One of the strange things about self-help information, is that it’s loaded with stuff that is probably…well, self-harmful I guess is the only honest way to put it. The intentions are probably good (probably…), but the road to hell is paved with such intentions. And self-help is really no different than anywhere else – there is awareness and unawareness, consciousness and unconsciousness, good advice and advice that you should avoid at all costs.
Take, for example, this bit of self-help advice that I came across recently. It was in a chapter about “motivation,” and it used this little...story...as the basis of its ideas:
"Every morning in Africa a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn't matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle -- when the sun comes up, you had better be running."
Uhhh…maybe it’s just me, but is anyone reading this blog a gazelle? Or a lion? If you are, then, hey, YOU’D BETTER RUN because you’ll either starve to death or be eaten (or worse, you may end up in someone's self-help book...AHHHHHHhHhhhHhhHHH!)
:)
News flash: YOU ARE A HUMAN BEING. And as such, there is absolutely no need for you to pretend or imagine that you’re a lion or a gazelle; nor do you have to somehow believe that motivation is, bizarrely, about survival.
What could be more…absurd than thinking that fear can ever – ever – motivate you to do something worth doing? Yes, fear can compel you to ACT – but motivate?
Fear is by no means a source of motivation – it never has been, and it never will be. That’s why so many efforts in life to change things don’t work; not because people don’t try hard (people try VERY hard). It’s because they’re operating from fear; fear is the ground upon which they exist, and upon which they act. They say that “when things work out better, they’ll stop being so afraid” – but that never happens. It’s always about “tomorrow” – such as “tomorrow I’ll relax” or “tomorrow I’ll stop reading dumb self-help advice about gazelles and lions.”
There is no tomorrow. There is no such thing as tomorrow. Have you ever “met” tomorrow? In your entire life, you’ve always had this idea that there is a tomorrow.
But have you ever met one?
You almost certainly don’t believe in Santa Clause, you probably don’t believe in miracles, and yet you believe in tomorrow – which is not merely less “possible” than Santa Clause and miracles, it’s IMPOSSIBLE.
There is no tomorrow. There is only now.
Are you afraid NOW?
If so....
Take a step back. Reflect. Relax. Accept. SEE what you’re afraid of. Is it really what you think it is? Go deeper. Co-exist with the fear and watch it; don’t judge it or repel it. Just watch it, as if you were watching anything else. See it from many different angles. Explore it.
And then start to see the fallacy of living for a “fearless tomorrow.”
There is only now. There can only BE now.
And if ‘now’ is scary and fearful – then tomorrow (whatever that's supposed to be) will be, too.
What could be more…absurd than thinking that fear can ever – ever – motivate you to do something worth doing? Yes, fear can compel you to ACT – but motivate?
Fear is by no means a source of motivation – it never has been, and it never will be. That’s why so many efforts in life to change things don’t work; not because people don’t try hard (people try VERY hard). It’s because they’re operating from fear; fear is the ground upon which they exist, and upon which they act. They say that “when things work out better, they’ll stop being so afraid” – but that never happens. It’s always about “tomorrow” – such as “tomorrow I’ll relax” or “tomorrow I’ll stop reading dumb self-help advice about gazelles and lions.”
There is no tomorrow. There is no such thing as tomorrow. Have you ever “met” tomorrow? In your entire life, you’ve always had this idea that there is a tomorrow.
But have you ever met one?
You almost certainly don’t believe in Santa Clause, you probably don’t believe in miracles, and yet you believe in tomorrow – which is not merely less “possible” than Santa Clause and miracles, it’s IMPOSSIBLE.
There is no tomorrow. There is only now.
Are you afraid NOW?
If so....
Take a step back. Reflect. Relax. Accept. SEE what you’re afraid of. Is it really what you think it is? Go deeper. Co-exist with the fear and watch it; don’t judge it or repel it. Just watch it, as if you were watching anything else. See it from many different angles. Explore it.
And then start to see the fallacy of living for a “fearless tomorrow.”
There is only now. There can only BE now.
And if ‘now’ is scary and fearful – then tomorrow (whatever that's supposed to be) will be, too.
