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Magic happens in the messy


It is ok to have a bad hair day.

It is ok not to have your shit together.

Mediocrity is sometimes ‘real time’ and not just a negative choice.

And yes, it is not natural to be always walking around with your head up your arse feeling sorry for yourself.

However, it is also unnatural to be constantly floating on cloud nine feeling on top of the world.

To wallow in regret or long for immediate gratification is the mental state of the addict.

In reality, life is like a wave.

Peaks and the troughs.

Highs and the lows.

The ups and the downs.

And like a surfer sitting on his board past the break line, life can be a waiting game.

Just sitting in the chop, bobbing quietly, with nothing much to do.

But wait.

And that is ok.

Ironically, my observation has shown me that the magic happens in the waiting.

We just have to be aware enough or connected enough to understand the paradox.

In my experience, and the experience of so many others who have trudged the road less travelled, it comes down to choice:

“The freedom of the individual and the freedom of our species is to choose how we react and how we behave. The better choices we make are dependent on how we listen to our inner voice in the space between the stimulus and our response.

Most times, on a daily basis, we cannot control the stimulus, but we can control the reaction.

Our reaction.

The best piece of wisdom I have ever read is from Viktor Frankl, “The one thing you can’t take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me. The last of one’s freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance.”

Frankl was talking about his horrific experience in the Nazi death camps as a young Jew.

He went on to say, “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

He nailed the human experience.

From all the horror the Nazis subjected the Jewish people to—the degradation, the starvation, the removal of individuality, the loss of wealth, the loss of self-worth, the violence, and the killing—Frankl knew one thing.

They could not take away his freedom of choice. That, my friends, is the secret to a life well-led.

Choice.

This is not necessarily making the right choice, but the most considered choice and the appropriate choice given our current circumstances and our current ability to apply reason.”

You see, I have learned through the pain of thousands of mistakes, not to listen to my head when I am too high or too low.

Magic happens in the messy.

When I can quietly listen to the silence between the stimulus and the behaviour, and not react, I am truly connected to God.

So, if you do not get messy and you do not get dirty, you never see the magic and you never achieve freedom of choice.

Therefore, all those self help books that tell us we can be perpetually fabulous, are in reality, denying our freedom.

Self help books should squarely sit in the fiction section of book stores.

They are fantasy!

Perfectionism is fantasy!

I am a firm believer that you do not have to experience pain to change, but life also has shown me that perfectionism is the ultimate curse of the modern world.

To be human is to be imperfect.

So, go on, get down and dirty.

Just don’t wallow in the mud.

If you sit quietly and listen, you will finally walk to the shower and wash yourself clean.

Need to read more?

This is an excerpt from One Day, One Life: P. 41-43. One Day One Life

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