No One’s Life is Perfect
July 4, 2014 by MarkHaroldsen
Filed under blog
I ran into a friend a few days ago and greeted him with the old familiar “Hey, how’s it going?” He gave the usual response of “I’m doing fine”, but he added two words to the beginning of his greeting: “I guess …”! Wow. That totally changed the meaning of his greeting and his facial expression matched those two added words. Obviously, he wasn’t doing “fine”. So I dug a little deeper and found out he really was struggling with some big issues.
In today’s world of fast and quickly expanding social media we are given the impression that people out there have near perfect lives. I mean take a look at virtually anyone’s Facebook and you’ll see all these fun pictures and comments. Much of what we see is the good stuff, and of course there is really nothing wrong with that, but it sure can make a lot of people feel and believe that their own lives, filled with challenges, big ups and downs, and problems are really “messed up”, causing self-pity, depression and, in the worst cases, even suicide.
The fact is, nobody’s life is perfect or even close, but when you’re looking from the outside you might be tricked into thinking that other people are doing tons better than you. If you take time to look and probe on a deeper level you will see that the surface view can be very misleading since most of us don’t announce or display our problems but prefer to show and advertise our successes.
So, if you really want to know the truth and gain insight into a person’s real and complete life,you need to dig deeper. One easy way to do this is by simply asking the right questions. For example, pick a friend or relative that seems to be doing well as you see on their Facebook postings or hear them talk about their world travel, huge income or impressive home and lifestyle, and ask questions like these:
1. What are the biggest challenges you are having in life right now?
2. In the past, what do you think has been the worst or hardest part of your life?
3. Who or what makes you sad?
4. Do you ever get down or depressed? (If they say yes, ask how often and what causes it.)
5. What’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to you?
6. Do you think much about your own mortality?
7. What in your life scares you the most?
8. Have you experienced any great tragedy in your life? If so, what happened and when?
9. Do you worry and think about tragedy striking you in the future?
If you take a little time, you certainly can add your own probing questions to this list.
I’m pretty sure if you question those who you think have “the perfect life” you will find, as I have, that no matter how rich and famous or perfect their lives look from the outside, they too have their problems and challenges and many times much larger problems that you would have ever guessed.
You might ask at this point, “Why go through all of this questioning?â€
I personally believe it’s a very good thing to do for at least 2 reasons. First, it can help you see and understand yourself better and remove any self-pity or feelings of “not as good as other people”. It can even lift you out of a state of depression, so you come up with the thought of “Hey I’m not doing so badly after all.” Because of this, you may see yourself in a much different light and find you have higher self-esteem”.
Second, and most importantly, knowing the challenges and problems of your relatives and friends can put you in the perfect position to step up and help them overcome some of their problems, challenges and obstacles. This makes it a real Win-Win. And all for just asking a few questions!
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