To Hope or not to Hope…
In my opinion, the “(if, then)” formula is a very useful function in Excel. However, “with great power comes great responsibility.”
And why, you ask, am I thinking of Excel functions in a superhero kinda way?
Well, I was listening to a podcast where someone was talking about how he’d achieved certain things despite being part of a certain community. And how he was surprised when he was trolled the most by people from within the community. His analysis was that he took away the excuse people had for not doing things, by doing them. Now, I have no experience of that community and of course there’s the matter of privilege and exposure and other such factors… so let’s not go there.
The reason I give this context is because of how it resonated with me and got me thinking of “(IF, THEN)” functions.
I spent a large part of my life in an “(IF, THEN)” loop with being fat. The narrative was: IF I get slimmer, THEN I will be happy, loved, successful, beautiful, etc. This loop kept me so stuck that I wasn’t looking at my life at all. I wasn’t looking at myself, either. I had lost myself so much in this hope that my THEN would be different, IF I could change the number on the scale, that the present was just an arduous grind I had to get through, somehow.
Until I was 35, and my lived experience was just not working and I had to look at it. I saw how little I thought of myself and how much I had compromised on account of that abysmal self worth. And that’s when I got active about looking at what other fat people in the world were doing, stumbled upon body positivity and flipped into an alternate universe where the “(IF, THEN)” function changed completely.
It became: IF I take responsibility for this now, THEN I can reasonably anticipate a different future.
Same formula, different results, very different state of mind. And, to me at least, the results speak for themselves. Interestingly, I continue to find topsy turvy “(IF, THEN)” functions in my life. The latest being: IF I were earning x, I would be able to save, buy, achieve, find peace, etc. This is something I am consciously working on changing in my life right now. So the journey to becoming an adult continues, heh.
Let me not sugarcoat it — in the beginning it was HARD! Just looking at myself like that, seeing myself stripped bare of the excuses that I had based 15 of my adult years on (at least) was … excruciating to say the least. And then taking responsibility — ugh, a whole other ball game. I first did a huge amount of research, then I experimented with my own beliefs and thought processes, then I took the plunge out of my comfort zone and started interacting with the world differently, which led to the hard conversations, which led to relationships ending and jobs being left, etc. And I STILL find areas of my life where I need to take more responsibility and get out of waiting for a miracle or a knight in shining armour… or even God’s blessings.
To me, in my life, right now, hope is a dangerous thing to have, faith even more so. This is not about being pessimistic; this is about being real. I have seen myself postpone so many aspects of my life in the hope that it will be easier tomorrow or based on faith that I will be rescued that I am actually a little afraid of this side of my personality. When I veer towards hope and faith, I now ask myself, what I am doing today to make that tomorrow happen?
This attitude of being able to take responsibility for my self — my actions and responses — is to me THE criteria for my hope and optimism. And, like muscles at the gym, the more I practice it the better I get at it.
Where are you applying the “(IF (tomorrow), THEN (positive emotion))” in your life? And would it be worth your while to flip that to “(IF (I do this, today), THEN (tomorrow will be different))?”
