Set Your House In Perfect Order Before You Criticize The World

Are you displeased with what you’re doing in your current job?

Do you feel like the position you’re in currently is a job that is below you?

Do you believe that you should be working somewhere else, somewhere else where your “precious brain power” won’t be used for mind-numbing and monotonous work?

Somewhere else where people will finally realize what you’re capable of, where people work hard but play hard, where you’re close to all your coworkers and talk about important things that stimulate you intellectually instead of trivial topics like the weather?

Do you have plans to leave your company after the first few months, thinking that you’ve gained enough experience to jump into the next challenge, thinking that you’ll be hunted by recruiters looking for top talent in the industry?

No? It was just me?

Where does this arrogance come from?

Where does this haughty pride come from?

Why do I feel like I deserve better, let alone DESERVE anything from the world?

Where does this entitlement come from?

My pompous attitude over the past few months has made me a bitter person.

I was disappointed at where I was in my life relative to my other friends. They were earning more money, able to have more experiences, able to learn and grow, while I felt like I was being left behind.

Instead of trying to improve the things I could improve at the present moment, I looked to the brighter future.

I’ll get a better job that will pay better and make me feel more fulfilled. I’ll get work that I’ll actually like and I’ll finally be like my other friends.

Instead of trying my best, looking for things to learn in my job and actively trying to help others in the workplace, I looked to the past with bitter contempt.

If only I’d studied a little harder. If only I had grown interested in that growing field. If only I was more productive in school. Then I wouldn’t be in suffering like this.

I was eating dinner with my dad and decided to ask him a question. I asked him what he thinks about me working for a few more months and then moving to another job, another company. I told him that I was stressed out, feeling like I wasn’t learning much and that I wasn’t interested in the work I was doing.

I already knew what my answer was but I guess I just wanted to hear what he had to say.

He looked at me and asked me to think about some questions:

“What do you have to bring to the table?”

“What makes you so special that employers will go out of their way to recruit you?”

“Do you have a skill that makes you unique from your peers?”

“What’s your reason for trying to leave your job? Do you think it’ll be vastly different from your old job?”

“What have you done to make your situation better?”

“What kind of responsibilities have you taken to make everyone’s lives just a little bit better in the office?”

I was left speechless. I realized how big headed I’d become, how I felt that I was entitled to something. I had no real answers to any of these questions, and it hurt to admit it.

What had I done to make everything around me just a little bit better? What kind of responsibilities had I been willing to shoulder, to take the burden off of someone struggling? Could I truly say that I was trying my hardest and giving it my all, everyday throughout the week?

“Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world.”

— Jordan Peterson

Have you done everything you can to make your little part of the world a better place?

Have you done everything you can to make yourself into the best possible version of yourself?

Have you done everything to fully take advantage of all your unique abilities and attributes?

Because everyone has hard days, and everyone suffers in one way or another. But that’s no excuse to sit around feeling sorry for yourself and becoming resentful about your circumstances.

You have no power over the hand you were dealt in life. The odds could truly be stacked against you. But at least try to do your best with what you’ve got before you blame everything else.

Take responsibility for your life and create the life you want to live for yourself.

“All that you achieve and all that you fail to achieve is the direct result of your own thoughts. In a justly ordered universe, where loss of equilibrium would mean total destruction, individual responsibility must be absolute.

Your weakness and strength, your purity and impurity, are your own, and not anyone else’s; they are brought about by yourself, and not by another; and they can only be altered by yourself, never by anyone else.

Your condition is also your own, and not anyone else’s. Your suffering and your happiness are evolved from within.

As you think, so you are; as you continue to think, so you remain”

— As You Think by Marc Allen

What’s wrong in your life? What’s keeping you down and preventing you from living the life you want to live?

While you change your life, can you help someone change theirs by giving them a helping hand to relieve some of their suffering?

Can you do something about it?

Or better yet, will you do something about it?