I have a cross-stitch I started years ago and never finished. The image is a dragon holding his poor smoldering tail. The phrase reads: Sometimes I am my own worst enemy.
That's me. I get in my own way. I have so many dreams and goals, which can be a good thing, but sometimes I feel like I am running a race and then sticking my own foot out to trip myself.
I started reading a book titled We Have Met the Enemy: Self-Conrol in an Age of Excess, by Daniel Akst, and so far what I've read rattled me. He writes that in our country, dangerous habits (such as eating the wrong things, overeating, smoking, drinking...) account for more than a million fatalities each year. "To put those million early deaths in perspective: no armed conflict, present or past, accounts for as much carnage as our losing war with ourselves..." [YIKES!]
The author tells how puzzling it became as he investigated the problem of self-control. "Is willpower something you inherit, or can it be taught? Do people with anorexia or obsessive-compulsive disorder have too little self-control or too much? ... And if I fail to control myself, then to whom or what have I abdicated the job?"
He lists many more questions, and I want the answers! I look forward to reading the rest of the book, and hope I can learn how to get out of my own way.
I want to reach a point where my cross-stitch should read: Sometimes I am my own best friend.
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