What if our lives could be like the front of a Christmas Card? All year round. 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, 60 seconds a minute.

Dripping with ooey gooey feel goodness, smiles and warmth, devoid of the agony that comes when we dwell on the darkness within all of us. No greed, jealousy, anger, sadness bringing us down.

Can we survive on ease? Do you know what it’s like to exude joy? Can you be content with happy?

I stand for working hard and doing the right thing, but I don’t believe you have to give up a good life and the things you love to succeed. I don’t think you have to work yourself to death. I don’t think you have to hate your job. I don’t think you have to suffer. I think you just need to become aware of your priorities. I think you need to identify where you’re exerting effort. And I think you need to take a good hard look at where it hurts.

So many of us live to the extreme. Work hard. Play hard. I never liked that phrase; I didn’t want to play hard. I just wanted to play. Playing shouldn’t be hard or painful. For me, playing is fun and easy. It’s filled with smiles and laughter. It’s enjoyable. There’s nothing hard about it. I much prefer this mantra:

Work Hard Play Easy

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That doesn’t mean you get less done. It doesn’t mean you work more or less than others. It just means you’ll experience less pain.

Even when we exercise or diet, we look for the extremes.

Fast for five days to lose weight
Workout so hard you can’t walk the next day
If you can’t feel it, you didn’t do it

What’s the point of intentionally pushing past your limits?

The limits are meant to free you. It’s like when your high school writing teachers told you the rules and structure actually allow you to be more creative. I hated when they said that. I didn’t believe them. Of course, they were right.

I used to be the one that pushed all the extremes. I was hard on myself because I had to be perfect at everything. What a joke. You can’t be perfect at everything. In fact, you can’t be perfect at anything. You can be good at something, but…

I don’t believe in perfection anymore.

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It drove me crazy.

It burnt me out.

You only have so much willpower.

Eventually, you’ll just run through life constantly sick, tired and angry.

…

So what’s the deal with the Christmas Card then? If there’s no such thing as perfection, how can we be expected to live our lives with fake smiles plastered on our faces?

Exactly.

I hereby declare the Christmas Card a lie. I’ll take the Christmas letter, please. Even the ones that are filled with grief, loss and sadness. Because sometimes, that’s just how life is.

BUT THAT DOESN’T MEAN IT DEFINES US.

…

There is phenomenal power in a woman with confidence. That’s it. She doesn’t need all the extras and sides to go along with it.

Own what you know. Let go of what you don’t. And if you think you don’t know anything, focus all your effort on figuring out what you know. You have something to offer, I promise. Whether or not you want to share what you’ve got is a different story. That’s all it takes. Knowing and sharing. We learned that in KINDGERGARTEN. (I’ll admit, I was never all that great at the latter…).

Have you felt your body today? Really checked in with how you feel? If you take a second to listen to your body, you might be totally frightened. The stuff we eat, the things we do, the places we go, the amount of time we sit, the air we breathe, it all affects our body, and yet we never ask it how it’s doing. Your body is what carries you through life. Why not take care of it like it’s your child? In a way, it is the child of your mind – the immature expression of the intellect.

I firmly believe there is a different way of being. That’s why I created the LIFE WARRIOR MANIFESTO.