Stop Suffering

One of my favorite movies is Office Space. Remember that scene where Ron Livingston’s character, Peter Gibbons, is in the hypnotist’s office? He tells Dr. Swanson, the hypnotherapist: 

"So I'm sitting in my cubicle today and I realized that ever since I 
started working, every single day of my life has been worse than the 
day before it. So it means that every single day you see me, that's on 
the worst day of my life."

 He goes on to ask Dr Swanson, 

 “But is there any way that you, you could just sock me out so there’s no way that I’ll know I’m at work?”

Rather than change his circumstance, he is asking to somehow make himself completely happy and oblivious to the fact that he is in a job he hates. 

Too often that seems to be what people are trying to do when they are faced with a terrible situation. Rather than search for the way out, they seek ways to be happy in that situation. They stay in jobs they hate and seek counseling to make it better. They stay in toxic relationships with parents, siblings, friends, and lovers that don’t work. And they think there is something wrong with them. Sometimes there probably is, but just as often, there probably isn’t, and the answer is not to find a way to put up and shut up. The answer is to identify the tough changes that we need to make and get to the business of changing. 

Annie Duke, the famous poker player, wrote a book called “Quit”, which gives great strategies for deciding when it is time to throw in the towel because it ain’t getting any better and you’ve done wasted enough time and money. Paul Simon does us a similar favor in “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover.” 

My point, is that if you are in a sucky situation, and you have tried to remedy it best you can, look at making choices that completely change your circumstance. Get a new job, fire that bad customer or employee, get a new vendor, sell your business, move across the country. Do something different! Don’t always look for ways to suffer through adversity.