Someone left a baby on my doorstep
So what should I do now?
Hi friend,
Before I get into today’s anxious thought, I really just want to do a vibe check. How are you? Are you doing well? I feel like we always just talk about me, but never about you haha. I guess, today, I’m really wondering how you’re doing. What’s new? Read any good books lately? Do you have any music recommendations? You can always reply to me just as much as I talk to you.
More importantly, I must ask, are you...anxious?
Well I am.
This morning I woke up to a baby left on my doorstep and honestly I didn’t know what to do about it! It’s not my baby, so how can it be my fault or responsibility? At first, I didn’t know who left the baby. I didn’t know the baby’s name or why this baby was left on my doorstep! To be honest, the baby was ugly so I knew it couldn’t be mine (lol I said what I said..) However, at that moment, I realized I had three options:
I could close the door and pretend that me and the baby never met.
I could call the police and get help for the baby.
I could adopt this baby and hold onto the baby for the next 18 years.
What do you think I decided to do? A, B, C, or none of the above? (Don’t get testing anxiety on me now…) The short answer is none of the above!
The baby on my doorstep story isn’t real, I made it up!
But let me tell you this: the lesson is very real. I read about the baby on the doorstep example in one of my favorite books, The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*ck by Mark Manson. When reading the chapter, I found that the book illustrated a very true lesson: we have 100% responsibility for our lives. In other words, we are responsible for how we choose to live our lives. We have a responsibility to decide how we are going to respond when faced with a problem, or a figurative “baby on the door step”.
We’ve all heard the phrase “with great power comes great responsibility”. Whether you heard it in Spiderman or read it in a Tinder bio (I’ve seen that before), it’s a very accurate statement. But let’s switch the wording around because I think it can get even more accurate and in some ways become profound. “With great responsibility comes great power.”
ICYMI: “WITH GREAT RESPONSIBILITY COMES GREAT POWER”
I ain't going to lie to you fam, today I felt like shit. I felt so much like shit that I tried to find happiness in the depths of Twitter, Instagram, and Youtube. None of it worked. If you saw my screen time, you would understand how today was not a productive day at all. Actually, the most productive thing I’ve done today is write this letter to you but I digress.
Instagram, Youtube, and Twitter are not responsible for my happiness....I am.
So why are we unhappy?
I believe we tend to become unhappy when we feel like we lose power. Think about it: if you’re upset over an ex, then you really feel (deep down) that you have lost all the power. In your eyes, I bet you believe that he or she has all of the power. Or what if you’re sad that you didn’t get that job that you applied for? Again, you probably feel upset or inadequate which is arguably a loss of power.
Now before you go on and say that humans aren’t power-mongering individuals, then replace the word power with control. Everyone wants to have control. It’s how we are wired. If you ask an entrepreneur, like myself, why we do what we do, you’ll get an answer like: “I want to control my destiny.” Just like if you asked someone working a 9-5, they would say they value structure. Both are seeking control in different ways. One is seeking their control of reward and the other is seeking control of risk.
It’s when we lose control, however, we get upset. We start to blame other people and hold them responsible for our sadness or state of being unhappy. Sometimes, we’ll even take the fault for what happened to us. That is the worst way to lose control: feeling like it was all your fault when in actuality it wasn’t. We tend to see it as someone else is responsible for making us happy.
It’s really why we blame others. We blame them because we feel they “robbed us” of our happiness.
But we’re looking at it all wrong.
When we start to understand that we are responsible for how we respond to things, we start to really understand the power that we have. And of course this all goes back to anxiety, because why would I not talk about anxiety on a newsletter called Anxious Thoughts?
Many people believe that if they have anxiety, then they are messed up. They think they are worthless, hopeless, powerless, and the list goes on and on. I was like that too honestly. I felt the same way about my rare skin condition. I was a black boy with white spots on his hands.
But then, I discovered the power that I had all along: the power of choice.
We all have the power of choice. Although we didn’t choose this life, we didn’t choose our anxieties, our height, or even the color of our skin...we can decide how to live with it. In fact, that’s one of the greatest responsibilities we have as human beings: the responsibility to choose for ourselves.
So, in closing my dear friend, the next time you find yourself feeling shitty ask yourself: who do I feel is responsible for how I feel right now? If not me, then who? If who, then why?
Damn, as I’m typing this, the doorbell just rang. Hopefully it’s not another baby…
Truly yours,
Wes
P.s you are responsible for you :) Share this post with a friend who may be going through a dark time :)