Daily Gratitude: “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

Although this sounds a bit harsh, take note of the fact that it’s a quote from Socrates and he didn’t mess around or worry about people’s feelings.

With that out of the way, let’s look at what it means.

I take this to mean that it is our responsibility to review our lives (and we should do that on a continual basis). How else can we know where our strong and weak points are? And if we don’t know that, how can we grow and change and become better people.

I think that’s what happens when people stay stagnant and then feel left behind when a loved one or friend grows and leaves that person in their wake.

Relationships need growth of all parties. It’s a dance of sorts. One grows and the other doesn’t. But then that second person tries to catch up. There may be constant leap frogging and that’s actually good since it keeps the excitement alive. Each person wants to grow to be better for their loved one as well as for themselves.

I’ve written before about how you should examine you core beliefs since you’re a different person and it’s a different world from when you first adopted you beliefs.

But you should look at what you want to do, want to learn, want to be and do this as often as you can. Remember the compound effect and how small changes made consistently add up to big changes.

What would it be like to drive a car without a gas gauge and no odometer? You’d just be zooming along without knowing what’s happening in your car. You’d have to do the guessing game to figure out where you can go (how far) before you run out of gas. Or you just go along and when you run out, you’re left thinking “oh well”. Is that how you want to live your life? It’s not how I plan on living mine.

Daily Gratitude: “There is no
growth without discomfort.”

One could say this means “growing pains” are normal. And in a way, they are. Growth and change are so closely related that we should expect growth to hurt because we all know that change hurts. Even when it shouldn’t. Ha ha.

And then there’s the issue of pain vs discomfort. If you’ve put on a few pounds and your clothes are tight, you have “grown” and you may have both pain and discomfort. The discomfort would be in having to suck it in when you’re trying to button your pants. And then there’s the emotional pain of feeling you’ve failed etc.

I was being facetious but the point is that discomfort can be looked at in a positive way. Look up the two arrow theory if you don’t remember my post on that. Taking the emotional component out of pain helps to diminish the intensity and one way to do that is to try to find the positive in the situation causing the pain.

I’ve told you about my post shingles nerve pain and how horrific it was. But I’ve also told you all the good that came out of it. Did I see the good at the time it was happening ? No. But I wasn’t as wise as I am now. Seriously. This is not to say you have to be Pollyanna- not at all. Just try to look at what you’re going through in a different light if you can. And If you can’t, that’s all right too.

I think every day is a growing time. That’s why it’s helpful to do evening reviews. If we have to suffer, wouldn’t it be nice to see something good come from it?

Daily Gratitude: “The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.”

We tend to get all bent out of shape over little things. Why is that? Because those little things seem gigantic when you’re facing them. That’s human nature. But it helps to realize that this thing that appears insurmountable may not be that big. If you can take a deep breath, step back a bit and ask yourself how much is this going to matter in a year (or use the 12 September 2001 question), you may be able to calm down and then, once the emotions are removed, you can see if it’s something worth expending energy on. Worry is wasted energy.

Ask yourself why this is so important right now? Is it logical or emotional? Is it something you can “come back to” later? Is it something that you can walk away from (overlook)? If not, why not?

Do you react to everything? If so, it’s probably your brain in survival mode. It’s hypervigilant. If you’ve had trauma in your life, then this is not surprising. Learn to calm your nervous system and then overlooking things will be easier.

Wouldn’t you like to save your energy for essential issues?