Skip to main content

Are You Your Own Worst Enemy?

 I can be my own worst enemy. I do things that disagree with my nature, things that cause me stress. It seems rather silly, right? Okay, maybe idiotic is a better descriptor. Regardless, I still do them. Why? Good question. I'm not a psychologist, but having lived with myself for a while now, my best guess would be that it's because of the lies I've believed (which you can read about here if you missed last week's post).


So what exactly do I do that makes me an enemy of me? Here are a few of them:
* I spend too much time on electronic media, most notably: Facebook, emails, and Amazon. Do I really need to know what the sister of my best friend in sixth grade is up to? How many times a day is too many times to see if Airfare Watchdog has found me a cheap flight to my desired destination when, in the two years that I've been watching, they've found ZERO? And how many books can I add to my Wish List in one day (quite a few as it turns out)?
* I demand of myself a thoroughly uncluttered habitat both at home and work.
* I can't leave things undone or half-done.
* I allow oodles of interruptions to my day. I put out fifty fires and neglect the five important projects I need to do. Part of that is the nature of my job and my work environment. Part of it is that I fail to set boundaries.
* Guilt is a habit that I didn't even realize I had until I made last week's list. I'm not proud of it, and I don't particularly like it.
* I get hurried, which zaps any sense of peace I might otherwise have had.

While I need to work on making the above list shorter, or better yet, non-existent, there are also ways that I can make a positive contribution to change this relationship from worst enemy to best friend. Such as:
* Make time each day for prayer/meditation
* Talk a walk
* Soak in a hot bath
* Read a good novel
* Spend time outside
* Get a massage
* Write
* Just say no

In Matthew 22:38, Jesus tells us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. This is the second of the two great commandments, so I'm thinkin' that must mean it's pretty important. The command begs the question, can we truly love our neighbor if we don't love ourselves, and what exactly does it mean to love ourselves? We know it's not a call to a self-centered life (that would be totally un-Jesus-y). Perhaps it simply means being a friend, rather than an enemy, to yourself.

Maybe we should all try it. It might make the world - or at least our own corner of the world - a more pleasant place to live.

(Introverts Thrive: week two assignment -  make your own lists of ways in which you are your own worst enemy and ways that you can be a friend to yourself.)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Believing the Lies

My husband and I recently watched The Help - a story about a group of African American women who worked as maids in Jackson, Mississippi in the '60s. One of the protagonists works for a woman "who got no b'ness havin' babies." This woman, this family maid and nanny, tells her little two year old ward regularly, "You is pretty. You is smart. You is impor'ant." How difficult it is for us to believe that about ourselves - really, to believe anything good about ourselves. I always try to be my raw self when I write a blog post. Today is no exception. So I confess that I've been drowning in a storm of lies lately. My head knows they're lies, and I could easily tell anyone else in the same place that they're lies, but I haven't been able to get a grip. There have been so many of them coming at me at once. It seems that I just break the surface, gulp some fresh air of truth then get pulled back under. One thing I know: the enemy of our ...
7 comments
Read more

Tricia's Return (my first ICL assignment for 13-17 year olds)

I stormed down the hall and slammed the door. I’d had enough! Dumping my books out of my backpack, I began shoving in clothes – anything I could grab. I dug through the junk on the floor of my closet and found my stash – my life’s savings. I shoved it on top of my clothes. In the midst of this frenzy, I heard a soft knock on my door. "Tricia?" It was my mom. “What now?” I couldn’t keep the anger out of my voice. She was just going to launch into another tirade. Her list of my shortcomings was endless, and I didn’t want to hear them anymore. I didn’t open the door; I climbed out my window, backpack in tow, grabbed my bike and took off for the bus station. Jeremy didn’t know I was coming. He’d be so surprised. I couldn’t wait to see him! We’ve been together for a year; but since his family moved to St. Louis four months ago, we haven’t seen each other. We haven’t even been able to talk much He'd made the varsity soccer team; and with all the games and practices, he hadn’t h...
2 comments
Read more

How Do You Wait?

The barren one is now in her sixth month.  Not one promise from God is empty of power  for nothing is impossible with God. Luke 1: 37 The Passion Translation I've never thought that much about Elizabeth. Gabriel speaks here to Mary - the mother-to-be of none other than GOD Himself! Who has a thought to spare for this side character in THE story of divine visitation? God come to earth. Wow. Talk about a headline for the New York Times! Why does Gabriel even mention Elizabeth? I don't know, but I'm glad he did.  I read these verses with a different perspective this morning.  "The barren one." Elizabeth is now past childbearing years. It's not a secret. Everyone in her community knows she's barren (it's obvious). The life part of her life is over. There is no hope for her to have her dream - a life like her friends have. She's different from her family, her neighbors. In a time when children are everything, she has nothing.  And now it's too late...
1 comment
Read more