“I am just so fed up with my life,” she said into the phone, as she wiped a tear from her cheek.
It was an early spring afternoon on the platform of a British railway station. I had only caught a small piece of the conversation as I headed to platform 2A for my own train.
She was a middle-aged woman talking into her cell phone with little to no concern for the passers-by let alone the individuals seated next to her on the trackside bench.
I can’t be sure of the rest of the conversation but what I heard was enough to set in motion my own train of thought as I boarded my ride and glided away from the drama.
I silently speculated about what her circumstances might be and then found myself asking how many people are feeling that way but don’t actually voice it. “A lot more than you think” the answer rolled back.
I suddenly felt both grateful and sheepish.
The whole episode had interrupted my own malaise of frustration over having apparently lost my wallet on the hike I had just finished, an inconvenience for sure, but nothing to be truly upset about.
I started this newsletter to work out some of my own existential frustrations and hopefully some other people’s as a byproduct.
Over the years I have repeated the words of the train station woman many times to myself though I have rarely had the courage to say them out loud.
Like many people, frustration was something I had grown accustomed to and I was long since exhausted from wringing my hands at it (figuratively and literally) without doing much else.
There is a lot to be said on the topic of quiet desperation but I will save the nuance for another time.
Life can be cruel and unfair, very much so, and at some point we all express exasperation, and that's fine.
But after a good sulk has been had remaining in victimhood is one of, if not the worst things you can do about it. It breeds bitterness and pain, not only for you but for those around you.
I am not judging that woman or pretending I understand her situation, or what was within or outside of her control, but that is not the point of this reflection.
What I am doing is reflecting on my own life and the times when I have been lost in that frustration sometimes willfully sometimes not (but at any rate for a much longer time than I am proud of) and what I did to get out of it.
So what can be done? How do we “jar” ourselves into agency?
How do we extrude ourselves from the quicksand of self-pity?
How do we put ourselves in a posture where we can receive the help that is probably more available than we would like to admit?
When I was fifteen I went to a Trooper concert with a friend (shout out to Pat Connell) I’m not much of a deadhead but one song from that concert really stuck with me and as I think about the issue at hand the lyrics of that song come rolling back…
“If your world is all messed up re-arrange it, if you don’t like what you have why don’t you change it?!”
These words from the upbeat albeit obnoxious anthem, “Raise a Little Hell” bring me around to the takeaway of this hopefully poignant parable.
If you are not happy about things then you gotta make a change.
And the biggest thing you can change is how you spend your time.
In my experience, there are really only two main ways of spending it.
Engaging with things that are good for me and sharing them with others = fulfilled
Engaging with things that are not good for me and sharing that with other (consciously or unconsciously) = fed up
This seems to be the case for most people (of course this is an oversimplification and there is more nuance but I think you get the main point)
But back to the song, and more specifically the name of it, for thein lies the key to moving from “fed upness” to fulfillment.
To “raise a little hell”, means to go and take action in the direction of potential fulfillment.
But let’s break it down a little more.
Because this is a lot harder to do than it sounds when you are stuck in the smoke and mirrors of apathy.
So here are three simple steps to raising some constructive “hell” in your life:
Step 1: Create “noise” (this is any action you take in relation to your desired outcome from posting stuff on eBay, to introducing yourself to new people, to cutting things out of your diet, to sending out job applications)
Step 2: Analyze the noise for “the signal” ie. what is working (don’t give up to soon this can take time)
Step 3: Double down on what works cut back on what does not.
Repeat.
The game plan is to make something happen, listen for feedback, and then iterate on that feedback. More of what works, less of what doesn't.
Sometimes it really is that simple, so if you find yourself fed up and feeling down, maybe it's time to get your train moving and raise a little hell.
Yours in the locomotion,
Ben
P.S. One great way to mitigate feeling fed up is by having something to “work” on that can compound over time. One of those things for me is a youtube channel, we all know the world needs more influencers so what are you waiting for?
Don’t know where to start? Check out this free course and get started with your own little youtube hustle right now (I think it’s still free)