Forgive Your Enemies, but Never Forget their Names.

The 2K11 24/7 XLIX

Last updated on April 4th, 2021 at 12:36 pm

“It is hard to fight an enemy who has outposts in your head.”

–Sally Kempton

The problem with writing a daily blog—or committing to anything daily, for that matter—is that it’s very unlikely that you’ll have good days every day of the year. Sometimes you won’t want to bother; sometimes you just want to roll over, go back to bed and tell the day to go back where it came from. You need to maintain a conscious effort to keep the momentum going—we’re 2/3 through February, and anyone I was following who’s blogging daily has already missed days. Today’s not THAT bad, but a combination of events has got me slightly off my game this morning.

So how do I approach this? How do I beat myself at my own game to make sure I keep productive today? I was originally writing out a whiny paragraph until I realized that it’d do no one any good, so I backtracked and thought about it. So how do I win in a game of wits against myself? How do I change my outlook so that the glass is half-full, rather than the other way around? Well—if I’m up against myself, then I must better understand my enemy. And what better way to do so than to observe the wisdom of the many who came before me:

  • You are your own worst enemy
  • The enemy of your enemy is your friend
  • Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer

So in this context, we know that:

  1. I’m my worst enemy, thus I must defeat myself to move forward;
  2. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, so I want to befriend the me who’s not harboring a negative perspective on life; and
  3. Even though I befriend my positive self, I must keep my negative self close and in check so that he doesn’t wrest control

All good to know! But I think that we can simplify this further. How about…

You are your own worst enemy—keep them close, but THEIR enemy is ALSO your friend.

No? Yeah, this is why I don’t work for Hallmark. Anyway, knowing that I’m having a blah morning isn’t good enough—I also need to identify the root cause of said frustrations. Here’s my list this morning:

  • Sore back
  • Tiredness
  • Not a morning person
  • Bitterness about using my entire day off for cleaning (scanning, really)
  • Still, inexplicably, carrying a heavy-ass bag
  • Going directly to a meeting without being able to drop my bags off first due to time constraints
  • The meeting location wasn’t listed, and my assumption had me in the wrong building, causing me to be 15 minutes late instead of 5 minutes early 😕

So what do I do with this list? My suggestion? Ignore or solve the items on the list. If they’re solvable, I should get them out of the way to improve my day. If they can’t be immediately solved, the second-best option is likely to ignore whatever’s bothering me temporarily until I CAN find a solution. If I dwell on useless things, it’ll get me nowhere quick.

So that’s the plan. I’m going to force myself to have at least a decent day, despite starting it with a raincloud over my head. I’ll take moments to smell the roses, cool my head before getting too riled up, and I don’t know—maybe just be happy to be alive?

Yeah. That doesn’t sound like a half-bad plan for a Friday—let’s go with it.

Hope you all have a great day! And if it doesn’t look like it’ll be good, MAKE it good. You’re the only one who can make it happen, after all!

Until tomorrow, boys and girls!

The second logo for Casey Palmer, Canadian Dad

By Casey E. Palmer

Husband. Father. Storyteller.

Calling the Great White North his home, Casey Palmer the Canadian Dad spend his free time in pursuit of the greatest content possible.

Thousand-word blog posts? Snapshots from life? Sketches and podcasts and more—he's more than just a dad blogger; he's working to change what's expected of the parenting creators of the world.

It's about so much more than just our kids.

When Casey's not creating, he's busy parenting, adventuring, trying to be a good husband and making the most of his life!

Casey lives in Toronto, Ontario.

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