How to Be a Bawse: A Guide to Conquering Life(64)
I was recently talking to my friend David when he said something life-changing. He was actually repeating something his professor said to him: “There’s a lot of horrible things happening in the world, and to deal with it you have two choices. You can pretend it doesn’t exist and be numb to it. You can probably do this and live a long, happy life and still feel like a good person. Or you can recognize that you won the lottery with your privilege and do something with your winnings.”
Being appreciative is an important ingredient in the recipe for happiness, and happiness is an important ingredient in the recipe for being a Bawse. Surprise—there’s baking involved. Either you can focus on the one oddly shaped puzzle piece in your hand or you can look at the bigger picture and remember all that you are blessed with. It’s your lottery money, so how are you going to spend it?
For starters, you can go out and actually buy Mindy’s book. It’s so damn good.
Get Grateful
List five things you take for granted.
WHEN YOU THINK of the most important team in your life, who do you think of? Maybe it’s your hometown football team. Maybe it’s your co-workers who all work alongside you during late nights at the office. Or maybe it’s your family, the people who support you through thick and thin and know just how weird you truly are. Not the cute weird, the real weird. But while these teams are all important, none of them are as important as the team we have within us. This team governs our happiness, consciousness, and productivity.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! Introducing your starting lineup for the home team! Up first, weighing in at approximately three pounds, sporting a fabulous thinking cap, give it up for your MIND!
Up next, weighing five pounds more than before you ate lunch, and the only player on the team that has scored any physical points in the game, give it up for your BODY!
And last, weighing zero physical pounds but feeling like a ton, the inspiration for an entire genre of music, give it up for your SOUL!
I’ll wait a moment for the crowd to settle down …
Conquering your mind, body, and soul and training them to work as a team allow you to align your thoughts, actions, and emotions. This alignment will not only result in genuine happiness but also provide you with the optimal conditions to be productive. After all, when a team works together, it can accomplish great things. BUT if even one member of the team doesn’t cooperate, the entire team will become inefficient and disagreeable. Think of your mind, body, and soul as members of a group project. You get the best grade when everyone does an equal amount of work. As soon as one person pulls the “my computer crashed” line, the entire project suffers.
If the thought of having little team members inside yourself terrifies you, then, first of all, you need to watch Inside Out because this concept is actually adorable. Second of all, you can also just think of yourself as a machine. (Because robots are less terrifying than cute cartoons?! Stop it.)
Imagine you’re driving your car and you turn the steering wheel left, but the wheels end up turning right. And when you step on the brakes, the car accelerates. If all the parts of a machine aren’t working together, the machine will fail at performing a task. The best results come from a well-oiled machine. And that’s what you should strive to make your mind, body, and soul—a well-oiled, fully functional machine that allows you to perform your best.
How can you tell if your team members are in sync? Well, is your Facebook status reflective of your actions in real life, and are those actions reflective of what you truly believe in your heart? Do you perform certain actions throughout your day that you constantly feel guilty about? Do you say you’re going to do something, but then just can’t get yourself to do it? If your thoughts, actions, and emotions are not all in line, then your team is not in sync. Discovering your team is not working together is an indication that you need to make some changes.
When people ask me if I’m dating anyone, I reply very honestly by saying, “No, because I’m a bad girlfriend.” Chances are by the time you’re reading this, nothing will have changed because artificial men don’t exist and Chris Hemsworth doesn’t know I exist. I discovered I was a bad girlfriend when I realized that my team wasn’t in sync during my last relationship. I’d been dating my boyfriend at the time for about two years (basically, an eternity), and aside from a few incompatibilities, he was a great guy. In my mind I told myself, “He checks all the boxes, and so I definitely care about him.” When people asked me about him, I would tell them the same thing. When we would argue about me not giving him enough attention or time, I would reply, “That is ridiculous. OF COURSE I CARE ABOUT YOU.” Here’s the thing, though: I FELT like I cared about him and I SAID that I cared about him, but I never ACTED like I cared about him. I kept prioritizing other things above him, and thus my body wasn’t in sync with my mind and soul. My machine wasn’t able to produce the love and dedication required for a successful relationship.
Eventually I ended things because I knew something was not right. My team didn’t agree about that relationship, but it did agree about my career. Pulling an all-nighter to work on videos INSTEAD of having a conversation with my boyfriend was something all my team members agreed on. I said I would work, I felt like working, and then I worked. When I realized that my team was in alignment regarding my career, I also realized that I wasn’t ready to prioritize a relationship. Basically, my mind, body, and soul were like a gold-medal-winning synchronized swimming team.