A Couple Good Reminders

A Couple Good Reminders

I recently started listening to Dax Shepard’s podcast.  I couldn’t have told you much of anything about him other than he is Kristen Bell’s husband.  I have really enjoyed his podcast though. He is funny/silly, but also I would say he is more emotional (aware of, able to talk about etc) than the stereotypical average man.

Today I was listening to the episode with Kumail Nanjiani  A couple things were discussed that stood out to me that I just wanted to share:

Comparing Yourself to Others

They were talking about how comparing yourself to others is such a bad/negative thing to do, because it usually ends up making people feel bad about/question themselves.  In the discussion, Dax gave the little aphorism: Don’t compare yourself to others, compare yourself to yourself (your younger self/yourself prior.) I liked this. Comparing yourself to others just about always ends up making us feel bad about ourselves.  I think though that it is/can be very insightful to look at yourself - what you have done, believed, etc in the past. I think everyone can always continue to better themselves and grow. I still have a lot to do to improve myself as a person, but I feel that I’ve become a better person as I’ve gotten older.  That doesn’t mean though that I am better in every way, but I have grown and improved in a lot of ways and I think much of that is a result of self reflection.

Anger

When discussing anger it was recommended that when angry it is important to focus on yourself - what you can do to improve things, whether improving a situation, improving your attitude etc.  The example was given - if you are angry dealing with traffic think about how things can get better - either you can change or the traffic can change. You know the traffic isn’t going to change, so you need to change yourself, your attitude, your expectations.  I think this is a good reminder that while often so many things are out of our control, we always have control over our attitudes. And no, it isn’t always easy, but it is something that we can do.