Lose Touch With Your Inner Whining Artist

or, Less Lateral Thinking, More Lateral Action

Well, synchronicity strikes again. Smack on the heels of the last post, this LateralAction Article popped out of cyberspace. It talks about what author Mark McGuinness calls our Inner Whining Artist, that ubiquitous voice that urges us to do just enough to get by, to not ask for too much, to expect the world to adapt to us without any effort on our part, to just go with the flow, ignoring and avoiding the reality that is always right in front of us.

The world - life itself - is more vast, vivid and alive than we can ever imagine, and it wants us to come out and play. But it can only extend the invitation - we have to make a decision to accept the invitation and then step through that door which is always open. We have to be willing to look at how we constantly get in our own way, fooling ourselves into thinking that we're engaging when we're really avoiding, and be willing to go through and beyond our usual comfort zones, our fears and our fantasies. We have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Mark McGuinness: "You’ll start facing down the fear and taking action, doing the difficult things you’ve been shirking. You’ll start making a difference to your own life and to other people. You’ll make new friends and leave the IWA behind…

"Of course, you don't have to do any of this. You can carry on listening to the IWA and forget you ever read this article. Maybe life will be easier that way.

Your choice."
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I saw a beggar leaning on his wooden crutch
he said to me, you must not ask for so much
and a pretty woman leaning in her darkened door
she cried to me, hey, why not ask for more
- Leonard Cohen
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