[Part 3/3] Lessons From Rock Bottom

If you’ve been following along since Part 1, you’ll have heard a common story about the climb to the top not leading to the “feeling” we often think it will.

You’ve heard about how destinations I dreamed of really made me feel worse after I got to them and why that can happen.

Admittedly I still have work to do on this journey, but I’ve found (more like aggressively ran into them) some guidelines on the way to help me create more peace and fulfillment.

First, as stated earlier, I learned that money is not enough to make me feel good about myself and my contribution to the world.

So making the sacrifice necessary to be successful in those areas ended up turning me into someone I didn’t feel proud of.

Yet almost simultaneously realized I had a deep fear that I would lose my sense of SELF-significance if I reinvented my life from being an “entrepreneur” with motives primarily to win and/or make money.

My ego was terrified to reinvent itself because it couldn’t see, if money wasn’t enough, how I’d be able to feel important and valuable — something we all need in life. 

I’d already made some money and had a few cool accomplishments that I thought would be everything I needed. As we’ve established, I was far from correct.

So, to simplify years of internal struggle… My life (had to) become about finding peace, fulfillment, and pride regardless of my situation and new ‘lack of purpose’ I was feeling.

That is where I found the insidious truth of life that is in all of us since the age of children: 

The only true path to a ‘happy life’ is to learn the skill of finding peace in any given circumstance. 

So, I did the only thing one CAN do when they are lost…

I spent months just sitting with my self and I stopped trying to force a solution to all my problems to appear.

I just changed my habits based on what I (secretly) knew all along I needed to do…

And eventually I began to feel a tiny bit better about myself — 

But this time with no “success” attached to it. 

THAT is when things began to “lift” for me…. 

When my identity was no longer was attached to any version of success or a specific outcome.

Just a pride in myself for:

1. Taking life moment by moment and finding slivers of peace 

2. For having the courage to sit with myself and self-loathing, and eventually reinvent my identity

3. For knowing that I was, even slowly, becoming a better person 

That is my character growth… And with that, I knew I was on the ‘path’ that I’d been searching for all along. 

The right path is one in which you feel good about your character and yourself— completely independent of outcomes or success. Yes, that is possible (it surprised me too).

And ironically as my idea of “success” changed— 

That’s when it became more clear what I wanted to spend my time doing and what my ‘purpose’ might actually be.

I’m sure many of you can relate to feeling a lack of fulfillment despite certain successes…Feeling lost… empty… or even maybe hating certain parts of their life/ identity (like me).

It’s true that we influence one another, even with unspoken words. 

So, surround yourself with people who do not measure themselves with “worldly measuring tapes” - and you will begin to see yourself differently as well. When that happens, your reality shifts. 

“As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.”

-JT