Remember when I wrote about the monthly self help book that I said I'd actually read two this month? Well here we are to talk about the second.
It was actually one of the "clear it off the TBR pile" books. I didn't realize it was a self help thing at all until I started or I probably would have saved it for a month. But it was incredibly short, took less than an hour to read, and now it's off the list so that was good.
Kevin Hart's This is How We Do It: A Pep Talk.
This is actually a really good example of the sort of thing I read a lot of in my 20s and early 30s and gives me a good perspective on how I've changed. It was good, I want to get that out of the way. Enjoyable read. If you find him entertaining at all there are parts where you can absolutely hear his voice speaking to you. And it was just exactly what it claimed to be, a pep talk.
It was around what he called his 15 tools to live your best life. Basically, be positive, be dedicated, work hard, do what you say you will those sorts of things. Nothing groundbreaking but a good go get 'em sort of message.
Now here is where my 20s me (and even probably into my 40s me) would agree with him and my 50s me takes a different older, wiser, more empathetic to the world view. He talks a lot about being positive. About being likable. About ignoring that negative mindset. And this works for me. I preached it for a long time. Choose to be happy. Focus on gratitude. And I still do it. For myself. But what I learned later in life is that advice like that can actually be really frustrating to people who are depressed. Or anxious.
Be happy. Oh! Okay, why didn't I think of that? sort of thing. If it was that easy they would have done it a long time ago. I will say that I've always (and he does too) given the caveat that if you need medication or outside help seek it. Get what you need to feel better. But the relentless drumbeat of just be happy can be really awful for people who are fighting their brains all the time and can't JUST be happy. So for those sections I had a voice in my own head thinking "sometimes it's not that easy."
But then there was a great nugget in his 15 that he labeled nonreactivity. In the Four Agreements it was Don't Take Anything Personally, I call it developing a sense of Unfuckablewithness. It's basically that you cannot control what other people say about you or feel about you. There are going to be people out there that just don't like you. And there are going to be people who will go out of their way to let you know. And there will be people who go behind your back to tell others. None of that has anything to do with you.
And it's a hard one to master. I work on it all the time. But it's one that will change your life. There is an Eleanor Roosevelt quote out there, "What other people think about me is none of my business" and it's such a solid one. When I'm feeling a little more feisty I might go with "To care what you think about me, I first have to care about you."
And even with people I do care about I try to remember that unless what I'm doing is hurting them, their opinion of me shouldn't be stronger than my opinion of myself.
And it's not just when people are trying to drag you, it's daily stuff. Last week Brent and I were talking to a friend of ours and he was apologizing for something that neither of us had taken as a slight. I told him he would have to try harder than that to insult me. And that's unfuckablewithness. You have to try hard. You have to make an effort. I mean, I don't want you to, but normally if you do something shitty to me I'm either not going to really pay attention, assume you've had a shitty day and just lashed out, or you want a reaction.
And if I give you a reaction because you were shitty you will be shitty again. So...
And often I am sort of amused by it. Like I see you out there thrashing at me for whatever reason you have but I've turned you into a toddler throwing a fit in my head and I'm just going to let you burn yourself out. The other thing I try to do is look at what you are doing again. Are there two ways to take this? One is that you are being shitty and one isn't? Go with the isn't.
I'm not perfect at it. Not by a long shot. But I am a lot better at it than I was in my 20s.
When I first came across this principle in life, that you don't have to react to everything, It sort of blew me away. I was glad to see it in his pep talk.
It was a clever book, there was some good stuff in there, and it was also a great perspective book for me. Reading it when I was younger I would have thought Yeah! I need to get up earlier and be there longer and always focus on positive things and....and now at my age I read it and thought, that's super interesting that this all works for him. I hope he doesn't burn himself out.
If you want a Kevin Hart pep talk and you've got an hour and a Kindle I think it might even be a free download still.
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