Swimming Pools & Shot Glasses (By Request) posted 6/20/2009 10:46:12 PM | 4 kudos what's this?     report abuse

stark_raving_sane

I've recently shared with some people a bit of wisdom my brother had once shared with me. Of those, more than a few have suggested I post a blog of it. I hesitated, because it feels sort of personal to me - having received this advice while I was struggling with personal demons those years ago. But when I think about it, my brother didn't withhold from me, and so I will not withhold from you:


Swimming Pools & Shot Glasses

If you imagine yourself as a swimming pool, picture all the water that fills you as the things which have come to identify you as you've grown. By the time you reached adulthood, your pool was full of all the details that make you who/what you are.

But then things happen in your life - situations and people start siphoning your water, taking from you. When this happens little by little, you don't even notice it. Maybe your parents or friends or boss or coworkers or whoever... Maybe your grades or your job or your relationship or your health or whatever... Maybe you lose a bucketful at a time, maybe you lose a shot glassful at a time. All of a sudden one day you have nothing left but a single shot glassful of water left in an otherwise empty pool.

So when someone comes along and pours a bucketful of water into your shot glass, (usually by giving you much craved attention of some sort) it feels like an overflow and you're convinced this is heaven. With a full pool, you'd never even notice someone pouring in a single bucketful. It wouldn't be an overflow, it would merely be ripples on the surface.

The point is, it's important to make sure your pool is filled up with things you can only find within yourself. When you let other people dictate how much water is given to or taken from your pool, you allow those other people to determine your definition and happiness.

Keep your pool full, and make sure it's full with your own water... not anyone else's.

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