Rock bottom
Read time: 7 minutes
One of the best places you can find yourself is at rock bottom.
There’s nothing sexy about it. It’s actually fairly ugly… In fact nobody even wants to find themselves there, yet here most dreams stop on their tracks towards “someday” and actually happen.
What is rock bottom?
"Bottom became the solid foundation on which I built my life." — JK Rowling
Rock bottom is the lowest point you can get to.
It is the limit of how much hurt you can take before you’ve had enough.
It is a threshold of what you can accept.
It is your absolute lowest level under which you DO NOT accept going, no matter what.
Hitting Rock bottom is a real blessing disguised in adversity.
Why is rock bottom good for you?
As stated before, hitting rock can be ugly, yet we forget why we got there in the first place.
Getting there means you’ve neglected, or have done a bad job at being who you wanted to be.
Getting to this point is a wake-up call.
It is a reminder for what your life stands for.
Arriving at your lowest is a way of changing the lens with which you see everything around you.
Nobody wants to be at their worst points, yet we all need to get there from time to time.
There’s only one way: UP!
Upon getting to your lowest, you are actually freer than most people.
Being in the utmost worst place you can think of is one of the most liberating things in your life.
Obviously it sucks in the moment.
Obviously it is not pretty to be at your worst, yet it’s the best thing that can happen in your life.
When it hurts just a little bit, we can endure it, we can say nothing, we can let it be for hours, weeks, even years.
When you’ve got to the worst place you can think of, you have no such luxury.
When you’re in the proverbial or literal trash bag scrapping for food, a crazy thing happens.
You wake up to reality!
You can finally see your wrong-doings.
You can finally live through the lens of your own real goals and values.
You are free to only care about the important stuff.
A crossroad
Getting to rock bottom is not an end-all-be-all solution to your problems.
It is a chance to redeem yourself.
It is a reminder that you are not doing what you promised yourself and others you would.
It does not guarantee change.
That responsibility for change is and always will be yours.
Nothing can make you change unless you do.
You can stick to what you’ve always done and end up where you’ve always been, or you can choose to go off the beaten path.
It may be scary, it may be new and you may not know what to expect, but that is what you have to do in order to live a life you’ve never lived before.
The choice is solely yours to make.
“I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.” – Robert Frost ( “The Road Not Taken”)
This is how the greatest are made
Check out the stories of J.K. Rowling, Steven Spielberg, Walt Disney, Michael Jordan.
Despite the fact they might have been doing the same thing they were doing before, it wasn’t until they failed HARD and they got to their worst that they allowed themselves to get higher than they’ve been.
Rock bottom is like a huge fire:
You can cry about it while doing nothing and burn to death, never to return to the way you know you should live your life.
You can buckle down and mold yourself into something stronger, something bigger than you thought you could be, something you have never
"It's only after you've lost everything that you're free to do anything." -Tyler Durden
You can’t use the same processes, mindsets and values that got you here
“When I’m at the bottom looking up, the main question may not be ‘how do I get out of this hole?’ In reality, the main question might be ‘how do I get rid of the shovel that I used to dig it?” - Craig D. Lounsbrough (“A View from the Front Porch”)
I think Albert Einstein said “insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results”.
You obviously can’t use the shovel you dug yourself into a whole in order to fly.
The same way you can’t apply the old you the problems you have not had success with, you need to crate new processes, new values and mindsets.
You need to create a new you that will tackle the challenge at hand.
Otherwise we border on insanity.
Sounds great! I want to get to rock bottom!
You don’t need to rush anywhere.
Life will make sure to get you there once you’ve strayed too far from your path.
Going about life looking for adversity is also a not so fun way to live.
You will know when you’ve gotten to your lowest.
Trust me. You will know!
Conclusion
Rock bottom is not a bad thing.
It is a wake-up call to stop dreaming and creating a dream-like reality.
It is a choice of empowerment.
It is a reminder towards what we really value and what is important to us.
I think it would be fitting to leave you with one of a TED talk on the subject: