I find myself here again

behind my own back

beyond my ken

in front of the very thing

I said I wouldn’t do

ever again

doing it

letting and regretting and endlessly fretting

at the futility of it all back here

behind my own rear

*I subscribe to Mark Manson’s newsletter. He often includes good material to contemplate and journal on, and I thought it worthwhile to include a few of his prompts here.

Last week’s was “Are you ignoring what’s most obvious in your life? It’s tempting to drown ourselves in all the things of distraction, books, Netflix, news, random googling, social media scrolling, food consumption, alcohol etc – what are you trying to ignore?” Just one thing. You may be trying to ignore heaps of things, but choose one and try to tackle it instead.

I am careful of my buffering. I watch myself, so I know when I’m going behind my own back on an issue, but the issue itself can be tricky. What am I ignoring? How can I take small steps to fix just one issue?

I recommend Mark’s newsletter for his informative and thought-provoking questions and because he includes the revelations that some contributors write to him with.

Mark said something else that resonated.

He said we invent threats to give us a sense of purpose. We imagine obstacles to create a sense of meaning. We start conflicts with others in order to feel necessary.

For reflection, he asks, “What problem in your life is self-invented? Why do you think you invented it, and what were you trying to feel?”

In a huff, I was so quick to say, “I have enough real problems; I do NOT need to invent the things.” But then I stopped, and lo and behold, there under the couch in the corner of my mind, which has all the thoughts shoved down the side of it that I like to tuck away, was quite a list of problems that, if not actually invented, were certainly not as bad as I was making them out to be.

As I said in a recent post. I’ve always asked a lot of questions. But it is not enough to ask questions, we have to ask the right ones. Ones that actually give us some useful knowledge. I hope you find these useful, I certainly did.