It’s 2pm. I’m disappointed, frustrated, and sick.

I was agitated late last night, so getting to sleep was difficult. I woke up around 1 a.m., watched an episode of Psych, and nibbled on peanut butter and crackers before heading back to bed for a fitful night’s sleep.

I didn’t have a big day planned. I was going to hop on an important call about some volunteer work and then spend a couple of hours reviewing job openings. Well, the phone call was delayed until later in the morning and eventually cancelled, as I lost time waiting and doomscrolling on my laptop. With no resolution from the phone call, a source of future anxiety is still up in the air.

Of course, I’m free now to tackle the simple task of reviewing job listings, but the detour and uncertainty of the morning have left me out of sorts, and I can’t bring myself to put my butt in the chair, focus, and get shit done. It’s such a simple and straightforward thing to do, yet it’s so difficult.

And all this comes at a time when I’m facing a long road ahead—more complex tasks, mounting financial pressure, and the weight of a continued job hunt this summer. And there’s the nagging thought: “Things shouldn’t be this difficult.” And now, it isn’t just about a momentary frustration, but a lifetime of them… things that shouldn’t have been so difficult, but were.

I enjoy an uplifting thought, quote or insight as much as anyone, but some days one crosses my path and I want to vomit. Today was such a day so I present you with my response.

Don’t get me wrong, Mr. Freud may be correct about the “struggle” and some days I may appreciate this thought, but today: not so much.

How about you? Do inspirational and pick-me-up quotes occasionally rub you the wrong way?

Check out the excerpts below from his book Positively Unstoppable: The Art of Owning It.

To get what you’ve never had before, you must be willing to do what you have never done before. Whatever it is that you decide you want, it’s something new. But you still have the same job, the same spouse, friends, family, schedule, routine. What can you alter to begin to accommodate change? How will you make room for it? How will you integrate the change into your life? What you normally have done before, that will change. So be prepared to move beyond your comfort zone …

This is where you have to change your circumstances, just like I did when it came to learning to read. You have to change what you do in an ordinary day, an ordinary week. Bit by bit, you will need to substantially adjust your lifestyle, because you’re going to change your life itself this year.

So, even if you’re prepared to put in the physical, everyday work required to change, you have to accept emotionally and intellectually that who you are is going to change on a fundamental level.

Are you ready for that? If the answer is yes, then, again: What are you willing to do? …

But if you’re committed to change— if you’ve broken your overall goal down to smaller, manageable pieces and you’ve begun changing your lifestyle—you’ll take on the next step…

The bottom line is this: No matter where you are now, another year will go by and you’ll find yourself in the same spot unless you write down your goals and take the first steps toward achieving them. Don’t be paralyzed by fear of failure, or fear of too much work! Just start small and hack away at your goal. You’ll wake up one morning and realize just how far you’ve come.

To learn more about DDP and DDP Yoga: https://ddpyoga.com/

Watch Arthur’s story of transformation through his work with DDP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qX9FSZJu448

I feel the urge to apologize, ALL THE TIME, and I suspect many of you do as well. At times, I even feel the need to apologize out of fear that I’m inconveniencing something – and I haven’t done anything wrong. However, there are times when most definitely DO NOT need to apologize.

I was reminded of this today while reading A Dog Named Slugger, a memoir by Leigh Brill, a lady with cerebral palsy. At one point, she tells the story about a an attempted sexual assault – TRIGGER WARNING. Her date is a man named Joe, who also has a disability.

“Come on, baby,” he murmured, “you’re smart enough to know none of the guys out there want you. Of course they don’t; you’re a cripple. Thing is, that’s no problem for me. I mean I have those.”

He jerked his left arm up and out, gesturing toward his crutches … Joe’s eyes locked on mine. His tongue flicked out … I didn’t look at him. I dropped my gaze and curled my sweaty fingers into a ball. Uneasiness tightened my throat; it lifted the delicate hairs on my nape …

Suddenly he threw himself on top of me. I was pinned against the mattress. “Don’t you get it?” he said again. “You and me, we’re a match. It’s a cripple thing.”

“Cripple thing, my ass!” I shoved against him with all my strength. He rolled off me awkwardly, grunted. I was suddenly full of adrenaline and rage. “Get out! Now!”

Joe retrieved his crutches and stood up slowly. Crimson faced, he said, “… you can’t blame a guy for trying.”

“Screw you!” I hissed …

The door slammed. I crumpled onto my bed then and held my breath, listening to the steady clicking of retreating crutches.

Leigh’s reaction was spot-on and needless of an apology; however, I guarantee you that some of us would feel the need to apologize, perhaps even feel compelled to explain to him why his behavior was so egregious.

Most situations aren’t so dramatic, but the frequent urge to apologize – for anything or nothing at all – can be exhausting and demoralizing to the best of us.

Take Demosthenes of Athens, for example. Here was a young man who was disadvantaged in so many ways that he could have given up at an early age and few would have blamed him. Consider his circumstances:

“He was born sickly and frail with a nearly debilitating speech impediment. At seven years old, he lost his father. And then things got worse.

The large inheritance left to him – intended to pay for tutors and the best schools – was stolen by the guardians entrusted to protect him … Still weak and sick, Demosthenes was also unable to distinguish himself in the other critical sphere of Greek life: the floor of the gymnasia.

Here was this fatherless, effeminate, awkward child who no one understood, who everyone laughed at. Not exactly the boy you’d expect would soon hold the power to mobilize a nation to war by his voice alone.

Disadvantaged by nature, abandoned by the people he depended on, nearly every wrong that can be inflicted on a child befell Demosthenes. None of it was fair, none of it was right. Most of us, were we in his position, would have given up right then and there. But Demosthenes did not.
— adapted from The Obstacle Is The Way by Ryan Holiday

Despite these setbacks, he had a dream that one day he could be a great orator who commanded the attention and respect of all of Athens. And he did it!  

To conquer his speech impediment, he devised his own strange exercises. He would fill his mouth with pebbles and practice speaking. He rehearsed full speeches into the wind or while running up steep inclines … And soon, his quiet, weak voice erupted with booming, powerful clarity.

Demosthenes locked himself away underground – literally – in a dugout he’d had built in which to study and educate himself. To ensure he wouldn’t indulge in outside distractions, he shaved half his head so he’d be too embarrassed to go outside. And from that point forward, he dutifully descended each day into his study to work with his voice, his facial expressions, and his arguments.

When he did venture out, it was to learn even more. Every moment, every conversation, ever transaction, was an opportunity for him to improve his art.
— continued from The Obstacle Is The Way

If one person could reinvent himself so completely, despite such disadvantages, then couldn’t we, at the very least, re-invent ourselves in at least one or two ways. Perhaps, we might simply want to:

• Become a fitness buff, or
• Return to college, or
• Gain the confidence to stand up for ourselves

And just think, if we can focus and dedicate ourselves to re-invention in one aspect of life for a year, or maybe just a few months, then maybe we can do it again and again.

By building upon one success after another, we might one day find ourselves much like Desmothenes: a new person with a new future to look embrace.

To get you started, check out this article about 15 steps to re-inventing yourself:  https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/276263

THE RECKONING: WALKING INTO OUR STORY

Recognize emotion, and get curious about our feelings and how they connect with the way we think and behave.

THE RUMBLE: OWNING OUR STORY

Get honest about the stories we’re making up about our struggle, then challenge these confabulations and assumptions to determine what’s truth, what’s self-protection, and what needs to change if we want to lead more wholehearted lives.

THE REVOLUTION

Write a new ending to our story based on key learnings from our rumble and use this new, braver story to change how we engage with the world and to ultimately transform the way we live, love, parent, and lead.

To learn more check out her book “Rising Strong”

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Rule #1
If you want to avoid worry, then follow the example of Sir William Osler and live in ‘day-tight compartments.’ Don’t stew about the past or the future. Just live each day until bedtime.

Rule #2
The next time worry backs you into a corner, try the approach of Willis H. Carrier.

a) Ask yourself, “What is the worst that can possibly happen if I can’t solve my problem?”
b) Prepare yourself mentally to accept the worst, if necessary
c) Then calmly try to mitigate the worst that you have now mentally accepted as possible

Rule #3
Remind yourself of the great price your health pays for constant worry in your life. Be diligent to excise worry from your day-to-day life so as to avoid the wear and tear on the body.

Adapted from How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie

What, then, was the secret of Sir William Osler’s success?

He stated that it was owing to what he called living in “day-tight compartments.”  What did he mean by that?

A few months before he spoke at Yale,  Sir William Osler had crossed the Atlantic on a great ocean liner where the captain, standing on the bridge, could press a button and –PRESTO– there was a clanging of machinery and various parts of the ship were immediately shut off from one another – shut off into watertight compartments.

Dr. Osler said to those Yale students, “Now each one of you is a much more marvelous organization than that great liner, and bound on a longer voyage. What I urge is that you so learn to control to machinery as to live with ‘day-tight compartments’ as the most certain way to ensure safety on the voyage.

Get on the bridge, and see that at least the great bulkheads are in working order. Touch a button and hear, at every level of your life, the  iron doors shutting out the Past — the dead yesterdays. Touch another and shut off, with a metal curtain, the Future — the unborn tomorrows. Then you are safe – safe for Today!

… Shut off the past! Let the dead past bury its dead … Shut out the yesterdays which have lighted fools the way to dusty death … the load of tomorrow, added to taht of yesterday, carried today, makes the strongest falter.  Shut off the future as tightly as the past … The future is today … There is no tomorrow. The day of man’s salvation is now.

Waste of energy, mental distress, nervous worries dog the steps of a man who is anxious about the future … Shut close, then, the great fore and after bulkheads, and prepare to cultivate the habit of a life of ‘day-tight compartments.'”

Photo Source: Wikipedia

“Physical pain is easily seen as beneficial, even though it can be very uncomfortable. It is an obvious symptom that something is wrong with your body. A pain in your right side might save your life by signaling an appendicitis attack. If you don’t pay attention to it, you could die.

Mental pain is just as much a ‘blessing,’ because it is telling you that something is wrong with the way your life is going. It is a sign that something needs correction — whether it is the way you think about the world or what you are doing in the world — or both. The pain is simply saying, ‘Hey, that’s not it!'”

— Susan Jeffers, Ph.D

“Feel the Fear … And Do It Anyway”