The Rat Race

I’m still part of the rat race. I still judge my accomplishments by how much money I make and how accomplished I feel I am in my career. Since I am very hard on myself I often feel like I have not accomplished anything.

But then I stop for a moment and realized that nothing of that is true. The only thing that is happening is that my mind is on autopilot and is repeating what it was taught an accomplishment to be.

I have a wonderful life, do only what I want and I’m my own boss. What would I do if I would have what I was taught success is? What if I would have all the money in the world?

I would live the life I’m living right now.

My mind still does not want to accept that. It does not want things to be good, there always has to be something wrong. So while I am having a wonderful life I am suffering because my mind is telling me that I have never accomplished anything.

What is an accomplishment? To take pictures for Italian Vogue, shoot a big fashion campaign, making millions of dollars?  Or writing this blog, maybe helping a few people and living a simple but fulfilled life? My heart is picking the second choice and my mind picks what it was programmed to do, Italian Vogue.

The mind/ego is always for rat-race. It will push us to be faster, bigger, richer, more successful, stronger and more intelligent. It will always focus on what we don’t have instead of how rich our lives are and it will keep us unhappy.

The trick is not to listen. :-)

"The Rat Race" Manhattan/New York City/7th Avenue and 38rd Street 07-17-08 at 07:30 PM

Please check out my website at carstenfleck.com