In One Ear, Out the Other: Staying Positive in a Cynical World

I have to admit something: I’m an optimist. I’ve always had a rough 6/10 baseline of hope and in general believe things will work out for me in life. Today’s post covers one of the tools I’ve found that I use to stay positive.

It’s something we heard since we were kids: “in one ear, out the other.”

In specific terms I’m talking about controlling the flow of information that you receive. Get the bad stuff in and out as fast as possible. Keep the good stuff in for as long as possible.

Having a positive and optimistic outlook on life will improve your standard of life and, of course, much more attractive to women.

It also encourages you to take risks. This gives you an advantage in a world where the downsides of failing are lower than ever.

Let’s take an example: football. I support Chelsea Football Club and watch more than 99% of their matches. As a typical Brit I’ve got a sizable emotional investment in the sport. That means every match is a risk: am I going to feel good or bad about the result?

When they win I watch the highlights, read the match reports and the comments. I’m keeping that good feeling in for as long as possible. When they lose I don’t touch the stuff.

If someone says “you’re not a true fan then” I say “I don’t care.” What do I have to gain from exposing myself to the emotional downside?

How about Game? In my first year of Game I wrote huge lay reports and sent them to a Red Pilled friend of mine. It didn’t matter to me that he was my only reader. I was just replaying the lay in my head and squeezing all of the positive juice out of it.

I’ve mostly forgotten about the failures. I’ve had near misses. Blow outs. Hot leads that went nowhere. But the most I have is a vague recollection that things didn’t go my way sometimes. Bodi’s books were a fantastic read but I wouldn’t have the same kind of failure stories partly because I never dwelt on them. It was all in one ear, out the other.

Then there’s the usual advice of eliminating negative sources of news and people. I recommend muting those people. They are just cynical guys DHVing to their cynical base.

I think this is a particular problem in the Game community because a lot of guys are entering it from a bad place. They see someone who’s articulating their bad feelings and get a vicarious sense of revenge from reading it. The trick is to identify if you do that and to find ways to stop reading it.

As I said before you can mute (as well as block and unfollow). You can also get website blockers for your phone which stop you from accessing a website unless you enter a password. Get a friend to enter the password or create a random one and don’t note it down.

I’m not saying for you to create a safe space where no one else’s views are valid. People can do whatever they please. But if someone calls me “naive” for doing so then my answer is the same: “I don’t care.” I only really care about what a few close friends and family think about me. These are the people who actually have my best interests at heart and can offer constructive criticism.

Red Pill Dad put up a post recently about staying normal and avoiding the bitter taste of the red pill. It’s worth reading and might help you on your way to becoming more charismatic.

In that article I left a comment recommending people take on a philosophy of individual responsibility. Always ask yourself what you could have done differently to stop the situation from happening in future. By having that philosophy any anger you feel is dissipated instantly because the next action starts immediately.

The example I always give people is that if I don’t like a restaurant I just don’t go there again. Rather than get angry at the staff and/or write a bad review I try to think about what I could have done differently.

This is another example of creating a system out of a goal. The goal: let negative feelings out as cleanly and quickly as possible. The system: ask myself what I could have done to have avoided the negative event in the first place and change my habits.

Implementing that system is going to take time. You’re going to slip sometimes and let the negative thoughts in. At that point you get up, dust yourself off, and work out a way to stop the same thoughts from coming in again. That or you work out a way to move on from the negative thoughts quickly. Eventually you’ll reach nirvana: in one ear, out the other.

Yours unfaithfully,

Thomas Crown

You can hire me for coaching (Skype and infield available) and buy my book. Follow my blog and follow me on Twitter @thomascrownpua. There’s tonnes more content coming soon.