How Much Do You Have

The stifling fear of not being enough. Celebrate the ‘little’ you have. It puts you in a better state of mind to get/do/be more.

The truth is not easy to hear. It is even harder to listen to and sometimes feels almost impossible to accept and follow.

What is the truth of my life? It is that it is perfect. It is that I can do whatever I want. It is that I am free and I am responsible for the course my life takes.

My uncle always tells me that truth can be a burden. He isn’t wrong. The reason I say this is that it is so nice and easy to sit down now and blame the past or wallow in regret. It is so easy to sit down now and daydream about the future when that thing finally happens. It is easy to focus on anything but the present.

For facing the present means facing the truth. It is facing the truth that sometimes you are scared. You are scared that you aren’t good enough so you make up excuses. You lie to yourself that you are lazy or that you have tried or that you never live up to your own expectations. You call yourself a quitter so instead of doing the little bit that you can comfortably do, you set monstrous goals and refuse to acknowledge even the tiniest progress you have made to reach them. Instead, you hide behind not being enough, not doing enough, not sweating or suffering or sacrificing enough.

There is a time for everything. Sometimes you will have to sweat and suffer and push yourself further because you know what you want and what you are capable of and you know all that you need to be to get it. Sometimes you will have to know that a little encouragement goes a long way. Today I worked out for 15 mins. Good for me. Not, I was supposed to do 30 mins. Today I did half of my lesson. Good for me. Not why did you not finish the lesson? Today I ate mostly real food and then I ate a bar of chocolate. Good for me. Not why did you eat the chocolate? Today I called my sister. Not, why didn’t you go and visit her instead?

Stop negating and downplaying and ignoring and stifling the progress you are making with thoughts of how much you haven’t done.

I recently learnt that sometimes we overestimate ourselves in the short term and underestimate ourselves in the long term. Sometimes we need to just be able to say I did 15 mins and that’s okay. Tomorrow I am going to try and do what I can. It is so self-destructive to dismiss your efforts, no matter how small they are. It does not mean you do not want more, it only means that you are allowing yourself to take baby steps. Because you know that a baby struggles to walk for months, but one day he or she will eventually walk. And the only reason that happened is that he or she didn’t let any of his falls stop him or her. “I am not going to try and walk today because I fell a hundred times yesterday” — said no baby ever.

It is not about not having expectations. It is more about not belittling what we do manage to do. It’s not about not being accountable to ourselves, it’s about being able to say, you did a good job- let’s do it again tomorrow. It’s not about lying to ourselves it’s about celebrating ourselves and just moving forward at whatever pace we are able to move.

The only thing we have to do is not stop. Don’t quit. Keep going. Don’t give up. Your little bit counts. Your little effort counts. And one day the little effort will become a little effort plus some and then more and then more till you surpass any daydream you could ever have had.

The truth is that we need to be kind to ourselves. And not berating. Be a friend to yourself. Acknowledge your efforts and when you are demotivated, find out why and address it. Don’t just go with the flow. Ask yourself questions, not to be nasty, but to listen and understand and address. Be your own friend.

In truth, when you feel you have done nothing you will do nothing. When you feel you have accomplished nothing you will accomplish nothing. But when you acknowledge that you did this bit and it created this effect, you will look to do a bit more and create that more of an effect.

It is written:

“Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.”

Think about it.

Know what you have. Acknowledge how far you have come. And just keep it moving.

If you don’t you will remain in the quicksand of your ‘not enough’ attitude.

You are enough. You are you. You are perfect.

Love,

O.F.P.

This post first appeared on www.voicesonapath.com

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