Rock Bottom is fertile soil

Hit Rock Bottom?

Congratulations – maybe.  You are at a place that can create despair and misery or fuel strength, resilience and success.

Your poison or your fuel – it’s up to you.

Rock Bottom has built more champions than privilege ever could.

People who have had it easy are often weak.  Challenges crush them.

But a person who has been in the gutter, in desperation, and had their heart broken, can be uniquely positioned to succeed IF they have a vision and burning desire to be better and do better, and are willing to do the work.

Had trouble?  Made some mistakes?  People messed with you and caused all kinds of problems?

So long as you are breathing, it’s not over.

Stand up. 

Determine to win.

Get busy.

Let’s go!

Ripening

I am 61 years old.  (I have 39 years to go. Goals….) 

The accumulated years have a way of changing things.

I am unable to do the things I once could.

I am able to do things I once couldn’t.

I can’t run anymore.  I had to have my knee replaced 5 years ago.  I can’t do a deep squat or kneel down.  It hurts every day.  I still jump a dirtbike 80 feet most weeks, spring to autumn, and climb walls, work out, and go in the woods with a chainsaw to clean up – but I have to be more cautious and do less than before because of my knee.  

I can give advice I could not give when I was younger.  I can see and understand things I once could not.  I am wiser and more experienced.  I have resources of all kinds I did not have when I was younger.  I can make things happen quickly when necessary.  I am less attached to anything than before.  I have experienced great loss, and the sun came up the next day – every time (so far).

Life changes us.  We can tip the odds in our favor and stall some change, but it is coming for all of us. 

Death twitches my ear. ‘Live,’ he said. ‘I am coming’ – Virgil

Fight for your limitations, and they are yours.

When presented with a new idea that is outside the boundaries of your own limitations, you set for yourself, do you automatically say, “I can’t do that?”  Do you strive to convince the presenter that you cannot do it?  Do you spend your energy defending your own limitations?

If you do, you will surely keep them.

Instead, you could envision how you might be able to do it – how you might be able to go beyond what you thought was your limit.  You could dig in and figure out how you could get there, instead of how you can’t.

Let’s try it.  Pick one of these things you have never done – 

Can you kayak down a river?

Can you change the tire on your car?

Can you fix the gutter that is hanging off your house?

Can you read a 300-page book and pass a test on it?

Can you learn to read a Profit and Loss Statement and a Balance Sheet?

Can you use an AI app to study how a bumblebee flies and have it create a one-page summary report on the subject?

Can you use AI to make a photo of yourself and your child in a rollercoaster car speeding down the track?

Can you get a surfboard and go surfing?

What does your brain say to things that are foreign and out of your self-imposed comfort zone? 

Do you fight for “no”?  Or do you figure out “yes”?

Discipline = Freedom

“Only the disciplined ones in life are free.  If you are undisciplined, you are a slave to your moods and passions.” – Eliud Kipchoge

It’s a paradox.  If you do whatever you want to do, you will run out of options and be forced to accept whatever you get – and that will not be much.

Do you know someone like that?

However, if you discipline yourself, you will have options. 

Options = freedom. 

You will be able to call the shots in your own life.  

I like self-discipline – because if I discipline myself and hold myself to a higher standard than anyone else does, then I will never have to be disciplined by anyone else.  I don’t like to be disciplined.  I don’t like when people have to tell me I am doing it wrong or have done wrong and am subject to penalties – even if that penalty is just someone else knowing I’m a slacker who didn’t do their homework.   

No way.  You don’t discipline me – I’ll do it myself.

I’m the boss of me. 

My character and self-discipline keep it that way.

How about you?

Tolerant of others, strict on yourself.

“In others, look for virtue.  In yourself, look for vice” – Ben Franklin

Look for the good in others, and look for areas you can get better in your own life.

If you do this, you will have many friends who are happy to see you, and you will be humble.  And after years of trying to fix or neutralize your flaws and improve your strengths, you’ll be pretty damn good.

It’s easy to see how living this the other way around can get you in trouble. 

If you “Looked for the flaws in others and the virtue in yourself”.  That’s not going to work out too well.  People will hate you as you think you are better than them (you aren’t) and you won’t be trying to get better.

In looking for virtue in others and vice in yourself, what you are doing is holding yourself to a higher standard than everybody else.

Meeting a higher standard than others is a good way to become better than average.

Don’t you think?