HOW TO BE THE COOL KID ON THE BLOCK Let me put this coal on your arm. It will be fun. And because I was five years old and he was maybe seven years old and the ruler of the corner we all lived in and I wanted to be cool and liked I thought this would be my entrance to the cool club. SURE! He put the coal on my arm. BAM! I ran all the way home. I was crying. They all were laughing. I showed my mom and dad my skin. My dad went out to find out what happened but nobody was there. I still have the mark on my arm today as a reminder. Reminder to what? Its not like I need a reminder to be convinced not to touch coal. Hate is like that coal. Every day hate gets thrown at me on comments to articles. I saw a few this morning on a LinkedIn article. Anger is like that coal. Worry. I worry about stocks, about businesses, about my kids, about things that happen to my kids. About Claudia. About my podcast. About everything. Someone asked me the other day, but wont worry identify the areas where you solve the problems? No, we always know where the real problems are. Then we can choose to solve them or not. Or we can choose to worry. Choosing yourself means choosing not to worry. Thats 100% our choice. You only have room for one choice at a time. Hate, anger, worry, anxiety, despair, is like touching the coal and thinking that solves the problem. The people offering the coal are the problem. Running away is solving the problem. The pain in the middle is just pain. Its never good. It wastes time. It weakens you. You can say, well, the pain gives you experience. Ok, fine. But Ive had plenty of opportunities to hate in the past few decades. So now I know what that feels like in thousands of different situations. I dont need it anymore. And Ive had plenty of opportunities to be angry. Even this morning. Even last night. Even last week. And 20 years ago. And 40 years ago. I dont need that many more opportunities to learn what situations to avoid. Worry will never solve tomorrows problems and will only drain away strength from today. I call Brian: heres what Im upset about, and then we make jokes about it and laugh. I take a shower, I declutter my desk, I talk to Claudia, I take a walk, I watch something funny. I come up with ideas to move forward whatever Im involved in. I write this note. I feel grateful. There are many things I can do instead of being angry. Sometimes the most important is having an accountability partner - just someone I can talk to who will remind me where in the physical emotional mental spiritual areas of health I can focus on this moment and where she is focusing on this moment. I talk to Claudia all day long about this. Find an accountability partner you can talk to. Share with. Listen to. Laugh with. Even find a group of accountability partners. Meet with them. Share. Thats a lot better than having a scar for the rest of your life. Its a lot better than spending time with the people who are more than happy to scar you. If you want: Tag your accountability partners in this post. If you want, call them right now and say hi and thank you to them. When I was six my parents moved out of that area where all the kids were tormenting me all the time. I feel really lucky. The only reason they moved is because their five year old son was miserable. I learned more from that than maybe anything else in my life. They werent always the best parents but they did that for me. Anger is like stepping in fire and mistakenly thinking the other person will be burned. I dont think people ever fully get over that but I can only speak for myself. For me, I only hope to get a little better each day. 1% better a day compounds into 3800% better every year. I dont even know what means - to be 38 times better at not being angry. There will never be a computer for emotions. All I know is that over the past five years its worked for me. And it leaves room in your mind and body for the abundance that replaces all the negative thoughts. Its hard in the moment. Its hard on your own. Ultimately, we have to build our scene, our crew, that we can go to and share. Ugh, I feel like this is self-help. It is self-help in the sense that this is what helped MY self. I dont know about others. Anyway, for all I know all of those kids who were laughing about the coal are dead now. And then I would definitely be the coolest guy left.
Posted on: Thu, 18 Dec 2014 15:16:28 +0000
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