I strive every day to strike a good balance between success and failure.This TED Talk with Elizabeth Gilbert illustrates my striving beautifully.
The following quote from the speech is riveting:
“I had to find a way to make sure that my creativity survived its own success.”.
– Elizabeth Gilbert
In an age that values creativity less and less, we do need to protect it fiercely.
http://youtu.be/MlLWTeApqIM
The above TED Talk got me thinking about many things. David Brooks stirred my soul and provided confirmation of the state of things. The state of who, or what, should be master.
It really is about the who of you.
I stand on the battleground of souls and lives. This was evident to me over 10 years ago, as it is now. As noble as that may echo, it really doesn’t matter, outside of the context of what you want life to be. Many are living under the sun and hope that will produce happiness and contentment. It doesn’t. All of the striving, all of the ignoring, all of the convincing self-talk will never provide lasting results. If it did, we’d have satisfaction. Ever notice how America continues to scream out that you need more education, more career mobility, more recognition, more money?
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
The wizard had a great gig, until Toto got in the way. He had us convinced that we could fool the audience with tricks from a traveling carnival. He told us the curtain was an absolute necessity to keep the audience from discovering what was real. “They will never understand,” he whispered to us in the deep of night. We believed him.
Now, here’s the irony, in my modern culture (an eroding one), most are still trying to conjure a spell or trick. We panically negotiate with the audience. We tell them what they thought was true, was just their imagination. We hope for the miracle of distraction. Maybe they won’t figure out who we really are.
As we face the truth, the deceptive self-talk kicks in:
Ten years ago I had an audience that said, “OK, Eric, show us another trick.”
Find the who of you while there’s time.
I posted this over a year ago and I returned to Andy’s TED Talk a couple of days ago. It was a great reminder of a precious gift.
So why does mindfulness matter? It matters because if you’re like me, there is a ton coming at you everyday. Social media, email, work demands, family issues, and the list could go on. I’m so thankful that I found yoga. It has helped me in so many ways with this war (mental in this case) we’re in. The mindfulness and physical lift I get are two big ones that leap out.
In the clip, Andy Poddicombe, points to some insights I plan on expanding in my mind. I want to do a better job of managing my thought-life in the here, and on.
"Been thinking, more than writing these days. Hoping to get back here very soon. Many events of 2009 have conspired in a way not imagined."
-Epic Living Blog, Spring of 2009
The above quote came from me almost 4 years ago. Though I'm now in a different place, the words began pushing me to reflection.
Do I have a handle around my thoughts?
As we've entered into 2013, I've given a lot of myself to why thoughts matter. The good ones, the bad ones and how impactful the sum of the two have been on me, and others. This may seem like an obvious because we do it all the time…thinking that is. But what if the majority of our thoughts are made up of the following:
It is clear in my own walk that some of those examples fit my past thought patterns. I say past, because part of my growth plan for 2013 is to manage my thoughts with great energy and focus. I've lost too much time (literally) letting bad thinking rule the day.
One great example for me is the area of regrets. There was a time when I daily struggled with regrets over my choice of entrepreneurism. The fact that I began a new life in the area of entrepreneurism when I was at my pinnacle in the corporate world, the fact that I had 2 kids under 10 years of age, the fact that I had a big mortgage, provided fertile land for regrets. This was especially true since I felt my kids were growing up so fast and I was still trying to figure out who I was supposed to be. Ever heard this one in your head?
"I should have spent more time with her just being, but now she's a teen-ager and I wonder if she sees me as father that is there for her."
I could go on with more, but the point is time is precious and we don't have time (REALLY) to spend reviewing all the crap that comes and goes through our heads. It's a deception to believe every thought is worthwhile and a key to who you are. Most of the thoughts listed above are designed to bring you down, suck away your time and leave you standing gripped. What if you decided to let the negatives to just roll on by. Try it, you'll see that your world won't come to an end.
I am living these steps to manage my thoughts better: