It’s killing you, isn’t it? This feeling that’s been lingering for a while. In the beginning you could easily push it away. It’s nothing more than a bad day. Then the bad days turned into weeks, months, and eventually years.
Were you not meant to be this other person? – the one who walks with confidence, lives with purpose, and makes a difference in the world! But this incessant voice continues screaming. You aren’t good enough. You don’t deserve happiness, joy, success or fulfilment. You're a failure!
It's time to stop. It's time to wake up!
By now, all subtlety has disappeared. There’s a darkness inside of you that has enveloped your mind, heart, and soul. Every time you look into a mirror you stare into the abyss. Painful highlights of regret flash before your eyes. Vivid memories of shame and guilt haunt you day in day out.
The life hacks and quick fixes merely act like band-aids. They may slow the bleeding but can never stop it completely.
It’s draining you.
The other voice inside your head is screaming. Life should not be like this.There must be more to it than going through the daily motions, turning incircles, always moving but going nowhere.
The realization that you’re lost in your own existence terrifies you. Caught in an emotional stranglehold of your own creation, you believe that life taught you but one powerful lesson.
I am a failure.
And if you just look hard enough you will find endless examples to validate your belief. Falling short of fulfilling your unrealistic expectations, you are only trying harder to achieve perfection. Attempting to please everyone but yourself, the only constant in your life is rejection. Your dreams rarely turn into actionable plans. Shaky goals remain unaccomplished.
False beliefs run wild and it doesn’t come naturally to question them. Others just don’t get me. My parents are to blame. The whole world is against me. The universe is punishing me ‘cause I’m not perfect.
The lies are easier to swallow than the truth.
Whatever you think your problem is - toxic perfectionism, arrogance, victimhood, depressive thoughts, and all the other cruelties you most likely inflict on yourself - there are solutions to get out of this vicious cycle.
This is not the end. As a matter of fact, the best part of your journey is just beginning.
You are valuable and you are here for a reason. Your life’s purpose isn’t found in a distant future. It has been within you all along. Your task is to articulate and then live it - through action. You are capable of forging clarity about your life. The shame, guilt, and regret aren’t punishments but precious gifts. The lessons you extract from past infractions will be the foundation on which you build the life you are supposed to live. You are meant to walk with confidence, live up to your potential, and, one day, make a difference in the world. You’ve tried all other options to get your act together (i.e., lying to yourself, ignoring the issue, distracting yourself). The one thing you haven’t tried is the only way that works.
Transforming who you currently are, to become the person you are destined to be, requires dedication. To live with purpose day by day is hard work that asks for discipline and focus. Facing your guilt, mistakes, and incompetence is a grueling experience before the weight is lifted. A lot of friction is needed to break the chains of bad habits and questionable beliefs,which, so far, keep you locked in your current life.
Joy, happiness, and fulfilment exist beyond the pain. On the other side of discipline lies freedom. You have what it takes. The question is: Are you willing to do the work?
Forging clarity and developing the courage to live up to your greatness comes at a price. Only few are willing to pay this price.
The world is indifferent. Life just is. Circumstances simply are.
What if your life is a mess because you choose to believe otherwise? What if you don’t see what really is, but whatever you want it to be?
Circumstances are incapable of considering or caring for your feelings, your anxiety, or your excitement. They don’t care about your reaction. So stop acting like getting worked up is having an impact on a given situation. - The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday & Stephen Hanselman
Radical acceptance of reality is about cultivating the courage to look at circumstances through a different lens and approach life from a different angle. It’s about creating a detached view and accepting how things really are, not how you want them to be.
Radical acceptance of reality is knowing that you are, in fact, strong enough to get the necessary work done, but so far have been far too comfortable taking shortcuts. Clinging to the mirages of how your life should be, while sitting on the sidelines without taking the right kind of action, will only increase the friction you feel.
Every single situation you have encountered in life, good or bad, important or seemingly meaningless, came with a choice. By making countless choices along the way, you alone brought yourself here. In some instances, you chose wrong. Other times you may have chosen to accept the outcomes.
Chances are you aimed to make the best possible decisions with the knowledge and emotional maturity you possessed at the time. Yet you’re quick to blame external circumstances when things don’t go the way you want them to.
Can you seriously demand better outcomes despite insufficient choices?
You aren’t owed compensation for your perceived hardship. The world is indifferent, remember!
So, enough with assigning blame to circumstances and other people. Enough with the excuses!
Your level of education is no longer an excuse to avoid learning. You were able to pick up this book and read it. You can read another one, and another one after that. Do this often enough and you eventually become sufficiently educated on any topic of your choosing.
Being stuck in the same job you hated for years is no longer an excuse to stop doing your best. Maybe if you would give your best at your current job, it would not be so bad?! The world doesn’t owe you the perfect job, a higher salary, or a stellar career.
Growing up with incompetent parents and suffering through a difficult childhood is no longer an excuse to be a bad parent yourself. The world doesn’t owe you a picture-perfect childhood and competent parents.
Life is so hard is no longer an excuse to complain about things happening to you. Life just is, after all! If you make life hard, you can make life simple.
Since we’re on the topic of all those bad things happening TO you, let’s talk about Why me?
It has become wildly popular to ask: Why me? Why is this happening to me? Why am I burdened with this hardship, illness, fate, unfairness? There is a two-part answer to Why me?
First, you are the only person in this world who can carry what you still think is a burden. The Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius put it more eloquently: Nothing happens to any man that he is not formed by nature to bear.
Second, this misery, which you supposedly must endure, is the required foundation for your future. Instead of asking why this is happening TO you, consider that life happens FOR you.
The path you took was the only way to get here. It was an absolute necessity to go through all the misery and pain. It was also necessary to experience the joyous and happy moments in your life, to arrive here on this exact day, in this exact moment of your life. It could not have happened sooner.
What happens to each of us is ordered to help aid our destiny - Marcus Aurelius
You are the only person on the planet who has had your life experience. There are roughly 8 billion human beings alive on this planet. Yet not a single person has had, or will have, the same experiences and feelings as you do. While many people may have similar experiences and feelings all the time, there is only one you.
It is essential to understand and accept that you are here for a purpose; one which only you can fulfill.
This burden you carry is nothing less than the greatest gift you will ever receive. This presumed misery you endure is a treasure trove of learning experiences. Wherever you are in life is exactly where you need to be.
The only person who can turn your life around is you.
Family, friends, or acquaintances can’t do the work for you. At best,they can support you with empathy and advice along the way. This is hard to accept.
You may be able to distract yourself with parties, drugs, or a busy work schedule for a while. But your demons will find you eventually. Maybe they come late at night when you lie awake in bed, maybe early in the morning when you look into the mirror.
I was an expert in running away from myself for the better part of two decades. No matter how far I ran – and by relocating to Australia I literally went to the other side of the world – my demons always found me. Things improved only when I stopped running to face my issues. The more I faced the things haunting me, the less power they had over me.
If you want things to improve in your life you have to stop running. You must face your issues. No one else can do it for you. You must stand up for yourself. The strength to do so is already within you. It’s time to make use of it.
You’re strong enough to save yourself.
