Redecide, Redecide, Redecide

Why are the artists, seekers and innovators often so neurotic?

Is it a prerequisite to do great things?

Abraham Lincoln suffered from depression, Beethoven went nearly insane with grief as he lost his hearing, Oscar wild died destitute after wandering the streets of Paris: broke, alone and abandoned by most of his old friends.

Ordinary souls who do extraordinary things are - more often than not - tortured by love, loss and misdirection. In his book David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell cites a lot of research showing that an inordinate number of people at the top of their professions suffered the loss of one parent while still a child.

12 the 47 American Presidents lost their fathers while they were young. Almost 70% of the PM's of Britain - from the 1800s to Churchill and Hitler's war - also lost a parent before 16.

Is it fame that highlights their condition - and we all suffer in equally different ways - or does tragedy compel us to success?

I've wondered this as my own recent grief has spurred a rediscovery of my wounded Self. I notice that my writing is no longer cheeky and blaspheming sacred cows, but rather reaching into a darker world seeking a new promise of hope.

Is grief and hardship your vehicle to enlightenment?

You know the best students are often the most desperate.

Because they choose to learn, they choose to grow. They never give up.

This is how I imagine Lincoln and Beethoven survived. How Presidents and Prime Ministers arrived at their pinnacle. More - many more most likely - fell into the gutter of despair.

We don't remember them.

Hope is a decision. Repeated over and over and over.

It is also the penultimate step in FM's 5 Point Plan…

"At this moment, the moment that had always proved critical for me because it was then that I tended to revert to my wrong habitual use, I would change my usual procedure and

(4) while still continuing to project the directions for the new use I would stop and consciously reconsider my first decision, and ask myself ”Shall I after all go on to gain the end I have decided upon and speak the sentence? Or shall I not? Or shall I go on to gain some other end altogether?” -- and then and there make a fresh decision"

It was only through the redeciding - again and again - that FM was able to find freedom.

Redeciding in the midst of despair is hard. You need support and you need trust. These are available to those who decide to seek them.

Being alone is an option, not a fact.

These insights and explorations are part of my own struggle to integrate FM's discovery in the way I live. You can read about that journey in my introduction to my program, designed to challenge and enhance your own understanding of the path...

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