How to Solve Your 99 Problems with a Proactive Approach
Have you ever noticed how often some of us, people, spend energy on feeding our destructive emotions and generating problems in our own lives instead of spending it on solving our 99 problems with a proactive approach? Let me explain…
I often spend my energy on thinking how ignorant and impudent people in my country are (I am from Eastern Europe). Every day I come across facts that prove me right. It makes me experience a pool of emotions: I feel sad, angry, disappointed, desperate, etc. Today I’ve thought: “what’s the benefit?” Spoiler: a proactive approach to life can solve 99 of your problems, both current and future ones.
Definition of proactive
A proactive approach unlike a reactive one one means doing certain actions that help prevent problems from happening. On the other hand, a reactive approach means doing certain actions to fight problems when they have already occurred.
When to apply this proactive approach
Always ask yourself: what good can my energy do to the world?
Can I change anything with my negative energy? Even if I start preaching on social media about what is right and what is wrong, people that follow me on social media still won’t understand me because we’re on different levels of perception.
99 problems that can’t be solved with anger
I’ve tried and I’ve learned that it’s impossible to make people understand something if you’re on different levels of perception. For example, most people in my country won’t understand why I refuse to eat beef or pork (some actually even feel offended when I refuse to eat meat).
It’s also impossible to make people in my country understand that purebred dogs and cats are not better than stray dogs and cats they can adopt; it’s impossible to make them understand that a dog or a cat is not a luxury item you can show off; that you should spend money on your pet and take it to the vet regularly; that you can’t throw it away when it’s old or no longer needed.
It’s impossible to make them understand why they shouldn’t buy plastic bags and other plastic rubbish. Also, they often take as many plastic bags as they can for free in supermarkets. I often wonder what they do with that number of plastic bags.
It’s also impossible to make them understand that their poor life is the result of their own choices and actions, not the fault of the government or people who have managed to “make it”. It’s impossible to make them understand how karma works in their lives (even if it’s obvious).
Another weird thing about these people is that they are all Christians and some even go to church (having never read the Bible and having no idea what Christian traditions are about), yet the same people kill animals, curse each other in the street (I remember the fights at the church at Easter I saw when I was a child), gossip about their friends, steal things and so on. While when I say that I am not Christian or refuse to celebrate Christian holidays, they feel personally offended and aggressively try to prove me wrong. And of course, this is not the full list of things that annoy me in my home country.
But can my anger I react to conflicts with change anything for the better? Definitely not.
Why you should stop flushing your energy down the drain
So, what am I spending my energy on when feeling angry at those people? I’m flushing it down the drain. Let’s imagine I write that post on social media, telling people that follow me the truth about them and their lifestyle…That post will generate more anger and hate because those people aren’t ready, aren’t able to understand those things; such thoughts have never bothered their mind, and it’s just impossible to change them that way.
It turns out that experiencing all those bad emotions I just generate more problems for myself. I start feeling hate and irritation even though my personal life is perfect and I have all means to be happy. Instead of generating problems and flushing my energy down the drain, I must put this energy into solving for good the problems bothering me, so that conflicts with other people don’t arise.
How to solve the 99 problems bothering you with a proactive approach
Identify the problems that bother you the most.
For me they are:
- Stray dogs and cats
- Use of plastic
- Relatives feeling offended by the fact that I don’t eat meat they cooked and by the fact I am not Christian
Then ask yourself…
How can I solve these problems?
For example, in my case:
- To help homeless dogs and cats in my home country, the best thing I can do is to make money and spend it on them. Having money, I can help the existent pet shelters, I can pay for surgeries, I can build my own pet shelter, I can adopt disabled dogs and cats, I can hire people to help me, I can pay to advertise adoption, etc. So, the best thing I can do for those animals is to focus on working harder here and now.
- To reduce the use of plastic, I can buy less food and household goods in plastic packaging. Instead of buying bottled water, I can install a reverse osmosis water filter. Instead of buying coffee to go in a disposable cup, I can buy a travel cup. There are so many options!
- As for relatives feeling offended by the fact that I refuse to eat what they cook or by the fact that I don’t believe in their religion, there’s only one way out: become uncompromising and set boundaries. Some older people mistakenly believe that they have more knowledge, hence they are always right. However, in the age of the Internet, younger generations are winning this race. Of course, it’s impossible to make older people believe that we have had more access to information, and we have more knowledge to make informed decisions, so the only way is to say about your choices loudly and persistently. A NO is a NO. They have to learn to respect other people’s choices when these choices do no harm to them and to the world. It’s time for them to stop being ignorant and finally educate themselves. Explaining my choices to people who are of a different opinion is not my job. As well as teaching people on social media how to live their life. If you lack self-confidence to do so, I recommend you to read How to Be More Confident and Succeed in Life.
Life, just like health, is the result of past choices. I choose to put my energy and effort into applying a proactive approach to prevent problems and conflicts bothering me and that means working harder here and now to make this world a better place and eventually live my dream stress-free life instead of constantly feeling destructive emotions like sadness, disappointment, and anger.
If you liked the message conveyed in this article, please share with friends to promote a proactive approach to life!
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