Blog | Page 20 of 37

Stop Thinking and Take Action!

I lie in bed, barely conscious, on that blissful edge of slumber, an interstitial zone where time slows and stillness reigns.

It would be easy to drift back into sleep, carried by dreams back into oblivion.

But I know I need to break the reverie and get up…

I was running desperately late, working as a private physiotherapist in an exclusive clinic.

A patient had come to see me with agonising low back pain and by the time they were well enough to walk out, I was hopelessly behind schedule.

Not only were my next patients incredibly angry, but I was majorly stressed.

“You can’t cross the border”, said the Chilean official.

“Why not?” I asked.

“Your motorcycle is stolen”, he said, a completely unfounded accusation.

He sat there like an immovable object, his stamp all we needed to pass through one of the most remote outposts in Chile and return to Buenos Aires…

I lay there awake, mind racing, desperately tired but unable to sleep.

The worst part?

I had to get up in just a few hours to commute across London for a job I hated.

My mind raced, flooded with anxiety about needing rest, but not being able to get it…

We all want optimal self-confidence.

Too high and it becomes arrogance. Too low and it becomes a neurosis.

But it’s a fine balancing act; one that determines the quality of our personal and professional relationships.

You might wonder, as I did when starting, where to focus while meditating.

Most of the initial guidance I read didn’t appear clear in its instruction.

After all, it’s an esoteric practice.

Often I felt I was simply sitting for 30 minutes doing nothing, with no clue if I was doing it right…

“What’s your running pace per mile?”, asked my friend. I looked blank.

“How far do you normally run?” I shrugged my shoulders.

“Are you even training for anything?!”

I’d recently started exercising again and my mate wanted to know about specific running results.

Much to his chagrin, I didn’t have any to show…

Here’s the October analysis.

I’m definitely finding these mini-reviews helpful to objectively assess my behaviours over the previous month.

When you write honestly about your actions, there’s no hiding…

Thoughts crowded into my head, demanding attention.

I was living in Berlin; anxious, jobless and unsure what to do next.

I wanted to change career, but didn’t know how to do it.

On one hand, the future seemed full of potential and possibility, while on the other, it appeared a scary, hostile place.

Fortunately, in that time of transition, I had one thing I could rely on…

“Not deciding is a decision itself”, my friend said.

He was right.

I just didn’t know which option to choose, consumed by paralysis analysis and unwilling to commit either way.

If we’re the sum of our choices in life, at that moment I didn’t add up to much.