There is a promotional video for the 2014 Sochi Winter Paralympics that highlights fast-paced, energetic, and motivated athletes striving to achieve excellence in their sport. The video ends with two statements: It’s not what’s missing. It’s what’s there. How do these statements relate to the destructive and constructive mindsets?
Food for thought indeed. The destructive mindset is one in which we become limited to relate with the world in terms of power. If we are “missing something,” it can be easy to think that our ability to achieve or accomplish something meaningful is limited. We may feel weak and powerless. It is said that a sense of powerlessness can be a trigger that sends us into depression. With a belief that we are useless, it is possible that thoughts of suicide may haunt us. We become trapped in the dungeons we have created for ourselves by submitting to our own destructive mindset.
Fortunately there is an alternative mindset that we can form. Try it. As opposed to making yourself be the problem when you are “missing something,” look instead at the limitation as a problem, that is, a challenge for you as a person to be aware of but not overwhelmed in your ability to strive for something that you value. You are a person that is “there.” You have the ability to persevere through various challenges.
In the Paralympics, athletes achieve excellence in athletic endeavours that take their limitations into account, and are designed to show achievement in the discipline in the context of the limitation. Watch a sledge hockey game and you will see it is about the game and not about what is missing. It is amazing what you can do with what is there. This not only includes what is there physically, but also with what is there mentally and socially.
If we are without the use of sight, or of one or more limbs, then we are at risk of rejecting ourselves or of being rejected by others. Overcoming these social and physical barriers shows what the human spirit is capable of. But there are other things we may “be missing,” that may lead towards other people rejecting us and us rejecting us. Perhaps you believe you are “not pretty enough,” or “not handsome enough.” Perhaps you believe you are “not smart enough,” or “too dumb.” Maybe you are “too forgetful,” or “too anxious.” Maybe you believe you are “too fat,” or “too skinny,” or “too small,” or “too big.” Maybe you think you are “too old,” or “too young.” Maybe you believe your skin colour is “not right,” or you are “too poor.” Or maybe other people think these of you. Actually, there are likely innumerable ways we can come up with to believe we are “missing something.” And if you think that by “missing” these things you are weak and powerless, then you are forming the destructive mindset and are increasing the risk to become depressed.
So work on forming the constructive mindset instead. Try it. Work against labelling yourself as a problem if you are “missing something” or are labelled by others as “missing something.” Instead, look at what is there. You as a person are still there. Christopher Reeve proclaimed: “Still Me.” You have control over your mindset. Nobody else can touch that. You are a person just like anybody else that supposedly “has it.” If you form the constructive mindset, then the sky is the limit. It is within the constructive mindset that you really “see,” and realize that blindness is a result of the destructive mindset which labels people as problems when there is a limitation. This applies to others that judge us, and as well us when we judge ourselves.
So don’t judge yourself by what is missing. Be constructive and work with what is there.