In my lifetime, I haven’t had much in the way of physical illness. The most serious setback I ever had was when I dislocated a bone in my hand and had to spend 6 months in a plaster cast. I’m lucky that I have always been healthy.
But even though my body hasn’t suffered many afflictions, my mind has. It has been so full of bugs and loopholes that I failed to realize I needed to release updates for my mind every day. Since the symptoms are not as obvious as they are in the physical body, these bugs lived on inside me, unnoticed for years. Over the last decade, though, I have been painstakingly identifying these devil bugs and taking a cure to exterminate them.
The different types of bugs in my mind made up a long list that would easily fill two A4 sheets. One of the biggest I have identified is called the Should Bug. This bug made me ask the question “Should I have …?” every day.
“Should I have come to the UK instead of going to Singapore?”
“Should I have taken this course?”
“Should I have pursued this career?”
“Should I have ordered this dish?”
At first glance, there doesn’t seem to be anything at all wrong with these questions. They are perfectly legitimate for the purpose of assessing whether I have made the right decision or not. It’s self-analysis.
But the problem with it is the focus: it’s always been on whether I have chosen the right thing or the wrong thing. The real question that I should have been asking myself all along has been “How do I …?”
Instead of asking if I made the right decision in coming over to the UK rather than going to Singapore, I should have asked, “Now I’m here, how do I make this work?”
Instead of bemoaning the fact that I’d taken a Business degree because I wasn’t sure what else to do, I should have asked “Now I’m here for good, how do I make this work?”
My focus was always wrong! It’s not about making the right choice, because quite a lot of the time, how would you know for sure? For example, I’ll never know whether Singapore would have been a better choice for me because I never went there. It’s all about making your choices work.
I was so busy concentrating on not frittering my life away on obvious things – watching too many films, playing computer games, hanging out with trying people – that I simply didn’t notice how wasteful I was actually being.
I was so intent on not wasting my life in the wrong career, the wrong country or the wrong company that I kept asking myself “Should I have …?” rather than concentrating on making it work. I was so busy worrying about not living the wrong life that I forgot to buckle down and make the life I already had, work.
This dangerous bug had infected me right from my childhood and had been festering for a long time. Too bad I didn’t spot it earlier: I could have grown up a lot faster. But at least I have been diagnosed now, I’ve taken the cure and I’m almost clear of the bug itself. I just have to be careful not to let my immune system be weak.
So, I’ve had a word in the bug’s foul little ear: “You nasty thing, I see you now. Trouble me no more. I’m making whatever I have chosen work … and I’m enjoying it.”