I had a vivid dream last night. I was in high school, and my assignment was to give a speech in front of the entire school. My topic was the relative economic power of China vs. the United States (something I know nothing about). I started my introduction, stated the thesis, and then went through the speech. I looked at my notes, skipped over things that didn’t make much sense, and restated things that did. As I went through the speech, I told myself “I wish I had reviewed this before getting up here!!!” and kept bumbling through, trying to add life to my disjointed notes.
I flipped the page, and nothing was there. I flipped the next and again, nothing. I had been speaking gibberish as I flipped pages, but then paused noting NOTHING WAS THERE!
Ultimately, I quickly concluded, never mentioning China, and the dream ended with some feedback from a good friend from high school: “You failed that class! You really blew that assignment!”
I woke up sweating. I couldn’t get the dream out of my head.
As I drove to the office this morning, it dawned on me why the dream had made such an impression: I am sabotaging myself.
The dream was about me not doing what I needed to do to complete an assignment. It resonated with me because, in life, I have not been doing the things I need to do.
I want to write. I want to create content. I want to create this. I want to do what I am doing right now. WRITE!
I have sabotaged myself by keeping myself busy. I have kept myself busy wearing my “lawyer” hat. But in doing that, I ignore the things I want to do: to move my writing forward, to remind each other to push ourselves toward goals and dreams, rather than just doing what we’ve conditioned ourselves to do to pay our bills.
That is what I want: to push all of us to live our most authentic and fulfilled lives.
And too many days, I find myself in default: doing the things I have conditioned myself to do over many years. I can keep myself very busy doing those things. I can also keep myself unfulfilled when I only do these things because I’m not pushing forward something that means a lot to me while using the excuse of being too busy to keep myself happy.
That doesn’t mean being a lawyer doesn’t mean a lot to me. But not doing this makes me a worse lawyer. Not taking an hour to write or do something that fills me up sabotages me. It sabotages me as a lawyer, as a husband, and as a father, because I’m walking around stressed about the things I have to do and subconsciously stressed about the things I want to do that I’m not doing.
What is that thing you want to do? What is that thing you are called to do?
Are you doing it?
If not, take a few moments and do that thing. Maybe ask yourself why you’re not doing it. Are you sabotaging yourself as well? Why? I promise you; work will still get done. Don’t keep yourself from doing the things you love doing. You’ll be more effective at work and home when you take some time to also do the thing you love.
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