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I am re-reading the book Chop Wood Carry Water.
It’s a 3-hour read at my slow reading speed.
It is a veritable storehouse of all ‘mind bugs’…
You can use the book as a coach… by the way.
So let’s say you are bummed out. Discouraged. Down on yourself. ‘I am never going to succeed!’ says the little voice.
So you open your copy of the book, pdf or the mp3 is yours… I have given it to you. And find the little voice in the book (Chapter 13)… it says:
You might not be able to stop negative thoughts or your inner critic from screaming at you, but you don’t have to believe them or give them significance, and you can definitely talk to yourself rather than just listening to the negativity!
The solution the book gives you is different that what I’d give you, but maybe it’s better. It is a version of the Amish Horse Training Method, except it says: ‘Talk to yourself more than listen to the voices.’
So you read that sentence (I paraphrased it) and say… Oh, OK. So what would I say to myself in this case?
And then you would say something with compassion. I myself would say:
‘You have no idea how far or how close you are to success. So don’t quit, like the stupid guy who left his property that was a diamond field. Or the stupid guy who left three feet away from the gold. Hang in there…‘
No matter where you are in life, you’ll get bummed out. Discouraged. I do… So the book said: just do the process, day in and day out… and the result will come… I felt it was talking to me directly.
You see, most things are the result of ‘chop wood carry water’, day in and day out. WORK. Process.
I am not willing to do anything for money that I wouldn’t do for free.
I am not a fan of anything flashy. Any trick, any over the top promise, viral this and viral that. I’d love the results, but I don’t love the process.
I have spent a lot of money buying programs with tactics like that… but I always found out that that is not me… I want to be true to myself. So I dropped all those products that teach tactics… I still would like the results, but I now know myself: I am not willing to do anything for money that I wouldn’t do for free. Including tactics, exploitative methods, flash in the pan results, fakery.
I’d rather be happy with what I have than be unhappy with myself… and have much.
Ultimately what makes you happy with yourself is who you are… not what you have. Not even what you achieved…
The book says: whatever can be taken away from you won’t make you happy.
That is a lot like the Jewish mentality:
‘they’ can take away my money, even my family, even my ability to work, but they can’t take away what I have learned…’
And that mentality has caused me, helped me, supported me to live a life I can love… because I love myself.
‘They’ can even take away your health, and they are working on it feverishly. They can take away liberty… and they are working on it feverishly. But they cannot take away your freedom, because it depends on nothing outside of you.‘
I read on Reddit that corporal punishment is legal in several ‘red’ states in the United States of America.
The map is a lot like other important ‘rights’, the right to abort a child, the right
I love how every map looks like that haha. Like seriously, look up a map where you have to have a front license plate, places where the death penalty is legal, teen childbirth rates, obesity rates, passport ownership rates, violent crime rates, road fatalities, average lifespan. It’s insane. You’d think it’s 1873.
If I’d ever wrote a book
If I ever write a book, I’d write a book like ‘Chop Wood Carry Water’ on health. Because success is a lot of moving parts, health is also.
Obviously they are both so complicated, because humanity, us, humans, consider adding new and new stuff… instead of taking away what makes us miserable, listless, angry, jealous, discouraged, etc. Or sick, weak, dull-headed, dizzy, fat, constipated, bloated, hurting in the area of health.
In the last two hours of my sleep last night I was dreaming. The dream was about how feverishly (that word again!) people try to obstruct your personal growth. They will get debilitating diseases just to take you off your path. Create emergency, arguments, violence, just to make sure you don’t get out of the crab bucket.
And it is up to you to take it in stride.
If no one is trying to block you, then you are probably not on the path yet… no matter how much you are kidding yourself.
And if you are, thank them for doing it, in your head, not to them. They give you a priceless opportunity to use whatever they are doing as a ladder.
It is harder to grow when there is no Opponent… The bigger the Opponent the faster you can grow.
So there you have it. If you are on the path: I celebrate you. If you are not yet on the path: your WHY is probably not big enough… Craft a bigger WHY.
If you have fallen off the path, you know who you are… get back in touch with me. Don’t be a stranger!
There is still time to join the Drink Your Food Challenge.
It is Day 2 today, so you can catch up.
sign up to the Drink Your Food ChallengePS: Just one more thing: when you read the book focus on seeing that every learning opportunity was the result of some failing… Had John in the book been always successful, there would have been no path, no learning, no mastery.
