Issue #7 - Let go!
Paralyzed by stress, plans falling apart and learning letting go
Hello all,
Welcome back to the Thought Box! I hope that you had a great weekend.
For me, this week was totally crazy. Lots of ups and downs but I am currently very happy because finally managed to break free and came meet with my wife. ❤
Hence this issue will be shorter than usual. Yet, I didn’t want to skip writing the newsletter but I still hope that you will like what I have prepared for you this week.
Let’s start, shall we?
⬆️ Hugging is miraculous ✨
Yet again, here we are. I am sharing one of the most used phrase that we are using between my wife. But tell me, isn’t it miraculous?
After long and difficult times, I finally met with my wife. I can’t express the magnitude of happiness of this and as you can imagine, this thing alone is the highlight of my whole week. So I will keep this part short as possible and spend more time with my wife. 😜
But I will be talking more about how come to this point and what we were facing throughout this time. As we discussed in the last issue about finish line and it’s joy, I don’t feel any pain or fatigue after that well deserved, hard earned hugs.
If you remember that beaten up boxer example from the last issue, that’s me! Beaten up but the winner boxer. If you don’t remember or don’t know what I am talking about, check out the previous issue here.
People will remember that boxer not as beaten up but as a champion.
➡️ Delays that I am NOT looking forward
As you just read, I just met with my wife and I can’t think anything to look forward while I am here. So I want to change it to the opposite direction for this week.
In Turkish we have a saying: “Sayılı gün, çabuk geçer.” (“Counted days will past fast”) That’s true but it is helpful when you are very far from that day. As the deadline is approaching, time slows down and last hours will past as they are centuries. This week, technically last week, past so extremely slow and nerve racking.
Then the arrived, I rushed to the airport because simply I can’t just sit at home anymore. It was a somewhat lovely snowy morning in Oslo. Upon arrival, I learned that my flight is delayed 1 hour due to operational stuff. So basically Pegasus Airlines operates the flight as follows. The plane takes off from Istanbul in the morning, land in Oslo, drop the passengers, get the new passenger and takes off to Istanbul again. So 1 hour delay means that the aircraft will take off from Istanbul with 1 hour delay minimum. Somehow time passed and I managed to get in the plane.
Then the weather went crazy and we weren’t allowed to take off for a while. Then we had to go for deicing, which took an additional hour in queue. So we are at the 2-hour delay mark. You may think that “oh come on Furkan, you are just being dramatic.” Maybe, maybe I am, but trust me it felt like ages while sitting in the plane.
So basically instead of landing at 19:20, we manage to land around 21:30. I am not really looking forward to experience these delays again when I am very emotional.
Shit happens, especially when we are not looking forward for them.
⬇️ Coping up with falling apart plans
It SUCKS, right? We all been here that you are carefully thinking about a plan for days, weeks, months, maybe for a year and with one phone call, one unexpected message or email can make your dreams fall apart in one second. That’s the brutal nature of destruction at it’s finest. That’s why it hurts like a hell. Because it takes so much time to fine tune a plan and seconds to fall apart completely.
But how we can cope up with this? Simple answer, we can’t for real. Because either it will hurt like hell because you put so much effort into a plan which collapse in seconds or it won’t hurt much because you didn’t pay enough attention at all.
But it is time for a little bit longer answer. You can’t cope up but you can deflect some of it, gain some time before collapsing. Let’s go back to one the best well-known and one of my favorite movie ever: Titanic
As we all know, Titanic sank but let’s look little bit deeper on the design strategy of the bulkheads. Titanic actually build with watertight doors and bulkheads to withstand flooding in mind. From the image above you can see that with most of the conditions, it will keep floating until the rescue reaches and keep everyone safe from the cold waters of the ocean. I want to focus on “keep floating” part here.
So, you can’t keep up but you can make yourself or the situation keep floating until you have a better conditions. In these kind of circumstances, the best thing you can do is avoiding things will make you sink faster. You should avoid the mindset of “it is sinking anyway, let me open a bigger hole”. Don’t forget that you are captain of your life and captain always leave the ship as the last one.
Keep floating.
⬅️ Throwback time: Top quote from last week
Sometimes the brain shuts down and we had to survive with our survival brain. But what does survival brain responsible for? Instincts. Well, this should be already self-explanatory but let’s still touch it a little bit, shall we?
Did you ever experience doing something super stupid when you are extremely down and then regret about it? I bet you did but if you didn’t, congrats you have a steel nerves and great stress management. I was also here, plenty of times. But these kinds of reminders are super helpful to rewire our brains to catch up again and not letting us do stuff without hurt emotions and instincts.
Just thinking simply here, sometimes the best is just sleeping on it or, this week’s theme, letting go. Imagine it like a sugar cravings or any food craving when you just started out a diet. It’s basically same thing when you think about it. Basically you are so hungry that your survival brain tells you that you are hungry and just eat something without thinking it. But if you can manage to survive through that craving, it will effect you less and less throughout your diet. Literally same here. When you are hurt and wanting to do something, just give it some time. Chances are you will mostly likely forget it after you cool down or simply don’t want to do that action. If you are still persistently want it, then go for it. Just don’t rush it with that survival instincts and then be ashamed of your action’s result.
Well, here we are. We just completed this week’s Thought Box. Thank you so much for joining me on this issue.
I really hope to see you in future issues. 🙏
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Have a great week,
Furkan