#1510, Tuesday, September 15: Letting go of my self

 Please leave a comment if you visit my blog. Thank you! 

Post 1510, Day 258 of 2015
- 1,719 days since I started this blog -

Daily Comment

Things are good for me now, but I wouldn't have any of this if I hadn't learned to let go of my ideas of who I am.

That's the teaching of Lao-Tzu: "When I let go of who I am, I become what I might be."

That doesn't mean it's easy, or that I applied this lesson - it was "forced" on me by circumstance.

Defining yourself is limiting. That's pretty obvious, but only in hindsight.

I went from someone I thought I was to someone who didn't know who he was. It's cliche, sure, but I lost myself, then, over some time, found myself.

I was fairly wealthy, middle-class, head-of-household, with the proverbial house and white picket fence, a wife, and a classically rebellious teenager. I worried about my investments, my health, my status. I was happy my past was past, and had an optimistic outlook on the future.

All of that vanished over a relatively short period of time. My wife left, and my home and wealth disappeared along with her. My teenager entered his twenties and went out on his own. My past offered no comfort, and at least one of my friends peered into my future and pronounced me as "totally fucked."

Recovering didn't begin by letting go so much as by being forced to accept that my self-definition was no longer correct, and no correct definition had taken its place.

Looking back now, my idea of who I was was significantly flawed, and being stripped of most of my self-identifying characteristics caused me a lot of anguish. It took a while for me to realize what was really going on.

Circumstances demanded I go on with my life without a good idea of who I was, or of what I would become. I went forward only to survive until I found myself.

And something like that is what happened. I took things as they came, hacking away at the remnants of my past life that were pulling me back, without worrying about what I would become. I slowly realized that defining myself was limiting me to doing what I had done, and I realized how that wasn't working for me. Instead, I became nimble at abandoning preconceptions when they didn't jibe with how I perceived the present.

The present delivered. I don't know how much wisdom I gained. I still sometimes try and control things, and have to remind myself to let go and let things unfold. I have to remember to practice patience, not just say I possess it.

True wisdom wouldn't need those reminders. Or maybe, true wisdom is knowing that I do.

Food and Diet Section

Today's Weight:                   207.0 lbs

Previous Weight (9/14):           209.0 lbs

Day Net Loss/Gain:                - 2.0 lbs

Diet Comment

One day of getting back to what's good, and the weight comes off.

Food Log

Breakfast
A Quest bar.

Lunch
At Core:

Chicken Cobb salad (shredded kale and romaine, grilled chicken, avocado, bacon, hard-cooked egg, broccoli, mushrooms and bleu cheese dressing).

Snack 
A medium cup of vanilla chocolate soft-serve ice cream.

Dinner 
Cheeseburger, cole slaw, and a Quest bar.

Snack 
A Quest bar.

Liquid Intake
   Espressos: 2;  Coffee: 20 oz.;  Water: 88+ oz.

Please leave a comment if you visit my blog. Thank you!