My Mental Battlefield

How often do you go to war in your own mind? I spend a lot of time in a mental battlefield. I’ll be honest with you: at least several times a day I feel like my mission is too hard for me to accomplish. I think about quitting a lot. I think about how much easier my life would be if I were just willing to settle for “fine”. I think if I were to throw in the towel on my mission to revolutionize global education and wage war on mediocrity in every generation, then I would have more money, more free time, and more peace of mind. I wouldn’t have to fight so hard. I wouldn’t have to ask for money. I wouldn’t have to play political games. I wouldn’t have to swallow my pride and work on myself again and again and again. I wouldn’t have to lick my wounds and nurse my own ego. I wouldn’t have to negotiate with my inner self to keep going for one more day. I would be more “comfortable” in every sense of the word. The list of reasons why I should quit is endless. 

So why do I keep going? Because I can’t quit without comparing the costs. What would it cost me to quit? And then I remember, the cost of quitting is actually much more expensive to me in the long run. If I quit, it means I am OK with my current reality. It means I put my stamp of approval on the world around us. It means I leave the heavy lifting to someone else, and put my head back in the sand as a blind consumer. It means I rejoin the herd on the way to the slaughterhouse. It means I have to make excuses to my son as to why the world is what it is. It means I ignore my Higher Calling. And that simply is not a price I am willing to pay. 

So this hour, my ESPM Power Hour, every day at 5:30 AM, becomes one of the most critical times of my day. Because in this hour I can work on myself and absolutely guarantee that by the time I step foot off of the treadmill, I will be emotionally, spiritually, physically, and mentally ready to embrace and attack my missions for another day. The committee that sits on my life can say whatever they want during this hour, but at the end of the hour they have to all vote, and then shut up and support their group decision for the rest of the day. So far, they have a perfect track record of serving me well. It’s on the days when I do not invest in this Power Hour that I become the most dangerous to myself…because on those days, my Department of Defense usually wins. Not today, baby. Not today.