Build with Clay #110: Troubles
A bi-weekly newsletter sparking personal growth
Hi, reader!
Trivia for today: In the early 1900’s, what ingredient, which helped give it it’s name, was removed from Coca-Cola?
With that, welcome to the 110th newsletter! This one is all about Troubles.
A musing.
Abraham Lincoln once mused the following:
Let’s say you were asked to put all your troubles in an open sack and place it down on the street.
Next to your sack of troubles were your friend’s and neighbor’s sacks filled with their respective troubles.
Can you imagine? A street lined with sacks of troubles - many filled to the brim!
Then let’s say you were asked to pick up anyone’s sack, and carry those troubles home with you. Which one would you choose?
According to President Lincoln, you wouldn’t hesitate but a moment before picking up your own sack to take back home.
A thought.
We’ve all been here before:
Sitting on the couch,
or lying in bed,
or our head against the steering wheel,
thinking, dang, everything sucks.
Nothing is going my way.
No one understands how difficult I have it.
We think we have it worse than everyone else. We are convinced!
But we don’t have it worse than everyone else.
Even though we cannot walk outside and inspect the open sack of each person’s troubles…
Everyone is going through something.
And even if we were given the chance to fully inspect the troubles of others, we almost certainly wouldn’t trade our sack troubles for anyone else’s sack of troubles.
So, why does this matter?
Sure, it’s nice to know you have a little company in the troubles department (as they say, misery loves company).
But it matters because our troubles are ours. We own them. We aren’t trading them out.
Which means it’s up to us what we do with them.
Do you count your troubles? Or count your blessings?
A quote.
“Man only likes to count his troubles; he doesn't calculate his happiness.”
Answer: Cocaine. The drink was invented in 1885 by John Pemberton, a pharmacist from Atlanta, Georgia, who made the original formula in his backyard. Pemberton’s recipe contained cocaine in the form of an extract of the coca leaf, which inspired the “Coca” part of the beverage’s name. The “Cola” comes from the kola nut (which contains caffeine, another stimulant).
When Coca-Cola was invented, cocaine was legal and a common ingredient in medicines. People thought it was safe to use in small amounts.