like to believe that each of us wakes up each day to do the very best that we can. That takes many forms, and the results vary widely. In my life, I see periods of doing good work, sometimes great work, and sometimes just barely showing up. When I talk about work, I'm not talking about work in the conventional sense. I'm talking about living the best life I can, and that takes real work.
My Inner Voice
It might be me, but I'm not sure 20 years ago it was safe to say that I hear a voice in my head. The truth is we do talk to ourselves and studies show that we do that about 25% of the time. It's likely that as you read this, there is a voice in your head chiming in as you go along. You hear that voice when you get up in the morning. It tells you to hit snooze ("It's okay, just ten more minutes") or when you look in the mirror ("I need to stop eating pizza") or when you think about what you are going to have for lunch ("Don't get pizza today, but I'm busy and I don't have time for anything else").
I don't have any science to back it up, but maybe our internal dialogue defaults either negatively or positively. I don't have any experience with defaulting positively because my dialogue defaults negatively. I am a self-identified problem solver, and when I see something that is great, I default to the one thing that can be better. I recognize that this can be maddening for everyone in my life, which means that nothing is ever good enough. Imagine how my kids feel. I am constantly pushing for better. I even have an acronym for it BTTY, and it stands for Better Today Than Yesterday. It's pronounced Betty. We also built a company called BTTY. Gosh.
This is such an issue for me that one of my closest friends said, "Is it ever going to be enough for you? You are always trying to make it better. Why can't you just accept it and be happy? You might as well have BTTY tattooed to your chest" (He wasn't the first one to say it to me either, and I don't think he will be the last).
I won't pretend to have this code cracked. I will tell you that I am hyper-aware of this issue I have; this propensity to talk to myself and uncover the FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) wherever it is hiding. I might be alone here, but I don't think so. I believe that we all struggle with this voice. And sometimes, the voice needs to say what it is going to say. A dear friend lost someone unexpectedly this week. Someone very close to them. They are crushed. There is no other voice that is right today other than "why" and all of the other things we think of when we lose someone. I don't have an answer for that.
Maybe it’s why we look for distractions. Going to the movies makes the voice go away for me. At least for a little while, the voice allows you to shut off your job, bills, or my personal go to: "you are messing up this whole, raising teenagers thing.”
In The Blessing of a B Minus Dr. Mogel makes the point that when your kids play video games, they get to forget about all of the issues in their life. She is essentially saying that they get to turn off the voice that they hear. You remember that voice when you were a teenager, right? Ugh. Play on, I say.
What I Tell Myself Matters
Here's the thing about the voice in my head. It is the one thing that I can control. I can let it spiral down a hole of fear, uncertainty, doubt, anger, and anxiety. I can allow it tell me about all of the things that are wrong or where I have been harmed, hurt, or how life is unfair. The reality is stuff happens, and what I tell myself, matters. Although he wasn't talking about voices (or dogs) the way I am, James Clear synthesizes the point well in his book Atomic Habits with the following:
Two ways to look at the same event:
"You have to walk the dogs"
"You get to walk the dogs"
Today, I recognize that difference, and that is not without work. It requires that I meditate, journal, exercise, read, eat right, create, and actively nurture relationships to put me in the mental state to have that level of clarity. A very dear friend calls it my operating system. When I get to that point, I stop viewing the constant stream of issues coming my way in life as issues. They are just life.
When life is it's hardest, and this year has been hard, all we can do is focus on what we can control. I control how I react to life and what I allow the voice in my head to say. Maybe I don't get to control what the voice says the first time, but I can control what it keeps saying.
Better Today Than Yesterday
Maybe one day I will be satisfied. Age helps with that, I think. It helps bring priorities into focus. Things like: “you only get 18 summers with your kids” or “don’t regret working too hard while your kids grow up”.
I doubt I'll ever stop trying to make better, but I do try to enjoy the moment more today. To allow the voice to say "this is nice" a little more often. I also let it stop and say, "Hey, how you are looking at this is all wrong. Change your perception, and you will change your life."
Sometimes I need help from my friends (my wife is the best at this) on that last one, and that's okay. We all need that from time to time.
The voice of better needs to stay…just focused on the right better.
