Opinion > Star Staff
Enough is enough
By Doug Smith, Reminders for the Journey
From Ecclesiastes come the words "There is a time for every event under heaven...A time to keep and a time to throw away." Poet Robert Bly writes, "And the sea lifts and falls all night, the moon goes on through the unattached heavens alone. The toe of the shoe pivots in the dust...and the man in the black coat turns and goes back down the hill..."
What is it in your life that you need to change that is eating your heart out - or eating the heart out of your life? Could be lots of things: Maybe a relationship with someone who makes you crazy no matter what you do, one in which you think you should be able to do better because you are a smart, capable person, yet time and again, you feel depleted, confused and hopeless to make it any different. Maybe it is the other party who is crazy - or maybe it is you - or maybe it is just because the relationship makes you crazy together.
Some are in a miserable job or career that drains or depletes them. If you wake up absolutely dreading to go to work, perhaps it is time to say, "Enough!" Or it may be the job is OK but for the dreaded boss.
For years I have worked with people needing to make change but seemingly stuck. My treatise here is about the bad times in our lives that call for pivoting our shoe in the dust, or on the asphalt, or on the carpet, and turning away, no matter what the cost. Times when the welcome left long ago, times when we know we would be much better off leaving than staying, yet we find it so hard to do and instead stay and endure pathetic misery.
Or maybe it just means that we quit tolerating a certain behavior from another person, perhaps from one who even claims to love us. So, we draw boundaries and say, "Enough! Because I have dignity, you can't do this to me anymore." It could be that your retreat is only temporary, but you deliver a powerful message, and if there is any love in your heart at all for the other person, he or she wakes up. Some people make a permanent retreat, such as when the abusive husband comes home that night and the previously meek wife has taken the furniture and left, fleeing for her own safety and sanity, her pivot in the dust leaving an indelible, non-erasable mark.
There are moments in our lives that call for making momentous changes or it gets too late. Just like the hummingbird found frozen in its nest one winter morning because it didn't leave to a better clime when it could have. At times we have to die to certain parts of our lives because they are consuming us, or we won't live again. It doesn't matter that at a later time we would have been able to do it better. Today we can't, so we finally have to say, "Enough!"
Doug Smith is a licensed professional counselor. Contact him at 972-436-6227, doug@ccclewisville.com
What is it in your life that you need to change that is eating your heart out - or eating the heart out of your life? Could be lots of things: Maybe a relationship with someone who makes you crazy no matter what you do, one in which you think you should be able to do better because you are a smart, capable person, yet time and again, you feel depleted, confused and hopeless to make it any different. Maybe it is the other party who is crazy - or maybe it is you - or maybe it is just because the relationship makes you crazy together.
Some are in a miserable job or career that drains or depletes them. If you wake up absolutely dreading to go to work, perhaps it is time to say, "Enough!" Or it may be the job is OK but for the dreaded boss.
For years I have worked with people needing to make change but seemingly stuck. My treatise here is about the bad times in our lives that call for pivoting our shoe in the dust, or on the asphalt, or on the carpet, and turning away, no matter what the cost. Times when the welcome left long ago, times when we know we would be much better off leaving than staying, yet we find it so hard to do and instead stay and endure pathetic misery.
Or maybe it just means that we quit tolerating a certain behavior from another person, perhaps from one who even claims to love us. So, we draw boundaries and say, "Enough! Because I have dignity, you can't do this to me anymore." It could be that your retreat is only temporary, but you deliver a powerful message, and if there is any love in your heart at all for the other person, he or she wakes up. Some people make a permanent retreat, such as when the abusive husband comes home that night and the previously meek wife has taken the furniture and left, fleeing for her own safety and sanity, her pivot in the dust leaving an indelible, non-erasable mark.
There are moments in our lives that call for making momentous changes or it gets too late. Just like the hummingbird found frozen in its nest one winter morning because it didn't leave to a better clime when it could have. At times we have to die to certain parts of our lives because they are consuming us, or we won't live again. It doesn't matter that at a later time we would have been able to do it better. Today we can't, so we finally have to say, "Enough!"
Doug Smith is a licensed professional counselor. Contact him at 972-436-6227, doug@ccclewisville.com
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