What Grizzly and Panda can teach you about the good life (or: how to make sense of conflicting…
You can achieve everything you want! You can change your own reality!
You can achieve everything you want! You can change your own reality!
But can you?
Or should you maybe just learn to chill the fuck out and be happy with whatever you have and whatever reality seems to be?
If you read a lot of inspirational, motivational, self-development, personal growth “stuff,” you get the impression that there are almost two opposing ideologies here.
There are the go-hard-or-go-home’ers and the chill-the-fuck-out’ers.
This shit is confusing. But it still makes sense.
I can help you.
“If you don’t like how things are, change it. You are not a tree.” (Jim Rohn)
You just need to allow yourself to dream big and put hard work into whatever you do consistently. Then, you can achieve everything! You are much stronger than you think! Believe in yourself! 💪
Sounds pretty convincing and motivating, right? We can shape our own lives! :
“No one ever changed their life by accepting the Status Quo.”
“If you believe it’s possible, it is possible.”
“Whatever you put your mind and energy to, you attract.”
BAM! 💥 💥 💥
Yeah okay, not so fast. Sounds good, but take a look at this:
“For, after all, the best thing one can do when it is raining, is to let it rain.” (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)
🌧
You can’t really change much after all. You gotta accept whatever life throws at you. 🙏 🙏 🙏
That sounds like some serious old guy’s life wisdom right there, doesn’t it?
“Life does not depend on outward things but on the way we see them.” (Tolstoy said that, so it must be true I guess)
“Happiness means not to wish for the reality to be any different.”
“Get rid of the illusion that you control everything and you will be happy.”
Doesn’t this also make a lot of sense?
But… which idea is right now? 🤔
The answer is Grizzly. Or Panda.
The central question is this:
Should we push hard, attack life head-on, brute-force our will into existence and demolish obstacles like a hungry Grizzly? (I haven’t really met a hungry Grizzly yet, but I’m assuming they’re quite head-on attacking, brute-forcing and demolishing.)
Or should we instead relax, calmly accept the peculiarities of life, and just high-five everything life throws at us like a Panda? (Yes, Pandas do that on a regular basis — I guess.)
The answer is: Be a Grizzlypanda. Or a Grizzlanda. Or a Grinda. Or a Pandizzly (okay, please don’t be a Pandizzly).
The real challenge lies in finding out when to play Grizzly and when to play Panda. (Duh! 💁🏻)
When to push hard and put all of your energy into changing your reality and when to accept what is and just not stress about it.
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I can’t change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” (Reinhold Niebuhr)
Sounds like someone who wants to be both Grizzly and Panda! Or a Grizzly who can freaking chillax (yes, it’s a word!). Or a Panda who can fight. 🐼 👊
Like this guy:
Be like Po. But please, leave God out of the equation. He’s probably busy making people win lotteries and get job promotions n’ shit.
Joking aside, even if God won’t help you much here, developing the ability to do both change your own reality and accept reality is crucial.
Sometimes you have to push through, go hard, hustle and grind, believe in yourself, your abilities and the influence you have over your own life.
And not give up. To make happen what you wish to be true.
Sometimes, though, you have to accept that you can’t do shit. Like when it’s raining.
The best thing you can do then is to buy a raincoat. Or stay at home.
Or, better yet, go outside, dance in the rain, jump into every puddle you see and laugh like a maniac. (You should do that, obviously.)
The truth is, you can’t do or have everything you want.
There are a lot of things happening you don’t have and never will have control over — things you will have to live with. If you want to or not. Period.
And you can either bitch and moan about it and feel miserable and powerless— or, you can learn to accept that shitty thing and focus on what you actually can influence.
That’s your inner 🐼.
But the truth also is, that we are usually ignorant of the power within us.
Because we’re afraid of our own responsibility to shape our lives. Because we’re scared to take the rough road and pave it with effort and sweat and tears.
Bitching and moaning are easier, and the sympathy we get from others is comforting.
But you can learn to put yourself more in charge, go hard, and make your ideas, dreams, and desires come into existence.
That’s your inner 🐻. (Yeah, I know it’s not really a Grizzly, but you get the idea.)
So what does this leave us with?
Many of us are neither accepting their reality nor willing to make a real effort in changing it.
We tend to live somewhere entirely outside of this spectrum between “trying to change everything” and “accepting everything.” And very often, this leaves us at a shitty, dark, sad, seemingly powerless, and frustrating place.
In that sense, both ideas are equally valuable.
First, we must believe in ourselves more and realize how much influence we have over our lives.
We must take more responsibility for our own trajectory. We must be more consistent, more proactive, more intentional.
We must make more of an effort. To make a change. For ourselves.
Second, though, we must also become better at accepting what we can’t influence. Becoming better at chilling the fuck out.
We must become better at learning how to view things as they are and making the best out of it — not digging ourselves a grave of mental stress.
We must become better “takers” of whatever life throws at us.
In that sense, we have to pull from both directions.
Simply because we are usually so bad at both accepting and proactively changing or creating, that, in the grand scheme of things, we will benefit regardless of the direction we pull from. At least until a certain point.
The most significant art, however, lies in identifying what Stephen Covey (“The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”) calls your ‘Circle of Influence’ — and what lies outside of it.
This circle comprises the part of reality that you can directly impact with your own actions, based on strong principles, right intention, and consistency.
Within this circle, you can then go hard and really make an effort to shape your own life.
Outside of this circle, though, you better chill the fuck out and don’t waste a single negative thought on anything, accepting reality at face value.
And this is fucking hard. Obviously.
It’s beyond the scope of this article to drill deeper into the how-to’s (I’ll write about that soon). But here is a simple heuristic I tend to use:
Be a Grizzly (be extraordinarily intentional and proactive, sometimes almost aggressive and obsessive) about:
My own health and fitness,
me learning about stuff,
how I treat other people,
the amount of time I spend with educational and productive things vs. pure entertainment,
my own principles and values and the development thereof,
the people I spend time with,
the environments I put myself into,
the contribution I make to my environments.
Be a Panda (be accepting and focus on inner calm and making the best out of it) about:
What other people say to me,
people’s behaviors if they aren’t a reaction to something I said or did,
sudden obstacles or potential stressors (like a delayed flight, a canceled event/reservation, a lost key or wallet),
new circumstances, if they come out of nowhere (that is unrelated to my actions),
traffic,
the weather. (Oh yes the weather! Stop bitching about the rain and the cold. Move away or shut up.)
Ok, the end.
CALL TO ACTION
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Phil ✌️