Self-Care Tuesday- Is This Working for Me?

There are many ways in which we can evaluate our lives, work, relationships, etc...but one of the simplest questions we can ask ourselves is the following "Is this working for me?"

Simple yet very complicated.

Sometimes being honest with ourselves can be painful.  Sometimes that honesty means that we have to recognize that we have put alot of work into our careers, and that our drive that originally brought us to that place is gone.  And sometimes we find ourselves thinking that we have answered that question, and we've really just answered it for someone else.  To illustrate this last point, I'd like to share a Hodja story.  (Hodja stories are a part of Turkish/Central Asian tradition of parables from the Sufi sage Nasreddin Hodja.)

One day Hodja and his son were traveling to a neighboring city.  Hodja felt like walking and allowed his son to ride on their donkey for the journey.  As they were walking people on the road exclaimed "See? Look at the selfishness of today's youth!  That boy is forcing that poor old man to walk! How disrespectful!"

So Hodja decided that maybe it would be better if he rode the donkey and his son walked alongside.  As they continued on their way, more people commented "I can't believe it.  That old man is making that poor little boy walk that whole way!  How rude of him!"

At this Hodja decided that maybe both he and son should ride the donkey, but even then people commented, "Look at those two! Riding on the back of that poor donkey like that! That is animal cruelty!"

Getting frustrated, Hodja then decided that neither of them should ride on the donkey.  That, however, still did not stop people from talking, "Look at those two idiots walking when they have a perfectly fine donkey to ride upon!"

Completely fed up, Hodja then picks up the donkey and puts it up on his shoulders.  "If this doesn't stop people from talking, I don't know what will!"

While this story may seem a bit on the silly side, it also illustrates what we do in response to other people's criticism.  How often do you find yourself changing your ways in response to what someone else has wanted?  And how often have you done that repeatedly and found that you can't seem to please anyone at all?  I'm guessing, more often than what you would like to admit.

So as we are winding the year down and going through that period of self-evaluation that the season seems to require, ask yourself "Is this working for me?" Ask it for yourself, not others, but truly for YOU and YOUR needs.