Date Posted: December 16th, 2010
From Robert Fritz’s The Path of Least Resistance:
There was a man who woke one day convinced that he was a zombie. When he told his wife he was a zombie, she tried to talk him out of this outrageous opinion.
“You are not a zombie!” she said.
“I am a zombie.” he answered.
“What makes you think you are a zombie?” she asked rhetorically.
“Don’t you think zombies know they are zombies?” he answered with great sincerity.
His wife realized she was not getting anywhere so she called his mother and told her what was going on. His mother tried to help.
“I’m your mother, wouldn’t I know if I gave birth to a zombie?”
“You didn’t,” he explained, “I became a zombie later.”
“I didn’t raise my son to be a zombie, or especially to think he is a zombie,” his mother pleaded.
“Nonetheless, I am a zombie,” hes said, unmoved by his mother’s appeal to his identity and sense of guilt.
Later that day his wife called in their minister to talk to her husband.
“You are not a zombie, you are probably going through a midlife crisis,” the minister said, trying to be the psychologist he always wanted to be.
“Zombies don’t have midlife crises,” was all the man replied.
The minister recommended a psychiatrist. The wife got an emergency appointment, and within the hour the husband was in the psychiatrist’s office.
“So, you think you are a zombie?” the psychiatrist asked.
“I know I am a zombie,” the man said.
“Tell me, do zombies bleed?” the psychiatrist asked.
“Of course not,” said the man, “zombies are the living dead. They don’t bleed.” The man was a little annoyed at the psychiatrist’s patronizing question.
“Well, watch this,” said the psychiatrist as he picked up a pin. He took the man’s finger and made a tiny pin prick. The man looked at his finger with great amazement and said nothing for three or four minutes.
“What do you know,” the man finally said, “zombies do bleed!”
We lie all the time, to our friends and to ourselves. “That outfit looks great on you.” “I failed the test because the teacher hates me.”
We do it because it avoids awkwardness in the short term. If you say the outfit looks terrible you’ll create drama. If you tell yourself you failed because of you didn’t study you might have to make a change in your life. A little lie is a lot easier than an uncomfortable truth.
Of course, long term, if you lie you’re going to have problems. Example: if you direct your life as a zombie when you’re really a living mortal you might unnecessarily kill people for their brains. Or you might be less cautious since you’re already dead. Or you might stop showering since zombies don’t shower. Bad times for all.
If you don’t think you lie to yourself, you’re lying to yourself right now.
Seriously.
This Week’s Challenge: Write down at least one instance where you lied to yourself. Deep down your heart of hearts knew the truth and you didn’t accept it. Bonus points if other people echoed your heart of hearts. If you’re feeling brave put you answer in the comments.
If you honestly can’t think of anything, ask your significant other or best friend or one of your parents or siblings for help.
We’ll talk more about this next week.
Tags:
Character-Development.
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Date Posted: July 16th, 2010
The Weekly Check-in is where I let you all know where I am on the path. “The Hard” is stuff I struggled with this week. It’s complaining except hopefully not as annoying. “The Good” is what went well this week. “The Learning” is what I realized this week. Learning could be related to The Hard or The Good but it might not be. The format is similar to the one FluentSelf’s Havi uses in her Friday Chickens.
The Hard
Exercise Please?
I didn’t bike to work on Wednesday or Thursday, and felt gross because of it. Brain fuzzy, can’t think straight, gross.
Nique needs to exercise consistently. Sewiously.
Not Enough Time
I want more time. I want energy to use said time. I don’t want to give up things I love doing. Can’t I have my cake and eat it too?
The Promise Breaking
I promised myself I’d get up with the kitty and either read (if the weather was nice) or use the exercise bike (if the weather was crummy). This didn’t happen. If the weather is nice I still bike to work, but getting up with the cat is hard. Especially when Rorschach decides that 4AM is a good time to start caterwauling. Rawr.
Maybe I need to face the fact that 8 hours of sleep is what I need. Getting up at 7 isn’t so bad…
Maybe I need to find some other time to exercise. Or something.
Also didn’t do as much writing as I would have liked to. (And I did want to do writing.)
Guilt Guilt Guilt
Not keeping promises to myself brings on the guilt.
Unfortunately while guilt will get me to sit on the bike or open the journal, it won’t make me want to exercise or want to write. Bleh.
The Good
Books!
Finished World Without End. Started Voluntary Simplicity. WWE was very good. I’m kinda sad it’s over. Voluntary Simplicity is looking like it’s going to be good too.
Finishing books is definitely a good thing. It makes me feel like I can accomplish something.
Meetings can be useful
I run a weekly progress meeting for one of my projects at work. Normally when I hear about meetings it’s about how long they are and how they take away from actual productive time. These meetings are different.
For one thing these meetings are short. This last one was 15 minutes? Maybe?
For another stuff gets done in the 10 – 20 minutes before the meeting. On both sides. No one likes to hear that they’re part isn’t done.
Happiness.
Crêpes at the Farmer’s Market
On Wednesday Aaron and I went to the Farmer’s Market on our way to work, and in one of the stalls was a crêpe stand. 
Very unexpected. Very tasty. I would have them again, though not every week.
It was nice to do something spontaneous and not feel guilty about it afterward.
Improving at Recorder
On Wednesday evenings I’ve been spending some time honing my music skills. Recorder has been my primary instrument for about 4 years now, so unsurprisingly I’ve been using some of that time to focus on it.
I’m happy to say that improvement is being made. I’m able to play more of the notes the recorder is capable of and I’ve discovered that the alto is better suited for many pieces I have until now usually played on the soprano.
I’m really glad I decided to block out one evening a week for practice.
The Learning
I feel terrible if I don’t exercise
*Writes note to self.*
Breathing is Good
Yep.
My Self-Worth is tied up in silly things
Like how productive I am and how well I keep promises to myself.
I need to remind myself that me not keeping promises to myself doesn’t mean I’m a bad person. It means something’s misaligned.
I need to remind myself to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
Tags:
Character-Development, Leadership, Mastery, Physical Health, Self-Discipline.
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