Gunk of Low-Energy Living: friction

Where’s the friction in your life? Where do you feel tension or experience resistance? Where is there disharmony or a drag on your energy?

Friction comes in all shapes and sizes.

  • Maybe it’s the strained relationship with your mother-in-law or last-minute requests from your boss.
  • Maybe it shows up when you think about your retirement finances or try to figure out what you want to be when you grow up.
  • Maybe friction finds you on your long commute home or when you’re not feeling confident at work.

Whatever the form, friction takes a toll. Little by little, day in and day out, friction wears away hope and happiness. It wears down joy and optimism.

A friction-filled life is not just the way it is. It’s a sign. And it’s important to figure out what it’s pointing to.

Because when we can get down to the root cause of all that tension, drag, resistance, and disharmony, we have a choice.

We can allow it to continue. Or we can choose flow over friction.

Because friction is a choice.

The very notion makes most of us bristle. It’s easy to believe the friction in our lives is caused by others, by circumstances, by the misaligned planets.

But in the end, friction is choice.

  • We have a choice to set better boundaries.
  • We have a choice to renegotiate how we work.
  • We have a choice to untangle our relationship to money.
  • We have a choice to figure out who we really are and what we really want.
  • We have a choice to trade in the long commute for a better quality of life.
  • We have a choice to step outside our comfort zone and take risks.

Where’s the friction in your life?

Think about all the shapes and sizes of friction in your life right now. Then consider the choices you’ve made that lead to all that friction.

Connecting the dots between past choices and the friction in your life today isn’t an excuse for beating yourself up. Quite the contrary, it’s to empower you to make new and different choices.

What new choices will you make today to put an end to the friction in your life?