I got into another one of my “funks” recently. This past weekend, I became frustrated with life and started feeling guilty about the past. I’m sure this is something many of you can resonate with.
I want to reiterate a couple points I’ve been making in these momentary reflections: none of this is a quick fix and it is something you’ll battle more than once after you “recover.”
I still struggle with these emotional issues. I’m able to better identify what is going on now, as I mentioned in a previous post, but I still get sucked into the quicksand of doubt, guilt, shame, and woe.
For those of you keeping score at home, you noticed there wasn’t an episode released on Monday. I couldn’t collect my thoughts well enough to finish it and I didn’t want to release something that was forced. I also didn’t want to release a message that supported an idea that I was not implementing myself.
There’s a great story about Gandhi (taken from James Altucher’s blog):
A woman walks with her son many miles and days to come to Gandhi. She is very worried about her son’s health because he is eating too much sugar. She comes to Gandhi and says, “please, sir, can you tell my son to stop eating sugar.”
Gandhi looks at her and thinks for a bit and finally says, “ok, but not today. Bring him back in two weeks.”
She’s disappointed and takes her son home. Two weeks later she makes the journey again and goes to Gandhi with her son.
Gandhi says to the boy, “you must stop eating sugar. It’s very bad for you.”
The boy has such respect for Gandhi that he stops and lives a healthy life.
The woman is confused and asks him, “Gandhi, please tell me: why did you want me to wait two weeks to bring back my son.”
Gandhi said, “Because before I could tell your son to stop eating sugar. I had to stop eating sugar first.”
The comparison isn’t perfect, but I don’t want to promote anything in this program that I am not living by. I started this project with leading by example and sharing my own story in the first episode so I could show everyone this is a cause I’m leading, not just advocating. Now, I need to make sure that each idea that I put into my message is one I’m using, or am at least ready to use, in my real life.