emotion

The Best Way to Deal With Loss

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As I was sprinting through the cavernous Hong Kong airport toward my gate Sunday afternoon, a deodorant roll-on in my bag cracked and leaked all over my laptop.

The laptop is replaceable, but its contents are not. There may be a way to recover my files, but for the moment it looks like I have lost nearly all of the photos I took over my eight months abroad.

If I did, I will be devastated.

I was so happy to survive my back-to-back 12-hour flights today, arrive in Vancouver and check into a nice hotel room for my final night away. But when I took out my laptop to find it dripping with scented gel, my whole world went black.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. Today was supposed to be a day of gratitude. By the end of today I expected to be completely in love with where I was in the world. Everything in its right place.

But it turned awful. Unable to shake my angry thoughts, I knew I needed perspective. I needed to find a place in my head where I could see the bigger picture and really understand that my problem isn’t so bad.

So I took a walk, watching people on the street for somebody clearly worse off. Somebody I wouldn’t trade places with in a million years.

I saw businessmen, bums, cops, shopkeepers, hipsters, ordinary joes and schoolkids. And very quickly I realized that there’s nobody I’d trade with, no matter how complete their photo collection is.

I have so much. Tomorrow I’ll wake up on a warm, comfortable bed, and eventually seat my young, able body on a plane. Then I’ll fly back to my peaceful hometown, greet my wonderful family, and catch up with my amazing friends.

Then I will have my whole life ahead of me.

I lost some sexy travel photos. Big deal. There are people in this very city who lost so much more today. How would I feel if my dumb mistake had cost me an arm today? Somewhere, somebody is dealing with that loss right now. That kind of bad day.

Somebody out there lost his home today.

Somebody else lost his best friend.

Somebody else lost his son or daughter.

Even losing a button off a fancy shirt can ruin the day if we lose perspective.

That’s the way to deal with loss: to be grateful. It’s the last thing you’d think to do, but that’s when gratitude is most powerful.

Gratitude is knowing — really knowing — what you’ve got before it’s gone.

The perfect time to be grateful is when you think you’ve lost something huge.

And that’s because loss can help you understand the incredible fortune of still having every single thing you didn’t lose today.

by David on June 28, 2010
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It’s Not What It Looks Like

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swastika in the sidewalk

Today I saw something on the sidewalk that made me stop. Somebody had etched a small swastika in the concrete.

I wouldn’t say it exactly upset me, but it got me genuinely curious… who did that?

Presumably, some kid stumbled across a rare chance to immortalize himself in unguarded wet concrete, and this was his choice. Did he really subscribe to Nazi ideology, or was he just experimenting with shock value?

The sidewalk bordered a park, beside a high school. Did he go to that school? No, he was probably younger. Did he scrawl that symbol in an effort to prove his badness to his friends, or was he alone when he did it?

It couldn’t possibly be a girl.

A rather definite picture of him formed in my head: grade 5 or 6, white, a little bit fat, buzzed brown hair, and his eyebrows come to rest in a scowl. He picked on smaller kids in younger grades sometimes. He hangs around with two kids who are smaller than he is, and they look up to him. He isn’t aware of it, but he speaks with authority when they are around, and at no other time.

I pictured the three of them, crossing the park after school. When they reach the sidewalk, our anti-hero notices the tell-tale dark patch on the sidewalk: freshly poured concrete, and nobody watching. All three are excited, but the two smaller kids wait for the big kid to do something.

He pushes his index finger in, and is disappointed to find it’s been drying for a while — he can’t make a mark. Determined, he grabs a stone, and gouges a vertical line, then crosses it with another. Still not entirely sure what he’s aiming for, he scores the four remaining lines, and sits back to look at it. The other two don’t know what to make of it, and aren’t sure whether to be impressed. But they are most comfortable saying nothing, as is the main kid. The trio gets up and leaves, vaguely disappointed in their first vandalism experience.

That’s when I realized I had become completely carried away by my thoughts. I had sat down, without really noticing, on the slope overlooking the field. I took a photo.

Now, I’ll admit, I’m in the twilight phase of my overseas trip and I do have a lot of spare time on my hands. On a different day I might have just carried on walking. Pretty much anybody would have (although in the photo you can clearly see that somebody has tried to scratch it out — who?) But today, evidently I was affected by what I’d seen. Not distraught, just intensely curious about the moment it appeared there.

In reality, I wasn’t affected by what I’d seen. I was affected by my thoughts. All of that imagery was completely my own work — everything other than the six scratches in the sidewalk. Human motives fascinate me, but if I had not learned to associate that particular symbol with certain human motives, it would have just been a simple little doodle on the sidewalk. The symbol itself is inert. It is not harmful. We react to what we infer from it. So ultimately, I reacted to a part of myself. Read More

by David on June 10, 2010
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The Hidden Cost of Commitment

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skeleton with ball and chain

Today I fired one of my bosses.

Last year I took on a commitment that sounded like a good idea at the time. It didn’t look like a lot of work, and it wasn’t, but I never really got on top of it. It took me a while to realize that I didn’t actually want to do it, but the signs were there from the beginning.

I always came to it with resistance, but kept going because it was temporary, and I don’t like to leave things incomplete. Well today I decided just to pull the plug on it, and I felt such a relief. I didn’t know how much it was weighing on me.

I am quitting David Goes Kiwi. It’s still there, but there will be no more updates. And I feel wonderful about it.

A travel blog really seemed like the right thing to do, but honestly I just never enjoyed writing for it. It was always out of date, and I couldn’t possibly share everything I’ve experienced, or even close. Often I struggled for words, and my posts came off like a budget guidebook. The pictures were much more interesting, but it was always way easier to post them on Facebook. But I didn’t post many on Facebook, because I felt I should post them on DGK first. It really just got in the way of its own purpose: to keep people up to date on my overseas trip.

It’s not a big deal — I’ll be home in a matter of weeks, so I would have had to wrap it up anyway — but the relief I felt today when I finally decided to ditch it was unbelievable. It was something that was only dragging me down, because I just wasn’t willing to make a proper go of it.

Now I can write for Raptitude without that faint, forlorn nagging of my second blog. Guilt, I guess you’d call it. The guilt of not doing a good job of something that was supposedly important.

The hidden cost of commitment

Commitments take more than your time. They quietly take up space in your conscience.

They sneak in there because they often don’t appear to be commitments at all. We usually think of a commitment as an explicit standing agreement between you and somebody else, a promise to do something. But most of our commitments are with ourselves. Something you mean to get fixed. Some goal you mean to get underway. Some situation you mean to put right.

Even if it never made it to any kind of to-do list, if you ever came to the intention to do something about it, your conscience will always sense you’ve left something important unresolved. It won’t always tell you what it is, but it won’t leave you alone. It is the pea to your sleepless princess. Read More

by David on June 7, 2010
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Die on Purpose

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chair in the desert

I think it’s really helpful to forget you exist, and often.

It sounds impossible, but it can be done.

Here’s an exercise I do sometimes to achieve that perspective:

Wherever I am, whatever location I am in, I picture the situation exactly as it would be if I wasn’t there. I just watch it like it’s a movie, and the people still in the scene are the actors. Or maybe there’s nobody around at all, it’s just an empty corner of the world sharing a moment with itself. Whatever the scene, it feels like I’m watching it remotely from some far-off theater. It’s all still happening, but I’m not there.

I absorb myself in the details of how it looks and sounds. The characters’ tones of voice, their gestures, the room around them, the background noise. I can let it be whatever it is without any apprehension, because I’m not there, so I have no means — or reason — to stop it or control it, or to wish it was different.

And something amazing happens: all of my concerns and interests just disappear. I watch the moment unfold however it pleases. No part of me is invested in the moment, it just becomes whatever it wills to be, and it doesn’t matter what happens. The effect is exhilarating and liberating. It seems to be quite a miracle that there is even something happening at all. And it’s always, always beautiful.

Think of it as dying on purpose.

Imagine you just died, right now. All of your responsibilities, relationships, plans and worries would vanish like they were never even real, and the world would go on perfectly fine without your input, just like it did before you existed. It’s nothing personal, just the plain truth.

Your hopes and worries never mattered anyway. They only appeared to be so critical because while you were alive you had the insidious (but normal) human habit of seeing things only insofar as they relate to you and your interests. Read More

by David on April 12, 2010
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Complaining is Only a Symptom — Experiment No. 5 Results

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complain

Done. My campaign to go 21 consecutive days without complaining or gossiping is finally over, and what I discovered surprised me.

To recap, the experiment was to cease complaining or gossiping for twenty-one straight days, as long as that took. If I complained, I started the count again from zero. The idea was inspired by the book A Complaint Free World, by Will Bowen. The original post is here.

I cruised through the first week complaint-free, then cracked on my eighth day. I had to restart four times in total. My last screwup was on the eighteenth consecutive day, within 72 hours of finishing.

It took a total of 55 days. Read More

by David on April 5, 2010
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40 Songs I Will Always Love, Cool or Not (Pt. 2)

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headphones

This is part 2 of a two-part post. The first half is here.

Let’s continue, shall we? Things may get a bit rowdier here in the second half. But as before, there’s something for everyone.

“Need You Tonight” – INXS

Looking back to the decade that produced me, there was a point when all the ridiculous fluff of the mid-80s gave way to some really timeless, inspired tunes. I figure it was about the time Kick came out. Still one of the grooviest guitar riffs I know, this song was ultra-cool on arrival and still is. It makes non-dancers want to dance.

If you like it: The rest of Kick is worth a listen. Consult an INXS die-hard for further instruction.

“Jolene” – Dolly Parton

A heartbreaking song about a girl watching her man drift away to a woman she can’t compete with. There is something so refreshing and honest about a song that looks unflinchingly at personal powerlessness, without dolling it up by babbling about hope. We’ve all been devastated by a Jolene of some kind, in one way or another. Utter defeat is human too, and Dolly saw something meaningful in it.

If you like it: The White Stripes do a fantastic cover of this song, mercifully ignoring the obnoxious custom of changing the gender when a male sings it. Check it out.   Read More

by David on March 8, 2010
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40 Songs I Will Always Love, Cool or Not

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guitar and dandelion

One of my earliest (and to date most successful) posts was Six Songs that Illustrate What it Means to Be Human. Many readers said they hadn’t heard some of these tunes before, and really liked them. I’ve since received a number of requests to post a list of my favorite songs.

So here it is. But first a few quick things:

Choosing my forty outright favorite songs is not really possible. I can’t recall every song I love at any given time, so I can never be sure I’m not omitting something. Therefore this is a list of forty of my favorite songs. Some songs are very well known. Most aren’t, but I didn’t take the indie-snob route and give you forty small-time artists you’ve never heard of and won’t “get” because you aren’t cool enough. I happily included songs and artists that are decidedly uncool. (You’ll see.) You’ll find this list to be a bit 90s-heavy, which just reflects my age and tastes. But there’s something for everyone.

Each song links to a place where you can listen to it. Most point to Youtube, and some are on Mp3Raid.com. On the latter site you just have to enter the code they show, no need for signing up or anything. Let me know if any links are broken.

This is part one of a two-part post. Part two will be posted on Monday.

Enjoy.

“Grandma’s Hands” – Bill Withers

An unbelievably catchy tune. Members of my generation might think they’re listening to Blackstreet for the first few bars. It will get stuck in your head, beware! You’ll be snapping, clapping, head-bobbing or shoulder-dipping to Billy’s vivid memories of his sweet old grandma.

If you like it: go find Bill Withers’ version of Use Me, probably better known as an Aaron Neville song. I think Bill did it best.

“The Seeker” – The Who

The taking-life-back anthem of Lester Burnham, the pot-smoking, career-ditching mid-life revolutionary from American Beauty. It’s a straight-laced rock tune, with a comedic take on the biggest of all human themes. It characterizes the search for life’s meaning as a mocking, hopeless conundrum, through the eyes of a regular joe who sees no reason why it shouldn’t make perfect sense. And with a guitar riff like that, it’s hard to see it any other way.

If you like it: I’m no Who expert, but you could do worse than giving My Generation (the album) a good listen. Read More

by David on March 4, 2010
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A Shocking Instance of Self-Discovery

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Auckland

I’ve made a terrible miscalculation. Have you ever been so sure you knew someone inside and out, and then you discover something about them that completely contradicts everything you thought you knew? Denial can make you blind to it, especially if you’ve really been counting on that particular person to fill a certain role in your life. Well, that happened to me last week.

The great majority of you only know me through what I write, but that’s probably given you a pretty revealing view of my outlook on life. By now you know what I think about humanity and the potential of individuals. I get gushing emails and comments from all sorts of people thanking me for showing them a positive perspective or helping them out of a bad mood.

Raptitude has always been about empowerment and happiness. My interest is finding more skillful ways to cultivate joy and appreciate life. I write about gratitude and wisdom and all things positive. But you knew that.

If you haven’t guessed yet, the person I was mistaken about was me. Recently I learned something about myself that I never suspected, and it was a bit of a shock. Read More

by David on February 25, 2010
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The End of Negativity – Raptitude Experiment No. 5

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No complaining

Time for another experiment. This one I’ve been meaning to do for a long time. The idea behind it has made the rounds for a few years now and I’m not the first to do it, but I think the concept is fascinating and brimming with potential.

One day Will Bowen, a mild-mannered Missouri Reverend, challenged his congregation to develop their habit of gratitude by going 21 consecutive days without complaining or criticizing.

His method was quite simple and ingenious: Read More

by David on February 4, 2010
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Two Simple Tricks to Be More Comfortable in Your Own Skin

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alone in a crowd

I’ve received a fair bit of email asking me to write about how to be more comfortable in your own skin, particularly in unfamiliar places. Many report some level of anxiety at the thought of venturing into crowded venues, exploring new neighborhoods, or traveling alone.

I won’t pretend I’ve conquered self-consciousness in all its forms, but I can see my preparedness for dealing with the unfamiliar is miles from where it once was.

As a benchmark of how far I’ve come, I often reminisce with some embarrassment how my heart used to beat a little faster even at the thought of ordering pizza over the phone. It’s difficult to comprehend now what exactly I found intimidating about it, but I know that that was reality for me at one point.

Not long ago (maybe two years) I was not in a state of mind where I would be willing to confront the intrinsic uncertainties and risks of shipping myself off to another country. I’ve been on the road for seven weeks in unfamiliar parts of three countries and I’ve run into surprisingly few situations where I could not relax into whatever new scene I’ve found myself in.

I’ve learned a few tricks that really help create ease in situations where you don’t exactly feel like a fish in water. I’ll share two simple ones that you may want to try if you’re feeling a bit out of your element somewhere. Read More

by David on December 3, 2009
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