I would like to ask everyone a question as I consider new material. How do you deal with the "games" life plays on you ? Lies, Cheating, deceit - ethics in corporations being a joke.
I don't think Life is doing those things; I think other people are. I try to differentiate the people who do that from the ones who are being done-to, and the ones who are making some effort to protect the potential victims, or at least mitigate the harm. How I mostly deal with the social malaise is with humour: If the "good corporate citizen" is, indeed, a joke, and i were to write about it, I would carry that to the conclusion of the logic-structure of jokes, which is the juxtaposition of absurdities. But, of course, that's already been done far better than I can, too many times. I think of the games Life plays as things like predation, weather, aging, luck - that kind of universal thing. How i deal with those things is, well - not as graciously as I'd like to see myself doing. So, once I've survived a challenge, I re-write the event, with a better-looking, taller, braver, more glib protagonist playing the part of me. After all, why else would Fate have given us blue thumbs?
Not sure if i'm answering teh right question, but as i've got older i see friends and family either winning at life or losing to it. Modern life chucks all manner of things at us; when i was in my 20's i felt invincible and optimistic. Now i'm in my 40's, i ache alot more but refuse to let the grind get me down. I guess i deal with it through humour (playing in a dumb punk band with my mates) and a growing sense of community in the village i live in (I'm a school governor and supporter of local drives such as befriending some lonely folk who can't get out and about etc). I have known some folk over the years pull away from everyone else and they seem to have got bitter about some of the sh*t life has thrown at them. Personally i don't see that helping in any way cheers
The idea that Life itself, with a capital L, being aligned against you can be an overwhelming and implacable concept. It's also unhealthy. It skews your perception to see any individual hardship as another symptom of a greater, looming plot against you. Though it may be hard, try to keep perspective. Let the things that piss you off be just those things. Let the people who let you down be just those people. Don't let them all agglomerate into something that is too big for you to deal with or you will stop trying. Remember that you have the capacity to deal with every one of those problems and then deal with them, one at a time. With each victory, you'll be more suited to deal with the next. Never doubt your own strength or capability.
By realizing that nothing is "all" good or "all" bad. If you expect the world to be against you, it will be, because your eyes won't be open to any other possibility. Remembering that balance is the natural order of things helps keep your eyes open for other possibilities. Things will never be good if you can't see good in the world. A musician friend of mine taught me this trick, which he uses to remind himself not to get caught up in the bad. On his piano, he has a clear jar filled with slips of paper (post its are fine) and a pen. Every time something good happens, no matter how trivial, he writes it down and puts it in the jar. Soon it becomes like a game: you want to fill the jar. I keep my Jar of Good Things in plain sight, then at the end of the year I tape the pieces of paper in my journal. A few of my slips of paper from 2017: "Got a free lamp thanks to Pottery Barn gift card and sale!" "Cold enough to wear my favorite sweater and sip a mug of hot tea!" "Rain!" "Dinner and a movie with [friends' names]!" "Purple sunset!" As you can see, it doesn't matter how trivial they might seem. The game is to look for good things. 2017 was a really shitty year for me, but looking for the good stuff helped a lot.
Here is something trivial that made my day - actually, my whole week. I went to the ER last week and the doctor phoned me at home a few days later to ask how I'm doing!!!
I agree with Oxymaroon that it is other people playing shenanigans. Then again like Dead Rats, I write about it too.
