Forgive Your Enemies, but Never Forget their Names.

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!