Dear Jessica Brennan,
My Grandma (your Great Grandma) was never wealthy, and I don’t suppose that really mattered to her. She stood almost five feet tall and weighed almost 100 pounds. She had 8 sons, and she knew what hard work looked like.
Small but mighty, when she got up in the morning, she had already stepped into a non-stop workday. It wasn’t The 4-hour Workweek, or even the 8-hour work day. She had a house to clean, clothes to wash, a working garden that was meant to grow enough vegetables to feed her large and hungry family, baking, canning, cooking and caring for her boys. I’m guessing she didn’t have a lot of time to ponder whether or not she felt fulfilled, or if she was following her life purpose while she was in the barn or hanging clothes on the line.
Somehow I can’t imagine Daisy Field (yes that was her name), coming in after her morning jog, sitting cross-legged on a yoga mat, with a chai tea next to her and a book by Danielle Laporte at her side as she made a checklist of self improvement courses she wanted to take. She didn’t have the luxury of creating her personal mission statement or making a vision board. Her vision was getting everyone fed and to bed.
I’m all for living an examined life, being a card carrying recovering self-help addict myself, and my Grandma too may very well have spent time examining her life in her own way. But this obsession with ourselves can get really out of control and ego-driven if the motivation for all the self-work isn’t looked at closely.
First, why do you need so much self-help? What’s so wrong with you that you need to fix? I would suggest that there’s nothing wrong with you and maybe you just need a hobby. Try adopting a pet or volunteering at the food bank. Also, fight the cycle of your hypochondria by blocking the self-help posts on your social media so that you stop seeing so many things that could be wrong with you.
In the case of my Grandma, she knew she was living her life purpose because it was the life that was presented to her. Why would the work be there if she wasn’t supposed to do it? She just did the work in front of her every day and died a happy woman.
Daisy simply didn’t have time to read Think and Grow Rich, or to wonder if she had created the morning routine of a successful person, or broken her habit of self-doubt, or improved her people skills or was aligned to her inner being.
Daisy was too busy living.
Love Mum xo
