Fasting
Have you ever fasted? Fasting is where you don’t eat food.
One time I was fasting for 5 days. On the fifth day, I was looking at a cherry tomato on my client’s countertop. I was staring at it. This little cherry tomato. I asked her if I could have it.
She said yes.
I took it and bit into it and then an explosion of tomato hit my mouth. I could see and smell the vine that it grew on. I saw the sun shining on that tomato since it was a wee tiny bud on its stem. I knew the creatures who had come to smell it before it ripened. I knew the ladybug who once landed upon its skin. I felt the way that tomato felt when it was first realized it was summer.
I was in her kitchen— MMMMMMmmmmm— savoring that cherry tomato…
She was looking at me like, “Are you okay?”
I… almost… cried.
Fruits of Labor
That is what it feels like when you work soooo hard for years and years and years. Everyone else is going rollerskating in the park. They’re celebrating Christmas and birthdays and you’re at work. And you know what? All that work for something that you believe in and that you love will one day feel like that cherry tomato did on my lips.
And nothing— nothing that you do will ever compare to— your own work.
Everyone else who inherited their house and didn’t build it with their bare hands. Everyone else who got that job easy without having to send out 2,000 resumes and do 80 Zoom interviews. Everyone else who was born skinny and didn’t have to diet and exercise for 16 years.
Everyone else who was— lucky— and didn’t have to suffer….
When it comes easy, they cannot feel the blessing. They already have their blessing.
Where is our blessing— those who have to work hard?
It’s in our joy!
Our incredible endless joy…. in one cherry tomato! That’s how it feels to not delegate your work to someone else or delegate it to the universe… to struggle and hold the creative tension of all that pressure— and strive for something you believe in— one day, you will taste your cherry tomato and you will know….
It’s good to be a diamond— who used to be a lump of coal!
Because people who are born diamonds will never truly taste a cherry tomato in their life. They have no idea what the value of your struggle is— what you are talking about when you experience the joy of your soul.
They will just stare at you and ask, “Are you okay?”
Please write in your journal:
Nothing I do will ever compare to my own work.
