5 Ways To Look At The Dopeness

One of my favorite movie quotes is from The Wackness. I barely remember the actual film, but I’ll never forget the quote. You know when you hear one of those quotes and you have to pause the movie and write it down? This was one of those for me. Another one of those is this quote from Silver Linings Playbook. (From about 10 seconds into that clip, until about 20 seconds). AH! SERIOUSLY!

But the clip I’m talking about today is the one with this quote that I love.

“You know what your problem is, Shapiro? It’s that you just have this really shitty way of looking at things, ya know? I don’t have that problem. I just look at the dopeness. But you? It’s like you just look at the wackness.”

Clip here:

The reason I like this quote is because it reminds me that there’s always another way of looking at things. We can look at the dopeness.

It’s really easy when we get frustrated or things don’t go our way, to only look at the problem and to let it take over our entire reality. And of course, it’s important to identify problems so we can fix them, and of course, sometimes we need to go into “vent mode” about something.

But there’s a big difference between noticing problems, venting, being frustrated about something, and working through it vs. stewing in negativity, keeping our grumpy pants on for days on end, and letting it ruin our entire outlook on life.

And you know exactly what I mean.

Victor Frankl said, in “Man’s Search for Meaning”:

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.”

So today as I was stewing in some wackness trying to work through what are ultimately luxury problems, I realized, hey, this is my LIFE, and I have the power to look at the dopeness.

So here you go.

5 Ways To Look At The Dopeness

Find something to appreciate. I’ve written about this before (The #1 Way to Feel Better Instantly), but one of the quickest tools to get yourself back into the dopeness mindset is to find something – anything – to appreciate. Go on a “rampage of appreciation” and find anything in your sight you can appreciate. You are alive. You are breathing. You have resources to help you with what you’re struggling with. You had a good breakfast today. You enjoy the blue color of the wall. Literally anything you can find to appreciate will remind you of all the good in your life.

Vocalize your appreciation to someone. As Kanye says, “if you admire somebody you should go ahead and tell ’em, people never get the flowers while they can still smell ’em.” If you have a positive thought about somebody, let them know. It will make your day better AND their day better. If you’re struggling to look at the dopeness in life, think about someone you appreciate. Even if it’s just something small. This especially helps when you’re not seeing eye-to-eye with someone in your life. What can you find to appreciate about them? Would it elevate you, and them, if you told them? I’m thinking yes.

Focus on what IS working. What is working about your life and the situation you’re in? Focusing on what is working and thinking about how you can enhance the positives is a better-feeling place to be than focusing on everything that’s wrong. It’s so funny how we do this — with blogging, for example – I can get 20 emails saying how something I wrote was helpful or made someone’s life better somehow, and then 1 email saying I’m an idiot, and I spend the next hour feeling hurt and thinking about what I should say back to that one person. Instead, I’ve made the shift to nurturing the relationships with people who have positive things to say, and it helps…a lot.

Help someone else. It sounds counter-intuitive that when we’re struggling we should help someone else – aren’t we the ones who need to be helped!? But in fact, if you realize everyone struggles and we’re all in this together, thinking of someone else who might need a hand, or a listening ear, can remind you of your own strength. Next time you’re in a tizzy, try it – think of someone else who might appreciate a loving phone call, an offer to help with something, or a quick “thinking of you” text. Take the focus off of yourself, and realize you have a lot of love and positive energy to give. Let that fuel your spirit.

“Combat the darkness with a tremendous amount of light.” I just found this post I wrote, Do You Choose Victim or Warrior? and that quote was in there from Gabby at one of her retreats. I LOVE THIS. When we’re in “warrior mode,” we can see difficult situations as a chance to take ADVANCED ACTION, find new solutions, grow stronger, open up to more possibilities we have never thought of before, ASK FOR HELP, get help (there are so many people ready to help us!), and get creative with how we can remedy whatever issue we’re dealing with. The moment we switch from complaining to getting creative is the moment we start looking at the dopeness. One of the best ways to step into this feeling is by saying, “there’s probably a possibility I haven’t even thought of yet.” Because yes, there probably is.

How do you switch from looking at the wackness to looking at the dopeness?

Music helps, too. Ya know?