when you choose to believe in a narrative – a narrative that you didn’t write – that keeps you ordinary, comfortable, safe, out of sight, out of trouble, with no chance of challenging the status quo.
The poison: letting your potential remain unrealized.
Put another way, the poison is deciding to believe in a narrative that says that it’s too late, this is all there is, don’t ask any questions, don’t do anything remarkable, difficult, and innovative. The narrative that says there are younger, better looking, smarter people being paid much more than you could ever imagine for doing less work than you’re doing.
There’s an antidote to this poison.
And the antidote can be found by deciding to write the narrative yourself. To decide not to settle for the story that other people have written for you, no matter how wonderful their praise or how harsh their criticism or how unfair the current circumstances that you find yourself to be in.
The question to ask yourself then, is: will you drink the antidote?