That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

We have all heard it a million or more times, used it in times where we felt overwhelmed or over burdened, believed it when we were wondering why we weren’t dead or wished we could at least climb under a rock for awhile and pretend.

It really applies to everything and anything in life, a blanket statement to encourage us to be better for whatever reason we aren’t dead.

There are songs and such titled the same, poems, books, movies all with either the word for word, or a paraphrased title or the theme revolves around it.

Now there is a Mental Moment

Today’s Mental Moment…

is about the same very thing.  If it doesn’t kill you it makes you stronger.

Not the Mental Moment itself, there is no danger of it killing you, I think.  Unless the words come as a complete shock or something.

I can’t see it .  So I am going with…  oh wait!  of course just because I can’t see it doesn;t mean it can;t happen, that is silly to think because I can not realistically think it, it won’t happen and how we can get into rigid thinking or narrow mindedness.

I don’t want to be either.  If this Mental Moment kills you, could you please let me know?

If it doesn’t kill you, well you are stronger then right?

Just like that.

Consider This:

That which doesn’t  kill you makes you stronger…  yes I said that already but stronger than what?  In relation to what?  Compared to…  what? How?

I mean typically we use the saying in relation to things of emotional nature;  heartbreak, humiliation, disappointment and just a general overall crappy experience.  I don’t think I have ever heard someone say;  it didn’t kill you so you must be stronger to a victim of a car accident, or crime or stuff of that sort.

Have you?  Maybe I am over thinking this, but sometimes that’s how I get back to the simplicity of it.

Let’s use a real example of something that didn’t kill me.  It is possible I am just stuck on this because I want it to be true.  I want to be stronger for having gone through the experience, so I am looking for the truth in the idiom.  

They usually are true, those silly sayings about life sometimes seemingly so ridiculous.

Like a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.  That is true, as silly as it may sound.

Back to the not being killed makes you stronger though..

So yesterday I had this live broadcast, meet the author Q & A scheduled and without really going into the details, and reliving it all over, it was a bit of a ….disaster may be a little too much but disappointment is not enough. Somewhere in between.

Overall it was a sucky experience but it didn’t kill me, so I must be stronger.   At first thought, I decided it’s a bunch of crap.  Then I thought about it for awhile and I decided maybe I am.  Stronger, not crap. Mostly though, I am just stronger than I thought I was.

I pushed myself to do something really scary to me.  Get on camera and speak about my book and answer questions from people who had them.  The thought is enough to give me hives let alone the actual doing it.

I scheduled it on a whim, knowing myself enough to know if I waited until I knew exactly how to do it, or felt strong enough to do it, I would never get it done.  

Thinking on the lines of I will do it when I know how to, opens the door for the perfectionist attitude and often the perfectionists never achieve much because they cannot reach a place they see as acceptably proficient.  I know because I have been there.  

The perfectionist in me is not far from the surface and I know if I let perfectionism be a goal, it will take over and I am miserable being perfect.  Or trying to be.  Most perfectionists are.  It also narrows our life experience, and really, defeats the purpose of living.

By which I mean, if we wait to do things until we are perfect, it defeats the learning while we live and being unrealistic, perfectionism, it cheats us of fully experiencing life.  So I scheduled the event knowing I either did it that way or did it never.

Why have to do it if I don’t want to you ask?  I didn’t have to per se, but that forum would have been a good way to talk about what my book is about and the message in it, and a good way to clear up any misunderstanding or misconceptions which may be one reason people are reluctant to part with $3 in exchange for my blood sweat tears, and concentrated power of will all wrapped up nicely in a neat little book.  

Because there is some misconception.  So I wanted to for those reasons, even though I am deathly afraid of public speaking and moreso of doing it in a new forum, format, presenting myself out of my comfort zone choice of media, art and writing.

I was willing to risk it for the chance to talk to people one on one, or one on a thousand (my imagination running wild with it…) because I do believe strongly in the book I wrote.   And of course … what good is a doomsday device, if you don’t tell the world right?  ¹

The worst part of the way it went down was the disappointment in the fact there weren’t’t a thousand, not even a hundred, a few is even pushing it and those who were there, are quite aware of who I am and what I have to say.

Between the technical difficulties and the lack of attendance, and my never planning for such things, I was like a deer in the headlights, passing time waiting for everything to fall into place for a very long 46 mins and 11 seconds until I couldn’t stand it another minute.

Another minute might just have killed me.  As it is, the whole experience of course didn’t kill me, disappointment and embarrassment rarely if ever are themselves fatal.

So I must be stronger right?

The way we become stronger by the things which don;t kill us is by pushing ourselves past the point we thought we could go.  The strength comes from seeing we achieved even though we failed and are capable of doing things we never would have considered volunteering for.

How’s that for a Mental Moment? Nice and neat and to the point.

If you aren’t dead you really are stronger, stronger than you thought, stronger than you considered yourself to be.  even if it is something everyone else knew yo ucould do.  

Until you see how far you can go, it doesn’t matter what you are capable of when it comes to strength, it matters what you think you are capable of.

So after yesterday I really see I am stronger Than I thought.

I only thought I was capable of goofing off and acting a complete dufus for 43 mins tops.

To your Mental State, whatever it may be.

Lizziecracked, never broken and actually stronger than yesterday.

° doomsday device quote from.Dr. Stangelove.