From time to time, life will just randomly walk up to you and kick you where it hurts the most. There’s a lot we can do to minimize the likelihood and intensity of these painful experiences, but it’s impossible to guarantee that bad things will never happen.  

Responding well during such troubled times is crucial. A poor and primitive response has the potential to launch you into a downwards spiral that can inflict serious damage to your life. 

Such a spiral is what I like to call a Big Five stampede.

Possible stampedes

Maybe you find yourself giving in to Craving after every bad thing that happens to you. Over time, this can develop into fixed unwholesome consumption habits that severely damage your health, wealth and reputation. 

Perhaps your Ego takes such a serious knock during some patches of bad luck that it causes you to miss out on big opportunities when good luck eventually comes your way. 

Some setbacks at work could render you paralyzed into inaction by Sloth. This inevitably causes you to fall further behind and could really sour your relationship with your work, making your Sloth grow even larger. 

Bad experiences involving other people can easily morph Frustration into Anger or even Hatred. At best, this is a huge mental burden. At worst, it can lead you to rash actions with serious long-term repercussions.

Exposure to one of the millions of wrongs in the world can trigger excessive Worry that keeps you up at night and stressed during the day. Such Worry often serves no useful purpose. It just drains you of the energy and focus needed to make a positive impact, fueling even more Worry. 

But a Big Five stampede rarely features just one primitive emotion. Mostly, it will be a confusing mess of multiple self-destructive emotions. Getting trampled by such a stampede can do lasting damage. 

Prevention is better than cure

The best way to stop a Big Five stampede is to ensure that it never gets going. For this reason, the period shortly after something bad has happened is critical.

No matter how bad it is, you always have a say in how you react. Will you give in to primitive self-destructive instincts? Or will you choose the more enlightened route?

My go-to path to enlightenment in such times is to see this event as a valuable experiment to learn more about the Big Five.

Think about it… We really only see the Big Five up close and personal when we’re in an emotional state. If we’re not in such a state, we can theorize all we want, but we don’t have a proper chance to test our ideas. 

But when that emotional state hits, it’s game on! These are the only real opportunities to learn how your mind operates. The moment that you decide to seize this precious opportunity for self-discovery, it can trip up the entire stampede, causing the Big Five to end up in a harmless heap. 

This might not make all that much sense to you right now. But please try it next time something bad happens. If you manage to catch yourself in that crucial moment, it will all become clear 🙂