“I can’t take it anymore.”
“I’ve had enough.”
“I’m done with…”
Many of us have used these statements during moments of anger and frustration. They are words that, in many cases, we have used before in exactly the same circumstances and, in all likelihood, we will use again when these situations next present themselves.
The Habit of Not Deluding Yourself is not always an easy one to acquire and while, in the moment, we absolutely mean what we say, the passage of time has a way of converting our frustration to acceptance and we take no steps to prevent the recurrence of these events.
The old adage, “we get what we tolerate” speaks volumes about how many of us choose to live our life.
We allow events or situations to repeat themselves, each time instilling in us strong feelings of resentment and we then delude ourselves by making statements such as those above while in our hearts we know we’ll continue to tolerate these very same repeated incidents.
And nothing will change until we change.
We seem to have near endless capacity and tolerance for the very things that move us further and further from the lives we want and yet we seldom make the massive effort necessary to bring about permanent change.
The Habit of Not Deluding Yourself is one of personal authenticity. It is the habit that forces us to look deeply inside ourselves and honestly acknowledge what we know to be true. Only then – through authentic self-acknowledgement – will we conclude that consistently tolerating what we know we don’t want will forever keep us on the pathway to the life we don’t want.
It takes courage and determination to be honest with ourselves. This may require removing certain people, places and experiences from our lives, but true authenticity does not allow for self-delusion. As painful as it is, The Habit of Not Deluding Yourself is the true path we must take if we are to have any hope of creating the life we want.
It is a myth that it takes a long time to implement change. The truth is that change is instant and the myth is the result of playing at change without first adopting The Habit of Not Deluding Yourself.
Change takes place the instant we legitimately, sincerely and authentically choose to become the change we want. Ghandi famously said, “be the change you want to see in the world,” and we can all accomplish this by the strength of our resolve and the power of our determination.
It’s not about capability, it’s about commitment. The moment we choose to no longer tolerate the intolerable is the moment the magic of true change happens.
And this will never happen as long as we delude ourselves into thinking differently.
The greatest gift we were born with is the gift of choice. We choose what we tolerate and we choose what we don’t.
When we delude ourselves into thinking that the intolerable is tolerable we are also deluding ourselves into thinking that happiness is an illusion.
There is a first step to true happiness and it is to make an unflinching commitment to The Habit of Not Deluding Yourself.
Then watch yourself change before your own very eyes.
Let’s make a habit of meeting like this.
