REFLECTION -- Discouragement

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Discouragement

Who doesn't get discouraged from time to time? It usually starts over some small thing—a little disappointment or mistake, a careless remark by a friend or coworker, or a negative thought about ourselves or our situation—but how it grows! Pretty soon everything seems wrong and our outlook becomes so clouded that we want to quit. We wish we could find a hole, crawl into it, and shut out the world.

The real problem is, the longer we continue in that negative vein, the deeper we sink and the harder it is to pull out of it. Worse yet, if we habitually give in to our negative self-chatter, it can lead to feelings of discouragement or worse yet depression—all three are killers! It will eventually destroy your dreams.

Here’s a good story to illustrate it.

According to a Bedouin fable, an Arab and his camel were crossing the desert. Night came and the temperature dropped. The Arab put up his tent, tied his camel to it, and went to sleep.

The temperature dropped further, and the camel asked the Arab for refuge from the cold.

The Arab was adamant. "There is only room in the tent for one!"

The camel was quiet for a few minutes, but soon asked again. "Please, Master! Just my nose. If I could just put my nose in your tent, it would keep me from freezing out here."

The Arab reluctantly agreed.

The camel's nose became warm, but after a while the temperature went down even more. The camel woke the Arab and asked, "Please, can I just put my forelegs in the tent? They are very cold!"

Again the Arab reluctantly agreed. "Only your forelegs, nothing more!" So the camel nudged his forelegs into the tent and they became warm.

After some time, the camel woke the Arab again. "Master, I must put my hind legs in the tent. Otherwise I fear that they will freeze and I won't be able to finish our journey tomorrow. What good is a camel with frozen hind legs?"

So the Arab agreed once more, and the camel moved his hind legs in. But since there was only room in the tent for one, the Arab was forced to move out into the cold, where he barely survived the night.

Negativity is like that camel. It just needs a small opening to get started—usually a thought that seems to have some basis in truth or reason—but if you entertain that thought, pretty soon it and a whole lot more like it move in and take over.

Shut the door on any negative self-chatter before it has a chance to get in and take over.

Don't let the camel get its nose inside your tent.

Wishing you all the best,

Coach Dana