When The Time Comes You Can Get Ahead

We tell ourselves very often, in times of crisis, change and adversity there is only one possible option: to get ahead. We convince ourselves of this and try to resume our lives, recovering spaces, assuming responsibilities and focusing on turning the page believing that everything is going well when, in reality, it is not always like that.

” Keep Calm and Carry On ” said those pamphlets that were designed in the United Kingdom in 1939, in order to encourage the population before an imminent invasion during World War II. Curiously, they were never used, until in 2000 and, as a result of a chance discovery, they began to be launched on the market as a decorative and motivational element.

The truth is that it was a success that those messages did not reach the British population at such times. Moreover, the British Ministry of Information realized that that phrase, keep calm and carry on , was paternalistic, empty and not timely. Society knew that the bombings were imminent. You couldn’t ask people to move on when the problem itself hadn’t even started yet.

The same thing happens to us on many occasions. We repeat the phrase that we must continue, that we must move forward when we have not even overcome what hurts, what has distorted our reality. No one can put one foot in front of the other when the gaze is still anchored in a past that hurts and in a present full of unmet needs.

You have to get ahead, but not before giving yourself time and solving the knot of the present

The world seems chaotic in the present. Some define these times as dystopian days, others as a time full of uncertainties and changes and, a good part of the people, do not see it in any way. They simply survive, clinging to anxiety, not knowing what is happening or what is going to happen.

We will have to move forward at some point, it is obvious, but perhaps it is more prudent to stay still for a while and attend to priorities . Especially those related to mental health.

Rollo May, a famous existentialist psychologist, pointed out that people have a curious characteristic. The more lost we feel, the more we want to run. That is to say, in moments of crisis, in those times when many of our vital meanings are breaking down or when difficulties burn excessively, we most yearn to turn the page, to move forward. It is as if by putting distance from the problem, it solves itself.

Getting ahead is not escaping. Nor is it trying to return to everyday life with all our strength even knowing that we are not well, that anguish weighs in excess, that stress blurs our reality. Carl Jung said that even the happiest life goes through times of darkness. It is in those ashy days when we must attend the most, without haste, without skipping stages, allowing ourselves to be present.

Your ability to act is limited, sometimes you have to know how to stop for a certain time

Roy F. Baumeister is one of the best known and most prolific social psychologists of the day. He has published more than 500 scientific articles and more than 30 books. In one of his investigations, he revealed something interesting in relation to this topic: it is very difficult for people to act, decide and even think when we go through difficult times. What’s more, this emotional exhaustion causes us to end up acting on impulse.

It is as if an internal voice told us “OK, you are going through a bad time, but what we have to do now is to go ahead as it is and at all costs” . And that however is not a good option or the best answer. If we are in a stressful circumstance, it is best to stop and stay for a limited time in a safe zone, in that mental comfort zone from which to compose ourselves and clarify priorities.

Later, we will act. Because if it is harmful to turn the page too soon, it is also harmful to chronically stagnate and not move forward.

In spite of everything, you will achieve it, you will be able to get ahead

You will, you will be able to get ahead. Because life and the mind drive us to it, to that almost instinctive need to close stages and start new stories. However, we must do it well, without that excess baggage in which conflicting emotions, hurts and fears continue to overthink. Internal spaces must be sanitized so that the new winds of these renewal cycles encourage motivation and hope.

Working on our transitions takes time. Jobs like those carried out by the doctor

Can you get it? Of course. We all deserve to be happy again and overcome any circumstance ; the key is to attend to ourselves, to take care of that psychological architecture that sometimes receives more than one attack.