When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get...Quiet

Listen to your ego and listen for your soul. Love them both, because they are both a part of you, but let your soul lead you.

I’ve been working on a new non-fiction book proposal in one form or another for a year and a half.

Last week, both of my publishers passed on it.

I know it will eventually find the right home but, in the meantime, I find myself discouraged.

In the past, I would have pushed the discouragement away with work. I’d have listened to the voice of my ego, telling me to prove everyone wrong by producing more, producing faster, and producing better. After all, when the going gets tough, the tough get going, right?

Wrong. I know that script all too well. It ends in burnout and the alienation of the people I care about most.

Thich Nhat Hanh writes:

The situation is difficult, and many people say, “Don’t just sit there, do something.” But doing more things may make the situation worse. So, you should say, “Don’t just do something, sit there.” Sit there, stop, be yourself first, and begin from there.

So, I’m just sitting here this week. Stopping. Being myself first. Instead of letting my ego lead me, I’m listening to what my soul is longing for during this time of disappointment. It wants to make homemade chocolate. It wants to go for a walk. It wants to take my family to see the new Quiet Place movie. All of that to say, for the first time in almost a year, I don’t have a new post for you this week.

Rather, I have a compilation.

When Substack first announced its own native social media feed called Notes—and before I understood that Notes was simply a community gathering place—I decided I’d use it as a place to juxtapose the competing voices of the soul and ego. Here are my first six notes:

---

• EGO: You really should start using Notes and spend the whole night obsessing about your first post. You’re getting a little old and irrelevant—you need to jumpstart your following.

• SOUL: There’s going to be a spring snowstorm tonight and we have enough firewood for one more fire in the fireplace and “irrelevant” is just another word for ordinary which happens to be another word for beautiful.

  ---

• EGO: If you say and do all the right things, your wife will be happy with you.

• SOUL: We don’t have that much power. We are only a fraction of what is going on in her head. Instead of trying to manipulate a certain kind of reaction from her, let’s practice being present to all of her experiences.

  ---

• EGO: They are flying you all the way to Austin, you better hit it out of the park.

• SOUL: Isn’t it great, we just get to be who we are, whether we’re sitting on our keister in Illinois or standing on a stage in Texas.

  ---

• EGO: You better get to all that email this morning. People will be upset if you keep ignoring them.

• SOUL: The sun is rising and the coffee is still warm. Let’s watch, taste, savor.

  ---

• EGO: Everything you’ve built could come crashing down.

• SOUL: Maybe. If so, we’ll figure it out.

---

• EGO: You need to belong to this, to these people, to that group.

• SOUL: No, we don’t. We already belong to Something far greater than any given group.

---

Listen to your ego and listen for your soul. Love them both, because they are both a part of you. But as often as you can, let your soul lead you.

Its destination is always a peace that surpasses all understanding.

---