges in environments ranging from the public sector to the Fortune 500. In addition to his work Expedia, Nicholas has served on the board of Communities In Schools of Washington since 2012, part of the nation’s leading dropout prevention organization.
@w8oftheworld is a conversation on the many lessons interwoven into our daily lives. Lessons that offer us the opportunities to grow, learn, evolve, change, transform, and through that learn more about who we are and where we are going.