My adaptor was gone. All of a sudden my world shrank:
“How will I write my daily emails as well as other content and be able to research and work?”
“Will I be able to get a new one? How quick?”
I am traveling through Mexico, right now, only having my phone, my laptop, and my mind as a portable workspace. Losing the adaptor would mean I wouldn’t be able to do any of the work I’m doing, since European and Mexican electricity works differently. Sure, I would be able to get a new one, but this would mean quite some trouble and lost chances to work, connect, and create. This was all rushing through my mind as I searched for it.
In the end, it wasn’t a big thing.
Took a deep breath, let go of the negative thoughts, and found it.
Apart from the obvious lessons of staying calm, positive, and buying a spare adaptor there is a much more profound lesson here.
It’s related to what the stoic called negative visualizations:
We often go through life taking things for granted. We want more and more of the good stuff, and less and less of the bad, painful experiences. But this is a lousy recipe for happiness and wellbeing because you will always want more of the good and less of the bad. It’s a never-ending rollercoaster of dissatisfaction.
Instead, the stoics tried to be happy with what they already had. To appreciate the life you have means being happy already, while still making plans and deciding where to go. Easy, simple, and always available.
But being happy with what you have sounds like an empty phrase, doesn’t it. So they invented several techniques to achieve that: Being happy with what you’ve got.
You can experiment with them, and see if they work. if they do, great. If not, try something else. Win-win.
The negative visualization to be happy with what you have:
In my story, I stumbled upon this accidentally. If a small electrical device could have such a huge impact on my life, finding it gave me immediate gratitude for it. But not only for the adaptor, also for my laptop, my phone, which allow me to follow my passions and help people. This lifted my mood even though I didn’t have anything more than before.
The negative visualization works like this: You pick an object in your life and you imagine what life would be like without it. Just for some instances imagine the pain this would bring you. For example, losing your car could mean no more weekend trips, longer commutes, or smaller shopping trips. Don’t indulge in this. Just quickly envision it in your mind. This would immediately make you grateful even for an old, almost broken car, wouldn’t it?
And this is the power of this exercise. It’s not meant to bring disaster upon your life, it’s actively wanting what you have. Goes deeper than all the superficial quotes on stoicism going around, doesn’t it?
Try it for yourself and let me know how it went.
Have a wonderful day,
David Hip