Practicing What I Preach
Apparently there’s science to support taking cold showers. At least, I’ve been told that there’s science. I haven’t actually looked into it.
Instead, after I heard it was the bee’s knees, I decided just to try it.
And as unpleasant as it is, I like it.
It reminds me of that Mark Twain quote,
If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.”
I feel that way about the cold showers. I don’t do it for the health benefits.
I do it to challenge myself.
And I give this as an example of something I can do to challenge myself, even as I’m scaling back on other things.
As many of you know, I burnt out last year.
Hard.
I burnt out so hard, I wrote a blogpost about it. I was re-reading it recently to admire my writing (don’t worry, I’m at least half joking) and I started to realize I was heading down the same path again.
Some of the thoughts that were going around in my mind were:
I can do this.
I should be able to do this.
This shouldn’t be that big a deal. I’ve done it before.
But I use those thoughts to push away the warning signs.
As CS Lewis says:
Indeed the safest road to hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.
And if you don’t realize the road you’re heading down, it can hard be hard to walk back uphill.
But now, I want to take a step back.
That said - it’s hard to do. These things I want to take a step back from have become part of my identity.
It’s time for me to take a step off the path and figure out where I am, and where I’m going.
What path are you on? Where are you going?
Join us this week as we discuss this and more.
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