Have you ever reached a moment in life or had a momentous big win which made you think that this thing had the ability to sustain your happiness and keep it on an even keel day to day? That it would eradicate those low moments or moods brought on by mundanity because the big picture of your life had been realised.
Recently I scored a big win in my professional life. It wasn’t even something that I had dared dream of. I felt as if I had ‘arrived’ in life. The universe had aligned and bestowed me with a great gift. I felt validated, visible and praised for having my values and hard work recognised.
I walked on air for a few weeks after and then something started to shift. My cloud 9 started to drop in altitude. I tried to imagine the initial euphoria and relive it. This worked for a while but soon became a struggle. Every day brought new challenges and some of it was hard to cope with. Some days chipped away at my veneer of joy.
Trying to live off a memory of a big win wasn’t sustaining me even though my days were still being spent in pursuit of other ambitions. I was making strides but mundanity still abounded.
Blaming myself for my inability to ‘seize the moment’ or some other crap theory which tells us that we are a failure if we aren’t enjoying every day on a high, I went in search of an explanation on why and how down days occur and how to deal with them.
That is how I chanced on the ‘Pixel Theory’ . Simply put, we live with the big picture of our ambition in our minds and as an everyday goal. For most, this goal involves being super productive, happy and diligent (no procrastinating). In reality, the big picture consists of pixels i.e every single day of our lives. Within these days we will experience disappointment, questions of self-doubt and boredom. This is because these feelings are part of the living experience.
The answer is to accept that these things happen. Find ways of dealing with these such as exercising, altering your routine or relying on your human interactions i.e friends and family to alleviate the sting of the negative days.
In this way, the big picture of your ambition remains intact while you work towards it but you do so in the knowledge that the joy you will feel from that feeling of accomplishment will be transient too.
