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No One Owes You Anything
No Fruits for You
Like so many people, I struggle to follow my own advice. It’s not that I think it’s bad advice, it’s simply hard to do. There’s resistance to overcome, and it takes time and practice, even if you recognise that the advice is good.
In my previous article on building self-worth, I wrote, ‘You have no right to the fruits of your labour. You only own the labour.’ I recently felt the truth of this.
I did the labour, I was diligent, but I got no fruits. It wasn’t my fault. Technically, I didn’t make any mistakes. But—this doesn’t mean nothing was wrong.
Last month, I was supposed to present the first big project I’m completing to a wider branch of my new organisation. I was scheduled (or so I thought) to talk in front of a couple of hundred people across two islands and three cities. Most of these people don’t know me or what I’m doing. Yet.
I wanted to change that. I had hoped to present my work and its impact. I wanted to show off. I had been building up tension and I wanted to release it in a constructive way. I was eager and excited.
However, that energy went exactly nowhere. There was no dramatic disaster, but it didn’t go as I had planned either.
Don’t Be Entitled
As I found out a few days before the date of the meeting, someone else had fucked up the agenda, and I wasn’t on it—to my surprise, my manager’s surprise, and my manager’s manger’s surprise.
It wasn’t my fault. I honestly don’t even know what I could’ve done differently. It was simply bad luck. So—what’s my fucking problem?
The problem lay with my expectations. I didn’t do the work for work’s sake (as I had previously preached). I didn’t want the work to just work on me. I wanted success. I wanted admiration and attention. I wanted influence and impact. I wanted my fruits, damn it!
This is the opposite of having confidence and a true, inner sense of self-worth. It’s a kind of neediness. Sure, I’ll do something, but not because I sincerely want to—I’ll do it to get something out of it.
This line of thinking is very much ego focused and performative. It’s shallow and selfish. It’s an attitude of scarcity.
Instead of wholeheartedly giving and participating, you look for what you can get out of any situation. You presume others and the world owe you something. You feel the need to control the outcome as much as possible to feel good about yourself.
In hindsight, I realised that this need for success and control created tension and anxiety. I was worried how I’d come across. Will I sound smart and competent? Will I be able to hide the gaps in my knowledge?
While I put in the work to prepare, I felt the anxiety stifle me. I got nervous about practising by myself alone. I was afraid of my own judgement. Some tension can be good, but anxiety is of no use.
I know I could’ve prepared better if I hadn’t been so needy and anxious. It’s a shame that these feelings unloaded in anger and frustration.
You Have Everything
In the end, what we all really want is feeling good on the inside—about ourselves and in general.
We kid ourselves into thinking that feeling good comes from outside achievement. We expect the world to make us feel good. We expect it from our partners, our friends, and our jobs.
If the world doesn’t make us feel good, we get angry and resentful, and we blame whatever, or whoever, is at hand.
However, there is a different way, another attitude to deal with feeling dissatisfied. It’s an attitude that is grounded in an accurate understanding of how the mind works, an attitude rooted in reality, an attitude that is practical and hopeful. It’s an attitude of abundance.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to feel good, of course. Joy, elation, excitement, curiosity are all great. Feeling those feelings on a regular basis is evidence that your life is moving in a good direction for you.
But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t accept and own a certain amount of negative feelings in your life. There’s a reason negative feelings exist. They serve you as much as positive feelings do—if not more so. They protect you from harm and help you survive. They also help you learn. Because if mistakes wouldn’t hurt, you wouldn’t even pay attention.
Both positive and negative feelings are fleeting. They’re not who you are at your core. They’re tools you have to interface with reality and navigate life. To live a good life, you need to be able to own and manage both sides of the feeling coin.
The trick lies in relaxing and leaning back. Don’t lean into your feelings, don’t cling and identify with them. You’re the one observing the feelings. You’re the one having the feelings. You’re not the one being the feelings.
There is space between you and your feelings. This space is always there, it is always the same. It’s the canvas your feelings appear on. Call it awareness or consciousness, or simply—you.
It’s a space of peace and abundance. It doesn’t need anything. It’s a space of freedom and choice. This space allows you to forego the blind reaction to your feelings, and instead invites you to respond in a manner that is more closely aligned with an outcome you desire.
The more you tune into this space, the less you expect, the less you demand from the world to make you feel good. It gives you the freedom to be authentic, creative, and recognise the opportunities life presents.
It also allows you to grow from mistakes seated in a place of confidence because you’re able to accept the negative feelings that naturally come with not reaching your desired outcome. It allows you to simply reassess and try again.
I felt anxiety while preparing my presentation. I felt frustrated when I couldn’t give it on the day I thought I would. I got angry when no one stepped forward to own their mistake and apologise to me.
It would be a mistake to ignore and suppress these feelings. There is a lesson to be found there. My feelings were trying to tell me something.
Cultivating Abundance
There is always more than one way to look at the same situation. Did the moment take something away from you, or did it give you something? It’s not exactly about right or wrong. It’s a point of view, a frame of mind. Do you believe you live in scarcity or abundance?
I’m not saying that terrible and tremendously painful situations don’t exist. I’m also not saying that it’s a good thing or a blessing that these things exist. Bad luck, bad circumstances, bad problems do exist.
I’m saying that you choose how to look at a given situation. You choose what you take away from it. You can always choose to make it better.
Whatever happens, you either win or you learn.
Cultivating an abundance mindset takes time and practice. It takes making mistakes. It also exists on a spectrum. It’s not as simple as, ‘you either have it or you don’t.’ You might also have it in some areas, but not in others.
From an early age, I had this mindset about technical things, like mathematics. I’m not just talking about being naturally good at maths. I also accepted the struggle and pain that came with learning and wanting to get better.
I didn’t have an abundance mindset when it came to people and creating connection—not even a little. I felt like the world’s loneliest victim.
Change slowly came when I grounded myself in a sense of confidence and gratitude in one area, and transferred it to another. If I can put in the hard work where I’m naturally gifted and get good, then I surely can put in hard work where I’m less gifted and get at least half-way decent. Right?
Right! It merely took the better part of ten years. But that’s okay. I’m glad I went on that journey because it led me to a better place.
Instead of demanding of the world to be different, accept mistakes, focus on slow growth and choose gratitude. I’m glad that I did.
My anger about my presentation showed me where I’m still living in scarcity. It showed me where fear was holding me back. It showed me where I’m insecure and where I need the validation of my colleagues and superiors.
Luckily, I know by now that it’s not their job to make me feel good and confident. That’s my responsibility alone. I know I did the work to build something good and useful. This month I will talk about it to the best of my abilities. No more, no less.
What happens after is out of my control—and that’s okay.