Oops, I drank the Kool-Aid

77% Weekly Newsletter

kool-aidOoops.
I drank the Kool-Aid.
Sorry.

I made a mistake.
I drank the Kool-Aid.
I believed that more is better.
I snapped out of it.
I’m better now.
Here’s what happened:

About four months ago, I had declared an audacious goal of having 35,000 subscribers by July 1, 2015.

I spent many waking hours focused on this 10x growth goal — working with a coach, checking in with a support-team, brainstorming with friends — spending hours, cogitating, perseverating, listing out multiple action plans on white boards, on index cards, and on scraps of papers I’ve kept in my wallet. Accomplishing this achievement was something I would keep going back to at all hours, focusing much of (sleeping and) waking energy on it. I was driving my self to distraction. I was annoying my wife. I was skipping paragraphs reading stories to my children at night so I could work on this goal. Ugh. (But honest.)

But. Wham. It hit me. HARD.

I have no need for 35,000 subscribers!
How in the world would my life or the world be better if I had 35,000 subscribers?
More is better?!? Have I drunk the Kool-Aid?

I know why I did it.
This world shouts, MORE, FAST, EASY, FUN.
And, we listen.
Moreover, check this out:
My audacious goal gave me reason to be anxious: I have a huge goal to achieve.
My audacious goal gave me something onto which I could focus my anxiety: achieving this goal.
What a perfect, unconscious scheme! My goal concurrently sustained, frenetic mental overdrive as well as justifying and soothing that same anxiety.
Do you have any goals that are doing similarly in your life?
I would like to formally UN-DECLARE my goal of more subscribers.
Enough.
I declare that you are enough for me.
And, I declare that am enough. I have enough. I do enough.
Enough.

Lifeboats. Summer. Bridges. Helpers.

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A Friday Night Tradition

Religiously. Every Friday night, religiously, I do a particular tradition. I do the same ritual religiously every Friday night. I’m not misusing the word religiously to mean fanatically, as in the improper use of it in the sentence: She exercises religiously. I use the word religiously as it should be used—with more positive connotations—as in calmly, forgivingly, without rushing. So,

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Loving Enemies

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77% Weekly Newsletter
77% Weekly Newsletter