There is a saying in Spanish:
"La cabra siempre tira al monte."
It means that "the goat always heads for the mountains."
We are victims of our habits. Just like that goat who heads for the mountains when it's out of its comfort zone, the weak-minded man knows in his mind that he "knows" where he belongs and will always head "home" to where he believes he will be safest.
The same rule can apply to donkeys.
When my dad was about 7 years of age, he traveled from Texas to a small town in Mexico with his family. There, he met his grandfather (my great-grandfather) for the first time. While there, he took my dad for a ride in a wagon, pulled by a donkey. It was a good mode of transportation, but the donkey had one bad habit: It didn't like to go anywhere. It was happy in its corral - eating, sleeping, and doing what donkeys do when they're not pushed to go anywhere.
Fortunately, my great-grandfather was always able to get the donkey to move, but he had to motivate it by using a switch on its backside. After a couple of swats, the donkey would give in and begin its march away from home, much to its disdain. So, away they went, traveling down the dusty road, with my great-grandfather enjoying the rare company of his 7-year-old grandson, in a wagon pulled by a bummed-out donkey, which only was motivated by a whip instead of a dangling carrot.
After reaching their destination and taking care of business there, the time came to turn the cart around and point the donkey toward home. Once realizing that he was pointed home, the donkey suddenly became energized and took off happily down the road, trotting, without a need for a switch and not needing any incentive, including carrots. The donkey realized that it was finally able to go home, back to its corral, to once again eat, sleep, and do what it is that donkeys do.
Sometimes it's pain that motivates us to move out of our comfort zone instead of the potential of financial or physical reward.
I can relate to that donkey.
Due to a back injury sustained last year, and working out of the home for the past few months, I developed a habit of staying up late and getting up late. It was getting to the point where I was just so unproductive, and decided to do something different. I started to change my routine and get up early in the morning (4:45 am) to hit the swimming pool at the gym and swim my laps, which is what I'm limited to right now. Getting up was horrible. It hurt. Once I got there, the water felt great, but afterward I had to drink a ton of coffee, and then I was suffering from sleep-deprivation and the shakes and couldn't fall asleep! Someone told me I looked like I could audition for one of those zombie apocalypse movies.
Now, at this point in time, I wish I can say right at this moment that I overcame the sleep deprivation issue, but no. It's a process that I'm going to have to push through until I'm used to it.
What the mountain was to the goat, and what the corral to the donkey, my bed was to me.
So what I'm working on is focusing on my early morning thought process and focusing on remaining positive, consistently and persistently. A positive attitude is the foundation for achieving my definite purpose in life, which is being fit and successful in inspiring others. Yes, I will be challenged with circumstances out of my control, and what will get me through these tough times will be the choices I make regarding the way I handle it.
With God's help, I'll make it. Robert Schuller always said that tough times never last but tough people do. I'll push on, with my conscious thoughts acting as the whip to push me forward.
Our bad habits will cause us to return to the place where we're most comfortable. Unless we use our own version of a "switch" to prod us along in our personal development, we will take off trotting back toward the bad habits that keep us from moving forward. We will be the slave of bad habits until we make a conscious and sincere effort to replace them with good ones!
Have a great day!
John
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