THERE is an excellent book by M. Scott Peck called “The Road Less Travelled” where he draws on the experiences of his career as a psychiatrist, to guide us through the difficult, painful times in life by showing us how to confront our problems through the principle of discipline.
The opening sentence is: “Life is Difficult”. It is such a simple sentence, yet when I first read that sentence, it struck me forcibly because I don’t think that most people are prepared for how difficult life can be. In my work in mental health over the years, I have come to appreciate that there is no way of avoiding the challenges that life throws up.
When you think about it, as children we were lead to believe that anything is possible. If you ask a child what they want to be when they grow up and they answer, “an astronaut”, you would never question them and tell them how difficult it is to become an astronaut. It is more likely that you would tell them: that is wonderful and assure them that they can be anything that they want to be.
Parents make huge efforts to make childhood special, and they go to great lengths at birthdays and Christmas to spoil their children and make these events special.
While I don’t want to be a Scrooge-like creature and advise that you dash their dreams, it might be helpful to prepare them more for the challenges of life, so that their dreams don’t turn into nightmares.
Is it any wonder that people get a shock when they grow up and discover that life can be very challenging and that it requires a lot of hard work to achieve the things they want? In his book, Peck says that when we are faced with problems and challenges the natural inclination is to avoid them and not deal with them. When we do not deal with the challenges that life throws up this leads to mental health problems.
The issues do not go away, they just build up and up in our psyche and will lead to depression and anxiety.
It was in this book that I came across the concept of delayed gratification, which I realised my father had told me about when I was a child without using such fancy words. I remember my dad telling me that when I was doing my homework, to start with the subjects I found most difficult and get them out of the way and then I would have the subjects that I enjoyed to look forward to. That is delayed gratification in a nutshell. Don’t put off the difficult task, in fact, do it first because if you put it off, you might never do it.
If you think of the word ‘FEAR’, it can stand for ‘Face Everything And Recover’ or ‘F**K Everything And Run’. The secret to good mental health is to have the discipline to deal with whatever challenges that life throws at you. This involves going against our natural inclination to avoid pain.
Life will always throw up challenges and if we want to be happy it is essential to deal with them head-on when they come. If we avoid them they don’t go away but raise their ugly heads in depression and anxiety.
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