Monday, September 17, 2012

The Grinder, Part I : Fall from Grace

Have you ever been through the grinder?  I have.  It's not fun.

I'm talking about that humiliating kick in the crotch.  You're young, you're invincible, you've got the world by the b*lls.  And then it happens.  The Humbling.  Life as you know it derails and your ego gets crushed.  Grinder time.  It's time for complete reevaluation, like it or not.

When it happened to me, my life (and mainly my behaviors) got redefined.  That was good for the rest of the world, bad for me in the moment.  I had an extremely difficult time accepting my new set of circumstances.  After all, I was king.  But it became abundantly clear that I wasn't.  I was just a self-deluded cog.  Ouch.  It was a defining moment in my life.  Ego is a terrific tool for success but it's simultaneously as dangerous if you don't have it in proper perspective.  I didn't.

My point is, there's reality, and then there's our perception of that reality.  Grinder Time is the mechanism that reconciles the inconsistencies between the two.  Of course, the degree of that variance will vary from person to person and so will the corresponding "adjustment."  But don't kid yourself, it comes to us all eventually.  It almost always involves your ego.

(to be continued tomorrow...)

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