Editor's note:
Life is about waiting for the right moment to act
So, take it easy
You're not lagging behind
You're not ahead
In your own time zone arranged for you by fate,
Everything was on time
- "Everyone Has Their Own Time Zone"
Author | Nan Xiaoxi
Edit | Jars
Editor-in-charge | Chen Shen Shen Tianya
Some time ago, I saw a message from a reader:
I'm 35 years old this year.
Looking around, everyone is mixed up, getting promoted and raising, buying a house and a car, and traveling all over the world.
And I was running for money day after day, living a tight life, and it seemed that I could never compare to others.
This made him very anxious.
In fact, such embarrassing dilemmas are not uncommon.
Especially when people reach middle age, compared with their peers, they seem to have been standing still, which is even more desperate.
However, behind this anxiety and powerlessness, we may all overlook one thing, and that is:
Actually, each of us has our own time zone;
In this time zone, we are all moving forward.
Those who are always lagging behind
My friend Xiao Xiao has been very anxious all the time.
In the eyes of friends, Xiaoxiao has a stable job, good literary talent, and is a particularly excellent woman.
But in Xiaoxiao's opinion, he is a loser with a capital letter.
Because of her relatively simple personality, Xiao Xiao is not good at dealing with complex workplace relationships, and only knows how to work hard.
So she stayed in a state-owned enterprise for eight years, and her boss didn't pay much attention to her.
The colleagues who joined the company at the same time as her were basically promoted, and she has been staying in her original position to do the same job, and her salary has not increased much.
In addition, because she attached great importance to her studies when she was young, she was busy with work after graduation, and she was unwilling to compromise, so she has always been single.
Originally, Xiao Xiao didn't care about finding a partner, but after the age of 30, the pressure from the outside world increased.
Not only did the old mother call her twice in three days to urge her to get married, threatening her to "cut off the relationship with you if you don't get married";
When she went home on holidays, her relatives also pointed at her, saying that she "has a high vision, so she has become an older leftover girl";
In addition, most of the friends around her have become families, and they basically revolve around the family, and when she wants to socialize on weekdays, she gradually can't find a companion.
The scrutiny of the world, as well as the loneliness of lagging behind his peers, made Xiao Xiao begin to feel uneasy:
In the blink of an eye, I was in my 30s,
has no house, no car, no money, no marriage, and can't mix well in the workplace;
Compared to others, am I really badly mixed!
Looking around, many people are experiencing such a dilemma -
As I get older, I still can't achieve anything, and I can never compare with my peers;
I tried to catch up, but I couldn't catch up, and I ended up in a vicious circle:
When the situation has not been able to improve, and even began to self-loathing, sinking deeper and deeper into the quagmire.
Behind the anxiety
It's trapped by the "social clock".
American psychologist Bernice Neugarto once proposed a concept called the "social clock".
It means that in the socio-cultural context, a person's life is arranged according to a chronological order, and we have to go through the various stages of life according to this timeline.
In layman's terms, it is what age and what should be done.
So, under social standards, we are like trapped in a clock, to accomplish different goals at different stages -
At the age of 18, study hard to get into a good university;
After graduation, find a stable and good job;
Before the age of 30, it's time to think about getting married and having children......
As soon as you deviate from the clock at a certain stage, there will be various judgmental voices around you. And this is also the reason why Xiao Xiao feels anxious.
Why is this happening?
On the one hand, the "social clock" points to the expectations of the outside world and the direction of success.
Most of us, from childhood to adulthood, live in a step-by-step manner, taught by our parents, schools, traditional customs, and pushed forward by the expectations of society.
And if you don't do what you should do, you will live up to society's expectations.
Just like Xiaoxiao, she has never been promoted at work, and she is not married in her thirties.
This is often an undesirable and denied life in the secular definition.
On the other hand, the pressure from our peers also makes us anxious.
When he was studying, he was an excellent child from someone else's family;
After work, it is a colleague who is promoted and raised;
After getting married, it is a neighbor or relative who has already bought a house and a car......
All kinds of pressures make us have to follow the "social clock", while constantly pushing ourselves forward, and at the same time anxious.
However, if we follow the rhythm of the "social clock" and live a life that others envy smoothly, will everything be complete?
Xiao remembers her college roommate.
In order not to lag behind others, the roommate obeyed the arrangement of the family-
After graduating, I accepted a good job arranged by my parents and married a blind date that my parents thought was suitable.
At a class reunion a few years later, the roommate admitted that he was not doing as well as he imagined.
And the roommate's experience also made Xiao Xiao start thinking:
In other words, I am doing a job I don't like, and I don't love my other half who is in good condition, and this promising road may only be left with poverty.
As Fromm puts it:
The modern man mistakenly thinks that he knows what he wants, when in fact he wants what others expect him to want.
The more we follow the "social clock", the easier it is for us to compare ourselves with others.
In the process, we will not only be anxious, but we will also lose ourselves.
Each of us has our own time zone
There used to be a very popular poem "Everyone Has Their Own Time Zone" -
Everyone in the world has their own time zone for development
There are people around you who seem to be ahead of you
There are also people who seem to be walking behind you
But everyone has their own pace in their own time zone
No need to be jealous or laugh at them
They're all in their own time zone, and so are you
From this point of view, there are no people who are really lagging behind, all of them are on time and are arranged just right by fate.
Therefore, instead of adhering to the "social clock", the truth may be:
In fact, each of us has our own time zone.
And in one's own time zone, people's "real needs" are the most important.
Teacher Wu Zhihong once shared her own story.
When he filled in the college entrance examination, like most people, he chose several popular majors, but because of insufficient scores, he was finally transferred to the psychology major.
At the time, he didn't know anything about the profession.
But after reading a few psychology books, he found it much more fun than those popular majors, so he decided to go all out and study.
Because of the fear of employment, the boys in the class went to learn computers and learned to program well, and the girls went to learn English, and even got the highest GRE score in the world that year.
But for Mr. Wu, even though his family was poor at that time, he was not bothered by employment problems, and he decided to become a psychologist in his sophomore year.
After graduating, he was also confused about what to do, but because he loved to write, he thought of writing a psychological column in Guangzhou Daily.
Later, according to the direction he chose, he became the person he is now.
When talking about his own experience, teacher Wu Zhihong once said:
If you have love in your heart, try to listen to your inner feelings.
Yes, each of us is a living individual.
Only by respecting our own feelings and seeing our "real needs" in our own time zone can we step out of the framework of the "social clock".
If you don't see this, and just choose and evaluate yourself according to the standard of the "social clock", it is easy to feel that you are lagging behind others, and thus fall into internal friction.
When we look at ourselves in the context of our "real needs", we will find that:
In our own time zone, we're not slowing down at all.
Jump out of the clock
Go back to your own time zone
There is not only one template in life, and the standard answer in the "social clock" is not suitable for everyone.
Therefore, even if it deviates from the "social clock", it is not a bad thing.
The most important thing is that we need to go back to our own time zone, experience life with our own feelings, and find the direction we really want to seek.
In this process, we might as well try -
Learn to respect your own wishes and make efforts that go with your heart.
Just like Xiaoxiao later, she decided not to be content with being a loser in the workplace anymore.
Introverted, she has a rich inner world, so she is better at reading, learning and thinking alone than managing interpersonal relationships.
When fully aware and accepted of this, she slowly became a joyful and self-sufficient person.
And, in the new year, she also integrated a new career direction and decided to quit her job to do self-media that is more suitable for herself.
She likes to write, and she has become more and more energetic and getting better and better.
She said that when people reach 30, they finally hear their inner voice, and this feeling of returning life to their own hands and no longer being carried away is really great!
Perhaps, living the life that suits you most comfortably is the best attitude towards life.
Of course, it's not easy to go along with your heart.
At the same time, we also need to establish our own "internal coordinates".
In the "social clock", many people will rely on income, emotional status, social status, etc. as "external coordinates" to judge their own value.
They always focus on the outside world, keeping an eye on the progress of others, judging their own position and deciding whether they need to catch up.
But when a person has his own "inner coordinates", he no longer needs to compare himself with others, but only with his past self.
No matter how the external environment changes or what position others are in, they can not be affected, and only make efforts that suit their own rhythm -
Don't feel that your ability is not good because of a colleague's promotion and salary increase;
Don't just because everyone else is married, you feel that you have to hurry up to find a partner......
In your own "inner coordinates", accept yourself with compassion and do not rush away.
Because you can only go faster if you take your time.
Finally, try to do something "non-essential".
Under the utilitarian criterion of the "social clock", the judgment of whether something is necessary or not lies in whether it is useful to achieve the goal.
However, blindly chasing outside goals will only make people more and more instrumentalized.
And when the goal is not achieved, people will also become tired and exhausted.
Only by stepping out of the external standard, living in our own time zone, and trying to do something "non-essential" will we become calm.
Like what:
Craftsmanship, Gakuga-ga;
Plant some flowers and plants;
enjoy the flowers on the way to work;
Go to the forest and take a big breath......
These things, in the definition of the "social clock," may be useless and unnecessary, and they will not help us achieve worldly success.
But our lives are made up of countless "non-essentials".
There is no standard way to live in the world, and only from the heart can we reap true happiness.
As long as it is out of our own liking, the so-called "non-essential" things will definitely add a different kind of surprise in our own time zone.
Write at the end
The criterion for judging a person is never "walking slowly".
Each of us has its own four seasons in our lives.
As in that very beautiful poem:
The world is full of fragrant flowers in April, and the peach blossoms in the mountain temple are in full bloom.
We always think that the spring of the world has passed, but we have not yet bloomed.
But in fact, our spring has its own pace.
It will always come.
Author: Nan Xiaoxi, a national second-level psychological counselor, a lifelong grower, and a person full of curiosity about life. This article was originally published by: Wu Zhihong (ID: wzhxlx)