Since I was very young, I’ve had this terrible habit.
Put me in a near-perfect situation and there’s a high chance, you’d find me focusing on one tiny negative aspect of it or, even worse, I’d imagine some potential way this idyllic situation could become negative, and lose any enjoyment of the present. As Marlon Croft sang, “I could find something wrong in Heaven”
Seeing the bad in things and disregarding the good, is obviously not a healthy habit.
Despite this, I know why I adopted it. Being pessimistic allowed me to internally account for any negative situation that would arise – an emotional “prepare for the worst” tool. It was effective as I often expected the worse to happen, so when it didn’t happen I was pleasantly surprised though much of the happiness was diminished through the obsession with the potential negative outcome. Years wasted ignoring the beauty of the present and thinking about the bad thing that might happen.
When I was a little older, maybe 18 I found some justification for it.
A favourite author of mine took a few lines of a letter written by Seneca and converted this bad habit into a useful practice – fear setting – where you write down all of your fears about a situation and combat each one at a time and consider that IF they did happen, how could you return to baseline. The practice is exceedingly useful in certain situations but it ought not to be used for every possible thing, lest you spend all day thinking about each horrible possibility. Even if you strategise how to deal with each negative possibility, it‘s a tragedy to squander so much of your precious time considering terrible things.
More recently, I’ve been able to fight this habit of only seeing the bad (or the possible bad) and now do my absolute best to focus on the good.
One thing I learned in the past few years is that not every thought that comes into your head is your own, oftentimes these thoughts come from someone else – a friend, a parent, TV, whatever – and they’re akin to visitors in your home. You don’t have to agree with all your thoughts or even respond to them, you can just watch them appear, consider where they came from, and watch them drift away again.
So now, when I’m in one of those lovely situations when all is objectively going well and I see an insidious thought start to appear; I watch it come, question where it came from, and most importantly, I let it drift away.
And what I’ve found is that the less I engage with those thoughts, the less they visit. But sometimes the little fuckers can be persistent…
To deal with those ones, I have another strategy.
Some people will know that an unusual thing I do is keep a handful of phrases permanently burnt into my head to put me in a different state of mind or take me out of a less-than-useful thought process. I find it extremely useful to present myself with certain words that can instantly shift me back to my normal level headed self.
However, with this particular problem I was lacking an effective phrase to stop me from thinking negatively and complaining arbitrarily, that is, until I listened to “Something wrong in Heaven”.
I added to the title and now when I catch myself complaining I say to myself, often out loud, “you’re trying to find something wrong in Heaven” and it reminds me of how great my situation really is and makes me more grateful for what I have. I reply with “Oh yeah! Things are great, what the hell am I complaining for?”.
Right now I’m in a cafe in a gorgeous mall in Bangkok overlooking a mini waterfall, feeling a little breeze and watching the sunlight against the trees built into the sides of the building. And yet, at a table next to me is a huddle of old ladies one of whom has a dangerously screechy voice which seems to penetrate past the Action Bronson blasting in my ears.
You see, I could choose to be annoyed and allow a little thing like that to detract from this otherwise perfect time OR I could say “Max, you’re trying to find something wrong in heaven”, chuckle to myself and sip my coffee with a little smile.
I like to think I have the strength of mind to not let small annoyances ruin my limited time here, but alas, I’m not perfect and sometimes get swept up in rage at some incessant noise or someone’s mindless actions or get lost in considering everything bad that could happen, and forget entirely how great everything really is right now.
But that’s alright!
This is a daily practice and each moment I get lost, I pull my little phrase out of the bag and remind myself “You’re trying to find something wrong in Heaven”. And truly, I am in Heaven.
Quotes I’m vibing with rn:
To do the big things, you have to let the small bad things happen – Tim Ferriss
All we can control is our choices and how we think– Ryan Holiday framing Stoic thinking
We are what we repeatedly do… therefore excellence is not an act, but a habit. – Will Durant paraphrasing Aristotle
Favourite song for now:
Sumb Luck 