Holar, and happy Tuesday to you! 🙂
I’m writing today’s post on my phone because our internet has been out all day here. And it’s 8:26, so I’m just going to post a short entry today.
It’s been a leisurely day. I thought i had a bunch of jobs to do, but again, they danced away on the breeze, and I found myself having only done one when I came home from Fayetteville at something like 2:30.
Having felt so productive on the first day of my 50-day challenge, it’s been a little harder feeling like I’m being productive during these last 4 days while I’m working these fears back. 45 minutes each morning is not that much time the pondering process through these, so it’s taking a little while. I’m going to up the ante on myself and spend more time each day doing these.
I’m going to record myself reading my fears, so that I can listen to them while I drive and while I do my work on cars. That way I can be thinking about them and working through them in my mind, so in the morning I can just write everything down that I’ve been thinking about and pondering.
No excuses. I will do this. I have just over 45 days left. Lots of time, and yet very little time. But I will do this.
I am fearless. I fear nothing.
🥳🙃
Ever since I started getting up at 4:00, my body has been waking up more times during the night than I remember. I seem to wake up a few times during the night at least wide enough awake to look over at the clock to see what time it is. The days are all blending together, so I don’t remember which night is which, but I think I woke up at like 1:00 last night and then again at 3:00 something before finally getting up with my alarm at 4:00. I didn’t have the courage to do my 25 push-ups right after waking up this morning, but I did have the courage to go on a longer morning run than I have this last time around of running again.
And I did have the courage to take a cold shower after running outside in the cold air.
Bring it on.
I’m grateful for the self-discipline that I am growing in myself with these little efforts each day. It really does take self-discipline to maintain the schedule, to do the uncomfortable things, etc. Running is hard because I’m an asthmatic, at least exercise induced or cold induced, but this is worth it. This is incredibly worth it.
I spent time working back my fears this morning. I stretched and meditated a bit. I did my 5x5s, most of them at least. I worked on taxes. I ate breakfast. By all accounts, I’m actually doing really well.
I have been tired a lot, my brain feels a little foggy most of the time, if not really foggy 🙃, but I’m making progress. And progress is good.
I also did my daily effort of doing one thing every day that scares me. I went over to my nephew’s beehives and made my morning video squatting down next to one of the beehives, right in the path of their flying.
Unfortunately, since it’s been colder lately, they were a lot less active than they’ve been during the summer, I think, so there were only a few bees coming out every few seconds instead of a whole ton of them, and I honestly didn’t feel really any fear at all except for when I thought about putting my hand right at the entrance of their opening on the beehive, but I figured that was probably a little silly to do. It’s one thing to face the fear: it’s another thing to present myself as a threat and get myself stung because I was being foolish, which would also take the life of the bee that stung me. And I don’t want to be taking the lives of these bees just so I can get over my fear. It’s not their fault I’m afraid, and they shouldn’t suffer or lose life to help me overcome my fear.
So though I wasn’t really afraid with the beehives, it still was a good exercise. I was willing. It just didn’t turn out that there was much fear. I’d be interested to see what would happen if I were there with my nephew, and we took the top off the hive. How would i feel then? Or instead of honey bees, it was red wasps, which are notoriously aggressive out here.
So just the one car today. It was a no start but turned out to just have a dead battery from leaving the car door partially open.
I did some other testing for them, and they were super grateful for everything I did.
I think I’ve probably said it before, but I often teach my customers while I work on their cars, teaching them how their car works, teaching them how to do things themselves in the future, etc.
Probably not the most effective business retention practice, but heck, I’m retiring from turning wrenches anyway, and I did it even when I was active. I’m a teacher at heart, and I want to help people, and this is one of many ways that I can.
What else? I finished listening to the book Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, which chronicles the experiences of a young crematory worker and her experiences with bodies and various death cultures and her advocation for a more personal, more natural death culture in the United States, instead of the target lengthy efforts we go to to hide the realities of death.
Very interesting listen.
Started listening to Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius after that. Good stuff there, too.
In the evening, I drove up to cassville Missouri to look at a house that I saw for sale on realtor.com. it actually looked, on the outside, in quite good condition. I was a little surprised at how nice it looked. It’s a bit more than I want to pay, and I’m not even sure right now where I’m even going, and it’s certainly not my dream place, as it’s in a neighborhood on a busy Street, and I just love my country lifestyle. But, sacrifices are necessary, and I’m willing to do whatever is needful, provided that it’s moral and good, to make the impact on the world that I want to make. Right now it’s small, but I hope someday that I can spread courage and Hope and Faith and energy and passion and light and love on such a broad scale that it actually a visible difference in the culture of our planet.
So let it be written…
Well folks, I’m off to bed.
Accountability:
- Bed last night at 8:30: i don’t even remember. 🙃
- Up at 4: 😎
- 5x5s: 3 of 5?
- Exercise: 😎
- Cold shower: 😎
- Meditation: 😎
- Breakfast: 😎
- NP Work: 😎
- Tax Work: 😎
- Lunch: 😎
- Work done by 6: 😎
- Dinner: 😎
- Only truly healthy foods: decent?
- No Wasted Life: 😎
- No Distracted Driving: 😎
- Faced a Fear: 😎
- Tamed the tongue: 😎
I also had the opportunity this evening, and I forgot to share this before, of chatting with some friends who had been over with my mom for dinner. We talked about a handful of different things, and the subject of my personal fear challenge came up, I think I might have brought it up, and so we talked about that for quite a while. That was really great. It’s been fun to talk to customers and Friends alike about this challenge. Fear is something that affects most of us in simple ways and often profound ways. I hope I can give hope to people that they can overcome their fears. 🙂
Love to you all!
Lift the World
~ stephen
Lift the World 