Anthology Of Useless Acts

Life is very short and, even so, we can dedicate a large part of it to absurd behaviors that do not make much sense. They neither provide us with pleasure, nor do they allow us to solve a problem, nor do they provide us with something new or enriching for our day to day. They are attitudes that we stubbornly commit ourselves to and that sometimes become a true habit of life. Only after many years, or maybe never, do we realize how much time we wasted with these attitudes.

Here we show you an anthology of those actions that, frankly, are useless.

Fight to be accepted

The best way to be accepted is precisely by not fighting for it. Forcing that situation through some ploy to win the sympathy of others is like admitting your superiority, while accepting your low worth. In the best of cases, you get them to give you the same treatment that you are giving yourself: a pleasant contempt. All the time you invest in that cause will be wasted. Whoever truly accepts you will do so spontaneously.

Stop acting for fear of making a mistake

If the fear of making a mistake makes you paralyze, I recommend that you look for another planet to live on. On earth, error is the daily bread for all mortals. If you think about it, everything you do, and what you stop doing, is a mistake. Even the smallest. If you weren’t wearing lace-up shoes, maybe you would spend less time getting dressed, then wearing them can be a mistake. But if you only wear loafers, maybe you deform the footwear more easily, then it is also a mistake. You see? Absolutely everything has a margin of error. So the fear of error is a completely useless attitude because there is not the slightest possibility that there are no failures, big or small, in your life.

Lick the wound

You may have been through a very painful situation that left a mark more than deep on your heart. You probably cried your eyes and you still don’t explain to yourself how you could continue living after having gone through that suffering. The truth is that you did it, otherwise you would not be reading this. Maybe you feel that you have not completely overcome it, but of one thing you can be sure: self-pitying you will not achieve it. Quite the opposite. Pity for yourself is the best way to prolong suffering indefinitely. You will be wasting valuable time that you could instead use to reflect on what happened and draw the lessons that every difficult situation brings with it.

Go from the obsession for the perfect to the easy and vice versa

Maybe you are one of those who say “To me or black or white, no gray.” Maybe you even really believe that lie and painfully try to live in coherence with that radicalism. The downside is that it is one of those false principles that only work on paper. Like it or not, almost everything in the world and in life comes in many shades of gray. The biggest risk is that you can become one of those people addicted to perfection who, of course, are always going to be dissatisfied by any insignificance. Or on the contrary, you might believe that since after all nothing is perfect, then why try too hard? Both attitudes will prevent you from appreciating the true value of what you do and will give disappointment a leading place in your life. Those attitudes are of no use to you.

Blaming others for what happens to you

It is a constant temptation. If parents, parenting, society, destiny, economic system, culture, or whatever are responsible for your problems, then you yourself put yourself in a position where there is nothing to do. You are conceptualizing yourself as an object and not as a subject. As if your position in the world were that of the one who only receives, but cannot process, or create on what is already given. As if your only option was to passively “suffer” everything. That attitude gives you absolutely nothing. On the contrary, it takes you away from your own conscience and your own power. Not assuming the margin of responsibility that corresponds to each one for what happens is the best way to prolong undesirable situations forever.

Image courtesy of ansita grizas.