When your life is miserable,
how can you change things?
Do you have the constant feeling that your life is miserable? Do you wish you could somehow redo everything?
In a sense, you can. This is not a trick, a joke, or some complicated, unachievable process. Rather, it's a workable solution few people ever use.
If your life is miserable, you think almost everything about it is bad. You hate your job, you're dissatisfied with the way you look, you're tired of your friends, you're even sick of where you live. In short, life stinks.
Or does it?
I'm not saying you can instantly get a happy, problem-free life just by changing your thinking, but you can start to improve things if you'll accept one simple truth:
I am not powerless.
When you need power...
Several years ago I worked for a utility company that supplied electricity for nearly a quarter million customers in central Illinois. My job often took me to the company's generating stations. Some of the old timers called them by the nickname "the power house."
On our own, we can't generate much power. I'm not talking about electrical power, but spiritual power, and that's the kind you need when you want things to change.
But you can go directly to the power house, the source of all power, which is God.
If you're not a Christian, this comparison won't make much sense to you. But Christians always have the opportunity to receive God's power through prayer.
Comfortable when your life is miserable?
As odd as it sounds, sometimes we're comfortable being miserable. Oh, I don't mean that we enjoy our misery, but it may be easier to stay in a familiar, bad situation than it is to change.
Change takes courage. Change takes faith.
Most of all, change means venturing into the unknown, and that can be even scarier than where you are now, even if your life is miserable where you are now.
The big 'R'
If your life is miserable, you can only start over if you're willing to deal with The Big 'R': responsibility.
It's easy to blame circumstances or other people for your misery. It's always easier to blame everything except yourself.
And maybe you're not to blame. But if you want things to change, you're the one who'll have to take responsibility for making that change happen.
Blame is an easy out. Blaming others and even yourself is counter-productive, though. Blame doesn't get things changed. Taking responsibility to get things changed is what gets things changed. If your life is miserable and all you've been doing is blaming, you need to make a plan to change things.
If I can, so can you
When your life is miserable, you begin to approach your individual "misery threshold." This is very similar to your pain threshold. Maybe you have a very high misery threshold, and you can go for years and years in a rotten situation. Or maybe your misery threshold is much lower, and you're jumping in and out of things all the time, hoping life will get better.
The ideal is probably somewhere inbetween. Pain, even spiritual or emotional pain, is a sign that something is wrong. However, life is never perfect and never will be, so all of us have some difficulties we have to learn to live with.
I have worked unsatisfying jobs for years, waiting for the right time to change. But in one case where I had a sadistic, demeaning boss, I was out of there in less than a year--and into a job that was challenging, fun, and paid 65 percent better!
I've changed jobs, relationships, and cities where I lived. If I can find the courage to do it, you can too. As I explain elsewhere on the site, change is much easier if you have adequate savings.
But if you change and when you change begins with a conviction in your mind: I can do this.
Changing for the better
God doesn't want you to feel your life is miserable. Most of all, he wants to conform you to the image of his son, Jesus. To do that you have to change. God will give you the power and courage to make changes, if you ask him.
Sometimes the most important change is being able to look at things in a new way. I know that when I stopped beating myself up, my life began to improve in a dramatic way.
Constructive change requires thought and planning, but you're capable of that, too. Always have another job lined up before you change jobs. Think. Use common sense.
You
can do more, be better, and be happier than you've been in the past.
But the first step is believing, with God's help, that it's possible.
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How to stop being your own worst enemy...
How to kick these substitutes for love...
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Read quotations about TRUST...
Read quotations about PERSEVERANCE...
