"If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude." - Maya Angelou
They say the definition of craziness is repeating the same action and expecting a different result. As a scientist when I was doing my PhD, this was a very important principle. Anytime an experiment didn’t work, I needed to make a change, or two or three, to see if I could bring about the results I wanted. Very rarely would I repeat the experiment in the exact same way I did it the first time.
Unfortunately, life is not always so flexible. More often than not, when things don’t go the way we want them to go, we tend to repeat our actions anyway, ultimately living a life of regret, unhappiness, and pain.
I recently developed a small elbow injury that restricts me from working out the way I like to. I realized I had a choice: I could continue to work out as usual and make the condition worse, or I could stop working out altogether and let it heal.
I’ve seen many fellow athletes choose the former course of action, forsaking the health of their bodies for whatever goal they are pursuing. One example is a girl I know. She decided to take up running. She bought a pair of running shoes expertly recommended for her by the running store. With that, she opened the door of her house and started running. She wanted to go as fast and as far as she possibly could, always with the intention to go further and faster the next day. Needless to say, she got injured, so she had to stop running. But as soon as she healed, she started all over again, running too far and too fast too soon. As you can probably guess, her injury came back again. She got the same results because she didn’t change anything she was doing.
As for my elbow injury, I decided not to make the same mistake. I didn’t stop working out, but I also didn’t work out through the pain, running the risk of worsening my injury.
This is simply due to the fact that it is more required to know the things which he has got to do before this inconvenience makes a wreck in your life. online cialis deeprootsmag.org However, http://deeprootsmag.org/2019/04/16/updike-at-easter-seven-voices-on-seven-stanzas-2019-edition/ on line levitra not all disorders demand extensive treatments. As a result, this pill is considered to be deeprootsmag.org viagra without very effective for improved fertility in men. However, grapefruit juice is viagra prescription deeprootsmag.org reputed to cause interactions in the processing of PDE5 inhibitors in the body. Instead, I simply buy sildenafil citrate took the third option, which was to change my routine.
In other words, I started a different workout routine that doesn’t involve the use of my elbow. It’s not the same routine I’m used to, but it’s still a great workout. And it’s allowing my injury to heal.
Changing a workout routine is simple. Applying the same idea to other aspects of your life may not seem as clear-cut. But if you look, you can usually find a third option. It can be the one option that’ll pull you out of the rut and keep you from repeating the same mistakes over and over again. Use it to reorient yourself, your goals, and your expectations.
I remember doing exactly this a few years ago after undergoing brain surgery. I realized that I wasn’t doing well as a scientist anymore, so I chose to reinvent myself and became something else. The easiest road would have been to keep looking for a job as a Biochemist, since that’s what I was trained to do, but it wasn’t my path anymore. And I couldn’t just quit either. I had to go on. I had to find the third option, and for me, that was re-educating myself in a different field and pursuing a new career. It was a scary time in my life, and it was a lot of work to start something new, but I can only imagine how much harder it would have been to continue pursuing a path that ultimately lead to disappointment and heartache.
I’m not suggesting that trying something new will solve all of life’s big questions for you, but it can be pretty illuminating. Creativity likes to be shaken up. Sometimes we need a blast of fresh air so we can see things differently. And trust me, I say this as a person who has undergone change and transitions quite often. Some are hard and take a little while, but it’s worth it. You might be astounded at what you’re capable of doing if you choose to turn left.
If nothing is going right...go left.
Great post and so true. The most growth comes when life says no and you have to do something different. With pain or discomfort comes growth.