One of the first things I realized when this crisis kicked off was how many things I used as happiness crutches. I leaned on all sorts of things to feel good about myself – financial rewards, client acclaim, the whirl of business travel. It’s easy to depend on those things to think our lives matter. That’s a story we tell ourselves.
They’re lies and we know it. But that doesn’t stop us from believing them. We may say high-minded things about our beliefs, but our feelings reveal the real narratives we tell ourselves.
One of the ways we can make lemonade out of the lemons of this crisis is to throw those crutches away. We can identify the lies one by one, call them what they are, and toss them out. We may feel a little wobbly for a while, but we really can learn to walk without those crutches if we try, especially with the help of our crew.
What crutches were you leaning on? What would it look like to walk on your own two feet? That’s the kind of person you can be. That’s the kind of person you are. That’s the kind of person we need you to be.
