2-3-4 Friday
‘Seeking to spark the most potential within you per word of any
online newsletter’
1 THOUGHT
Dear friend,
happy new year.
A new year brings many new things, fresh beginnings, but it also brings
along the things of old.
Of late, I’ve been thinking alot about
sweeping away the past, and bringing in the new.
And in Singapore, as we reach Chinese New Year, there’s the culture of
getting new clothes, furniture, things, as a representative, even having a 大扫除 (da shao chu, or big clean up), just so that it physically represents the sweeping away of the old, and the bringing of the new.
But what if, just what if, you didn’t always have to get rid of the past, but that you could build on top of it?
Some of us may be keen to forget some things in 2022 as they were
painful.
Our minds have this ability to hide things that we are
traumatised by, only to have a sudden visceral reaction when we have a sensory trigger - a smell, a touch, a sound.
So often we focus on the nice positives, and we ask questions at the end of the year like,
- What are you grateful for?
- What was your biggest success?
Scratch that.
Why not ask yourself,
What was the most painful thing that happened to me in 2022, and what did I lose
from it?
Key question.
Lose.
Not gain, not learn.
Lose.
A client once told me,
you grow through what you go through.
And when you begin to look at what you lost, then you see the precocity of life, and its moments.
You see your limits. That you can’t do everything. So you stop trying to.
You stop rushing from place to place, being that high-powered executive, answering the text in the car, whilst driving, texting whilst walking, and you just pause… and
see…
I could lose all this.
And you appreciate it more.
1 TALK
What was the most painful thing that happened to me in 2022, and what did I lose from it?
1 TIP
Maybe sometimes in those quiet moments at night, you wonder if what you’re doing this year will count to anything.
And I think it’s this.
That yes, it could count to nothing. You could lose everything that you worked so hard for.
You could experience the real pain of suffering loss.
And I think that’s part of what makes human-ness meaningful. That we can lose things. Life. Things. Relationships. Family. Loved ones.
Maybe the best thing about being human isn’t that we are smart, that we conquered the earth, it’s that actually, we feel something when we lose something.
And because we feel, we fight. All we can for the things we care
about.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Nothing lost, nothing found.
If this helped you, forward this newsletter to
someone.
John
Live Young, Live Well - Work Your Love