Feeling down? Like you’re carrying the weight of the world? Chances are you’re not as “up” as you could be, that your world feels heavy instead of light.
The problem is, we’re all walking on psychological Jupiter and don’t know it. Most of us struggle under a constant weight, a psychological gravity that’s the byproduct of highly useful features in human nature.
To live our best we need to recognize this gravity and counteract it.
Let’s explain psychological gravity with a quick look at physical gravity. There’s been a lot of talk about colonizing Mars, which has got me thinking about how much we’d weigh if we went there.
Say we weigh 150 pounds here on earth. On Mars, which is smaller than earth and has less pull from gravity than on earth, we’d weigh only 57 pounds. On the moon, which is also smaller and has less pull, we’d feel like we weigh 25 pounds. That’s why we see those old pictures of astronauts on the moon bouncing around like half-filled helium balloons.
But on Jupiter, which is larger than earth and has more pull from gravity, we’d feel like we weighed 381 pounds. It would be like putting on the fattest fat-suit we could imagine then walking around and trying to live.
Human psychology has a gravity to it, but not like the gravity on Mars or the moon. It’s like what we find on Jupiter. There’s a natural bent to pay attention to things that weigh us down.
- We spend ninety percent of our lives dwelling on the ten percent of life that isn’t going right. We overlook a thousand good things to focus on a few bad things. In this way, we get a distorted sense of how much good and bad there is.
- Researchers in positivity ratios say the ratio of healthy positive to negative ideation is above six to one, yet the average person is two to one, and depressed people are less than one to one.
- Research shows that fear is the most powerful motivator. We’re way more alert to bad than good, and way more motivated by threats than benefits.
- It’s human nature to solve problems, but we usually spend too much time solving problems. If problem-solving were like window-washing, we spend thirty minutes washing a window that could be clean in thirty seconds. We spend way more time talking about and thinking about problems than we should be.
Welcome to psychological Jupiter.
It takes muscular optimism to stand up under the weight. Here are five things I suggest to build your muscles.
1) Solve problems faster.
Instead of talking up the problem, go quickly to solutions. Don’t talk to people about problems who aren’t directly involved in the problem, or who won’t offer you wise solutions. It’s a waste of time and makes the problem bigger in your mind. Get wise counsel, then solve the problem instead of just talking it up.
2) Ignore unsolvable problems.
If a problem is unsolvable, stop thinking about it. Follow the advice of the Serenity Prayer, which reads, “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”[i] If a problem is unsolvable, stop giving it your attention. Instead, focus on problems you can solve.
3) Skip the news.
Nowadays, news is more about capturing attention than conveying meaningful ideas. Since fear captures our attention better than anything else, fear-mongering is the prime strategy. Every broadcast promo should say, “Useless fear at eleven,” because that’s all it is. Take a break from talk radio, television news, and news updates on the internet.
4) List the wins.
Keep a journal of things that went well, or successful recoveries from things that didn’t go so well. While you’re writing, list the good things that are so easy to ignore. Spouses, write five things you like about your significant other. Start looking for the good, and you’ll find it.
5) Triple the positives.
The healthy positivity ratio is at least six to one, and normal people are only two to one. This means the average person needs to triple the positives they think about in any given day. Read inspiring quotes out loud. Dispute and replace negative thought patterns. Listen to inspiring music and watch motivational videos. Read jokes, tell jokes, and watch comedy bits. Follow light-hearted comedians on Twitter and Instagram. Do something good for others. Look for the good in others and talk it up.
To thrive on Jupiter, you need muscular optimism.
[i] “The Serenity Prayer” is often attributed to Friedrich Oetinger (1702-1782) and to Reinhold Niebuhr (1934).