Why do you live a life that is both exhausting and unhappy?

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Why do you live a life that is both exhausting and unhappy? Author / Cong FeiCong WeChat official account: Cong FeiCong. Old friends under 40 start to experience minor health problems; the more they live, the less happy they become, they feel stressed, and often find life meaningless. I’ve said it for so many years: you still put so much pressure on yourself and torture your body. If a person remains stuck in anxiety, it will harm their body. Because when people are anxious, their bodies enter a state of stress and become tense. Imagine what would happen if every cell and every piece of flesh in your body were tense If you keep torturing yourself like this and nothing goes wrong, I’ll feel like all these years of taking care of you have been for nothing – it’s too unfair. He said there was nothing to do. There’s a lot of work to do, and it’s urgent; it feels like I’m putting out fires every day. There are also a bunch of things at home that I have to worry about. I think this is a very common phenomenon: at work, the boss assigns a lot of tasks, and one is always forced to work overtime in a hurry to finish them; it doesn’t seem like one is driving the work forward, but rather that one is being driven by it. In life, one worries about every little thing – from the elders to the young, including relatives, friends, and their children’s parents – while the person at home doesn’t really care about any of it. For myself, I want to read books and newspapers, work out, and focus on health and self-improvement*. I always feel there are so many things to do, big and small, in both work and life, and I want to get everything done quickly, which leads to anxiety. Then, when something isn’t done well, one feels self-critical and anxious, which makes them want to do it better yet, increasing the anxiety even more. It’s like this every day; the reaction of anxiety in such stressful situations becomes the norm. The subsequent phenomenon is: a bad temper and frequent forgetfulness. You’re constantly on edge, it’s like walking on a tightrope; you don’t have much capacity to handle emotions, and it’s only natural that things ‘leak out’ when that capacity is exceeded. I asked him, Are you happy? He said he wasn’t happy. Then I asked, why do you still do it then? He said there was nothing he could do. Today, let’s talk about the three characters “no way”. Imagine you finish work today with tasks still unfinished. What would you do if the boss isn’t there to supervise? Many people just stay up all night to get it done. But that’s what I would do: finish work, work out, go on dates, watch movies. With so much time available, what else can one do? The next day, I went to the office and told my supervisor: I’m sorry; my abilities are limited, so I wasn’t able to complete it. Of course, I won’t put it so directly; I’ll convey it to him in a gentle way that leaders can accept. Don’t say things like this will get you fired; it’s just anxiety, and it’s a situation with a very low probability of happening, so I don’t want to discuss it. In fact, when you stay up late to work extra hours, it’s not because you’re afraid of getting fired; rather, it’s several deeply rooted beliefs in you that drive you – the belief that things need to be done well. One must be excellent. Much of the anxiety in life and at work arises in this way: these two beliefs drive one to strive to go as deep as possible when doing things, to complete them in as short a time as possible, and to achieve the highest quality possible. Arrange as many things for yourself as possible, and accept as many tasks that are assigned to you without refusing them. The result... you know how you end up showing up at the outpatient clinic of an anxiety or psychiatry department. You are a very responsible person, so you want to do things to the best of your ability. But what you fail to realize is that when things are done to the best of one’s ability, it often ends up making one unhappy, stressed, and unsatisfied. If it were me, I would ask myself: Is it important to do the right thing, or is it important to be happy? Is it important to do things well, or is it more important to keep things easy? Is it more important to have things, or to be happy? Is it more important to do what’s important, or to take care of one’s health? Is the matter important, or am I important? If the two conflict, which one will you take care of first? If my answer is: Of course things are important, responsibilities are weighty as mountains; happiness is nothing at all. Then I will resolutely give up time for leisure, entertainment, rest, and dates, and dedicate myself wholeheartedly to the great work revolution that is even more important than Mount Tai. If my answer is: happiness is more important than things, then I will give priority to happiness. It’s one thing to prioritize work over happiness at the office, but why torment oneself even after work? That work makes me happy is another matter. If for a person, when things come into conflict with happiness, they tend to choose to give up happiness in order to prioritize those things. He will lose the ability to be happy and fall into a state of constant frustration and anxiety. The same goes for excellence. Is excellence more important or happiness more important? I believe that over time, excellence is an inevitable outcome. It’s just that by working harder now, excellence can be achieved more quickly, sooner. So the question is: is it important to be excellent early on, or is it important to be happy now? Everyone has their own answer. I’m just reminding you that it’s your choice. You could have had other options; you just didn’t choose them. Rather than “there’s no way”. Why do people instinctively put things in a position that is more important than themselves? Why prefer to take care of things rather than taking care of oneself? “The beliefs of \"doing things well\" and \"becoming a better version of oneself\" have been cursed by early education, trapping people for life and keeping them under the spell of this curse, unable to find freedom. This spell is: this, is, right, of. This is only right. It would be wrong not to do so; it’s not right. For many people, what matters is whether something is done right or wrong; it doesn’t matter whether they enjoy doing it or not, whether it’s easy or not, or whether it’s satisfying or not. They don’t even realize that when doing things, there can be other options besides right and wrong. Today, I want to tell you that when doing things, in addition to the standard of right or wrong, whether it’s enjoyable to do them is also a criterion. These are two standards; sometimes they overlap, and sometimes they conflict. You can choose the one in front, or you can choose the one behind. It doesn’t matter if you choose the former; then just accept why you always feel unhappy, lack vitality, and have a weak immune system. The body is a faithful existence. If you don’t care about it this much, how can it care about you? You only love things, not yourself. Only caring about right and wrong, not one’s own feelings. How can you live a happier life when you ignore your own feelings so much? Some people also invoke the notion of responsibility, saying that one must be accountable. Responsibility is also a means for people to avoid feeling happy. I think since you’re such a responsible person, why don’t you take some responsibility for the suffering of the people on Earth and across the country? Wasn’t it agreed that “protecting the Earth is everyone’s responsibility”? Wasn’t it agreed that “**everyone is responsible for the rise and fall of a nation**”? You’ve been educated for decades, yet I don’t see you being responsible toward the Earth and ** at all. I agree that people should take responsibility. But if one has to take responsibility, does it necessarily have to come at the cost of sacrificing oneself? In fact, for many people, deep down in their subconscious, they dare not be happy or relaxed. Because when one is happy or has free time, they truly become anxious and label themselves as selfish and wasteful. Wouldn’t allow oneself to do that. But it keeps one very busy and tired; although there is plenty of complaining, it feels familiar and comforting. I call this phenomenon: the syndrome of not daring to be happy, the syndrome of not daring to relax. Because from a young age, they were not allowed to be idle, not allowed to be happy. If you don’t keep doing something, you get scolded. If you don’t feel deep resentment, it’s as if your mother holds a grudge against you. If you dare to prioritize things that you don’t value, the consequences are often unimaginable. So when they grow up, they don’t dare to be carefree and happy either. One must find lots of things to do to keep oneself anxious. It’s not that people feel anxious because they have too many things to do; rather, people inherently possess anxiety and need to find many things to do. So when you’re very tired, when your body’s immunity starts to fail, when you’re constantly anxious and can’t sleep or eat properly, when you increasingly feel that life is meaningless and unjoyful, I really want to quote Cong’s famous saying – it’s deserved. However, when you start learning *another dimension, another system, another standard. When you start using whether something is easy to do, whether it brings joy, and whether it’s enjoyable as a criterion, you begin to take care of your own mood and your own feelings. This is loving oneself. Only then will anxiety truly subside. The way to relieve anxiety is not to keep working hard, but to stop and take care of one’s heart. Only then can one live happily. You only start to care about whether you are happy in order to truly live happily. That’s not selfishness; it’s loving oneself. I also want to be excellent, to do things right and do them well. I also want to succeed quickly and stand out. These are all the things I want. But I want to have a relaxed and happy day every day. No one can take away my right to choose. Be kind to yourself.