When one tooth aches, it's impossible to enjoy the other thirty-one. Life works the same way: problems never stop coming — the question is whether you let them own your attention.
How do you develop emotional intelligence?
There will always be open — and painful — questions in our lives.
Sometimes it feels like once we solve these particular problems, everything after that will get easier. But then new challenges show up, and it goes on endlessly.
To keep ourselves out of a permanently low state, we have to learn to separate our life from the problems that are in it now and the ones that will come later.
Otherwise we end up living a problem-shaped life, constantly suffering because we’re plugged into every unresolved issue.
When one tooth hurts, it’s very hard in that moment to feel glad that the rest of them don’t. We’re focused only on the painful one.
In life we need to understand that some level of “toothache” may always be there, because there will always be problems and difficulties. We have to learn to appreciate all the “teeth” that are fine right now and that bring us joy. There are always areas of life and events we can be grateful for.
This doesn’t mean we ignore our problems. It means we don’t let those problems hold us in a low mood and take up all of our thinking.
Are you able to separate your problems from your life?