6.3.2024

I’m thinking about the voices of the witches that drip poison in your mind at night, telling you that you cannot, that you should not try, that everyone is eager to watch you fail. Where do these voices come from?

I’m not the first person to wonder about this, but I’m not sure I know of anyone with good answers.

“When we all fall asleep where do we go?”

How do the most successful people silence the internal voices of dissent and keep focused on their goals? 

It's no big news to those who know me that I hate being told "no." Broadly speaking, I believe firmly in the old saying, "Tell me if you can or if you cannot; either way you are right." 

And just as there seems to me a fundamental divide within the human species between those who are always game to try to do something, to say, "That's crazy. Okay, HOW do we do it?" and those who are quick to point out a hundred reasons any effort "will never work." Invariably, those in the former camp lead grand and interesting lives filled with accomplishments, and those in the latter camp never accomplish much of anything. 

Why not? 

Because they are allowing the voices of the witches of negativity to constantly poison them against taking any action for fear of all the ways it might go wrong. And so, they basically do nothing for fear of failure. 

Someone wise said to me once, "It is the easiest thing in the world to be a voice of obstruction, to point out the reasons some course of action will never work, because mostly, they are right. Many things do not work!" And yet, at the same time, some humans DO accomplish things in this life. They create things, change the world, sometimes even for the better. (Indeed, the generalized arc of human history IS continuing to improve the lives of billions.) 

And so, I don't know how change your life to be guaranteed passage through each night without the voices of the circling witches poisoning your desire to try. 

But I DO know how important it is not to listen to them. And not to give undue weight to the people in your lives constantly telling you to do nothing, because all courses may run ill.

“To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”

What else is there to do?