Mickey Singer’s Funny Metaphor That Captures a Crucial Mistake People Make

It’s about Pepto Bismol.

One of the reasons I love Mickey Singer, among many, is that he’s funny. He takes this spiritual stuff ultra-seriously, but also lightens things up with some fun. I try to do the same.

Lately, I’ve heard him make references to Pepto Bismol. For those of you who haven’t heard of it, Pepto Bismol is an over-the-counter medicine used for indigestion and other ailments of the gastro-intestinal tract. It was my mom’s go-to remedy any time I had a stomach ache.

Here’s how Mickey uses Pepto Bismol to describe the plight of humanity.

Junk food bender

Let’s say you’ve eaten a mountain of junk food — onion rings, two double cheeseburgers, large fries and a chocolate shake. Afterward, you feel awful, your stomach screaming at you for the sewage you’ve dumped into it.

You check your medicine cabinet for the Pepto Bismol. It’s nowhere to be found.

Then your friend comes over. Sees you’re struggling. Asks you what’s wrong.

“I have a stomach ache.”

“Why?”

“Because I can’t find the Pepto Bismol.”

You don’t have a stomach ache because you can’t find the Pepto Bismol! You have a stomach ache because you ate a ton of crappy food.

How does this metaphor work in real life? Here’s an example.

Imagine someone who was scrawny as a kid. Terrible athlete. Girls never gave him the time of day. But he was a smart cookie. Did great in school.

This led him to develop a crippling inferiority complex. But it also ignited a fire inside him that burned 24/7.

Success at all costs

It was a fire that spurred him to stop at nothing to succeed. He went to Yale. Harvard Business School. Worked 100-hour weeks on Wall Street year after year.

All in pursuit of overcoming that painful, hurtful feeling of inferiority. But it never works.

Sure, when he got into Yale, Harvard and made that first million, then ten million, then fifty million, things felt great inside…

It never works

But that fleeting feeling of achievement inevitably passed…And he went right back to feeling like that awkward, pimply, eighty-pound, high school freshman again.

Working his ass off to make it big and show everybody that he is the real big man on campus is no different than taking Pepto Bismol to cure the stomach ailment. That’s just compensating for the underlying problem.

You need to let go

What he really needs to do is go inside and do the work of letting go of those painful feelings he accumulated as a kid. That baggage is stuck in there and unless he does the work of letting it go, he will never achieve any sense of inner peace.

People who constantly feel the need to be in romantic relationships also suffer from the Pepto Bismol Syndrome. They look for their partners to cure their inner ailments.

Again, most of the time those relationships are just Pepto Bismol. What they really need to do is go inside and get to work on why they don’t feel okay in life.

Working at the root

It’s about, as the Buddhists say, working at the root. Reaching for the Pepto Bismol is akin to working at the leaves at the end of the branches.

The good news is that once we realize that our work is inside and not outside in the Pepto Bismol remedies of relationships, career success, Porsches and trophy wives half our age, we can make real progress.

We’re in charge of our inner work

Why? Because we are the captain of our ships. Yes, that work is hard, but we have the power to do it.

The Pepto Bismol solutions are mostly out of our control. Significant others come and go because they have their own problems to work out. Sometimes jobs work out, sometimes they don’t.

Ever had a boss who kept you back for absurd reasons having nothing to do with your work product? Maybe they resented you because you were a highfalutin’ city boy from Manhattan and they grew up on a farm in Minnesota. You’re tall, they’re short.

Your brokenhearted boss

Or maybe your boss dated a redhead in college who absolutely broke his heart? Redheaded you can forget about it. You’re not going anywhere there.

Just completely random crap like that. Sounds crazy, but it happens all the time.

What’s the point? You have no control over any of this! None.

Working on the inside

But you do have ultimate control of working on your insides. And that’s a great thing.

Why? For the simple reason that that inner work is head and shoulders more important than any work any of us can do.

Doing the inner work lightens our psychic load, resulting in a lightness that allows us to perform at our best.

In what? Everything. Better spouse. Better employee. Better friend. Better parent. Better golfer. Better pickleball player. Better everything.

Why do we get so much better at everything? Because when we’re no longer distracted by all that emotional baggage tormenting us 24/7, we can focus our energies in a much more focused, efficient manner. Which is worth its weight in gold.

The takeaway

I hope you’ll consider the bigger picture here. Stop looking out to the world to cure what ails you inside.

Go inside to cure what ails you inside. It’s the only way that works.

Eventually, you’ll be able to take that figurative bottle of Pepto Bismol and throw it in the garbage can.