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Wednesday, August 8, 2012

We are Fighters, and the Battles we Fight are Real

"With These Hands -- Hope" 16x20 mixed media canvas


Every day we fight fatigue, interruptions, resistance, competition, and our own ineptness. If you think I’m joking, I’m not.

Sometimes we hit a stone wall so strong and so deep that we can’t get past it. We bang our heads on it for awhile and then give up. Maybe we try again tomorrow. If we keep batting our heads or our fists against an obstacle, maybe it will go away. Usually it doesn’t. If you’ve reached this point in your life, don’t give up just yet. There may be “light at the end of the tunnel.”

What are the possibilities?
  1. You could climb over the wall.  Earthly walls, like most obstacles are rarely sky high. Most of them are created in our own minds or by outside forces we feel we have no control over.
  2. You could go around the wall. It may cost you extra time, and perhaps more education, but your efforts will pay off if it helps you reach your goal.
  3. Knowing that the wall represents the circumstances of your life that prevent you from being productive means you must find a way to remove it, go around it, or look at it as another challenge that must be overcome.
The last thing you want to do is allow the wall to stop you from doing what you want to do in your heart of hearts.

"Broken" 11x14 mixed media canvas SOLD

I’m not usually a gambler, but there was one time in my life when I sat in Reno, Nevada, and poured nickels down the throat of a slot machine. I was determined I was going to win. I was afraid if I left someone else would take over my machine and reap what I’d delivered.
I went through $35 that evening with nothing to show for it. 

Some machines are rigged to pay up, and some are not. My inability to move, to get past that wall froze (brain freeze) my common sense. A move to another machine, a change in thinking or attitude could have helped me get past this slump.

I’m not telling this story to encourage others to gamble. I’m just saying that sometimes in life we hit obstacles. Instead of finding ways around them by weighing our options, and asking ourselves: “what’s the worst that can happen?” We let fear freeze us into a position of banging our heads against problems rather than trying to solve them.

"Leap of Faith" 16x20 mixed media canvas

If there’s a nagging problem or wall in your life, find another way around it or you’ll end up sitting in the same place stalled; frozen by inaction in much the same way as I was frozen into a losing position in Reno. Sometimes we just have to get off our “duffs” and move! We have to climb out of a rut, jump over a hurdle and move into the light of common sense and self-discovery.

Featured Artist
Today I’m featuring Krzysztof Tozowski from Warsaw, Poland. Her surreal paintings and photographs are humorous, colorful and lively. See Link for Krzysztof’s facebook page below.



http://www.facebook.com/#!/lozowskio

2 comments:

  1. Such good advice as ever, Carol! Sometimes those 'walls' can even bring out our creativity in finding a way around or past them.

    It just happens that your slot machine experience chimes with what I was reading this afternoon while some images were uploading. It's a wonderful book about the 'power of introverts' (by Susan Cain) and she was describing how we are all to some extent 'reward-sensitive' and that is a great motivator.

    But sometimes our 'reward-sensitivity' gets stuck on overdrive and that can be dangerous, as in her story of a man who lost $700,000 on the stock market, 70% of his family's retirement nest egg, in much the same way as you lost $35!

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    1. Ouch! So good to hear from you girl friend! You always have words of wisdom, so when you like what I said that makes my day!

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