We are our own worst and harshest critic. And well, we should be. We should always be trying to better ourselves. This is the EMA way – KAIZEN – constant and never-ending improvement for a lifetime. But sometimes we lose sight of what
is good and moral to achieve our goals in life. Very often our actions come back to haunt us later in life – like lying on our resume, betraying a friend, cheating on a spouse, cheating on an exam, dinging a car in the parking lot and driving away, calling someone a bad name at school, posting something inappropriate on Instagram or TikTok. While many of these affect others, they affect you the most. You are the one that must live with what you have done, so we need to learn to forgive ourselves so we can move on and improve. We can learn from all our mistakes and become an even better person.
Our internal human bias is to see positive, but everything today is rigged to stimulate the negative, as that is what will keep us coming back for more. We are bombarded by negative news, wars, political leaders not fit to run a corner store, and constant controversary on social media. It’s non–stop. The entire world watched in horror as Will Smith slapped Chris Rock. But that wasn’t enough. We had to watch it 24 hours a day, every day for a month, with endless memes, new reports, conflicting stories, people taking sides – it was all very polarizing.
But would it have made news if Will smith said nothing, and just shook his head and laughed? Half the people would not have even noticed the joke. It does not matter whether you agree or disagree with Smith’s actions – the fact is that it stole our
attention for far too long and created tension online. Feel good stories just don’t make for as exciting news that goes viral. The point of all this is WE CHOOSE how we react to what is done or said. WE CHOOSE what we say or do in every situation. WE CHOOSE what we expose ourselves to with respect to the people we associate with, the things we watch, read and listen to. WE CHOOSE to harbour negative feelings about a person or situation. WE CHOOSE whether to let go of negativity in our lives and move on.