Making a Difference

Posted on October 22, 2019 by admin

People who talk about something they’d clearly like to change and then say “But there’s nothing I can do; that’s just the way it is” drive me crazy. I see this attitude on a fairly regular basis. It doesn’t take long to find some idea, institution, or practice that most people you ask will say is always going to exist and will never look much different than it currently does. Try suggesting changing or eliminating that particular thing and see how they react. They’ll probably look at you like you’re insane, insist that your suggestion is impossible, and do everything they can to avoid seriously considering your proposal for even a second. That gets old fast.

To a certain extent, I can understand their reluctance to think outside the box. I sometimes can’t think of a solution to a particular problem until someone else presents me with one, especially if it’s in an area that I know little to nothing about. I always appreciate whenever someone points me toward a solution because it reminds me to think in terms of possibilities rather than limitations. My entire attitude can be summed up this way: “I’m sure this can be done, I just don’t know how to do it yet.” This, along with regular practice at coming up with as many different potential solutions as I can to all kinds of problems, has honed my creativity and allowed me to see things that lots of other people miss. My curiosity and appetite for knowledge constantly introduce me to all kinds of things that help me put the pieces together in ways that, to my knowledge, nobody else has.

I used to argue with people about dismantling current societal systems and replacing them with better systems or even replacing them with nothing. Once I realized that this was a big waste of time and only served to make everyone involved upset (including me), I stopped arguing and started focusing on ways to bring my ideas to life. There are a lot of things that I’d like to see changed and I hope to be directly involved in as many as I can. The best way I can think to do that is to help as many people as possible get into solid, stable life situations so that they can live as they like and turn their dreams into reality. While I’m not yet in a position to do that to the extent that I have in mind, I still find ways within my current means and abilities to help people where they’re at. This is much more meaningful and rewarding than arguing over things that haven’t happened yet.

There is too much talk of how things could be and not enough action to make them that way. Meetings, planning sessions, discussion forums, and the like keep us all trapped in our current reality by using up a lot of our time, energy, money, and other resources that we could be using to make the world a better place. Some things require extensive planning and brainstorming before they’re carried out, but plenty of things can easily be done by starting from scratch, trying different possibilities until you find something that works, and making adjustments on the fly. Direction action is within the reach of nearly everyone. You don’t have to make a major change right out the gate; just find some small ways to make a positive difference, such as random acts of kindness, and put them into practice as often as possible. Kindness and goodness spread, so your example will inspire others to pay it forward. I started the Joker Challenge last week and, in addition to getting an overwhelmingly positive response, someone I know completed the challenge before the day was up. It cost me hardly anything to come up with the challenge and put it online and it’s already started making a difference for mental health. I’d like to see more of that with anything worth doing. How about you?

Posted in Getting Along with Each Other, Humanitarian Things, Life Hacks, Personal Freedom, Self-Improvement | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Making a Difference

A Lesson in Letting Go

Posted on October 21, 2019 by admin

Saturday night was the roughest part of a difficult two weeks for me. When I got home after work, I spoke with a friend who helped me work through a lot of stuff I’ve been feeling lately and that was a huge relief. I felt much lighter and freer afterward, read for a bit, and then got the most refreshing sleep I’d had in days (and I didn’t wake up during the night like I had the previous several nights).

That wonderful feeling stayed with me all of Sunday. I was off work and decided to just stay home and have a day to myself. Among other things, I slept in, had fun with some of my regular hobbies, started learning how to use an abacus, stretched, took more time away from social media and electronic devices than I usually do, and, perhaps most importantly, had plenty of alone time to recharge after a lot of social interactions during the week. Essentially, I spent the day sharpening the saw and moving at my own pace through everything I did. I’m glad I had plenty of time that day to rest and recover from everything I’d recently experienced. It was a much-needed change of pace and it did me a lot of good.

The past few weeks showed me the importance of letting go each day. Even though I’ve been reading Letting Go by David Hawkins for almost two weeks now, I still faced a lot of resistance whenever I thought about following its recommendations. I could feel that resistance inside me saying “I’m not ready yet, I want to hold onto this for a while longer.” Each time I did, the pain within me grew until it got so painful that I had to let it go. Before I did that, my usual life hacks did little to nothing to make me feel better. Even floating for half an hour just gave me a temporary break from my emotions rather than removing them or helping me work through them. Once I let go, however, I felt much better than I had in a long time. If I hadn’t let go at that point, who knows what would have happened? I probably would have been hit even harder later on with an even more painful experience. Moving forward, I hope that I’ll remember to let go and surrender before my emotions accumulate to the point that they cause a lot of trouble for myself and those around me.

Posted in Getting Along with Each Other, Great Books, Inspirational People, Life Hacks, Personal Freedom, Self-Improvement | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on A Lesson in Letting Go

The Daily Stoic: “Give People the Benefit of the Doubt”

Posted on October 20, 2019 by admin

The Daily Stoic has once again touched on a subject I find incredibly difficult when I’m in the heat of the moment, although I’m pretty good at doing this when I’m observing a situation from the outside. Still, when I manage to do this, it makes everything easier for everyone involved. I’ve gotten better at doing this since I really started focusing on it so I hope I continue improving at it as I keep working at it.

“Everything turns on your assumptions about it, and that’s on you. you can pluck out the hasty judgment at will, and like steering a ship around the point, you will find calm seas, fair weather and a safe port.”

-Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 12.22

“Even a dog,” Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, “distinguishes between being stumbled over and being kicked.” Yet if you’ve ever accidentally stepped on your dog, you know that the first reaction is usually a bark or a yelp or a quick snap of the jaws. In the instant, there is no distinction – just pain. Then it sees who it was, hears your soothing voice, and goes right back to wagging its tail.

A virtuous person does not jump to hasty judgments about other people. A virtuous person is generous with assumptions: that something was an accident, that someone didn’t know, that it won’t happen again. This makes life easier to bear and makes us more tolerant. Meanwhile, assuming malice – the most hasty of judgments – makes everything harder to bear.

Be deliberate and accommodating with our assumptions about other people and you’ll find, as Marcus says, calmer seas and fairer weather.

Posted in Communication, Getting Along with Each Other, Great Books, Inspirational People, Life Hacks, Personal Freedom, Self-Improvement | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The Daily Stoic: “Give People the Benefit of the Doubt”

Some of My Thoughts on Discipline

Posted on October 19, 2019 by admin

I’ve been thinking about discipline lately and the way I see it, discipline has to come from within. You might be able to force someone to do something but once you’re no longer around, will they keep doing it? If not, then they lack discipline and were only doing it to get you off their back.

To be disciplined, you have to have a desire to develop good habits, build them into routines that allow you to accomplish your goals, and then work at them consistently. Nobody else can do this for you; you have to develop it within yourself. The best thing someone else can do for you in this regard is show you how discipline will get you where you want to go. They can lead by example, use their past experiences as illustrations, and point out examples of discipline in your own life that you might have overlooked or never recognized in the first place. They might even let you experience the consequences that stem from a lack of discipline (provided you’re not severely harmed or killed as a result). These approaches are much more effective than trying to force you to be disciplined and then punishing you for noncompliance.

My experience with discipline is that it’s difficult to develop initially but takes a relatively short amount of time to become second nature. Once it’s developed, it’s easy to apply in a number of different areas so that it becomes a way of life. This doesn’t mean that I’m never without discipline or that I never regress; both of those things happen from time to time. However, when that happens, I’m now capable of picking myself up, getting back in the game, and picking up where I left off. This has been a long journey for me but I’ve gotten better at walking it and I think everything I’ve learned about discipline is going to serve me well in the years to come.

Posted in Communication, Getting Along with Each Other, Life Hacks, Personal Freedom, Self-Improvement | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on Some of My Thoughts on Discipline

Good Stuff from Letting Go

Posted on October 18, 2019 by admin

Letting Go by David Hawkins contains a lot of good stuff. I’ll probably end up rereading it several times so I can get the most out of it. Here are some of the things that have resonated most strongly with me so far and given me a lot to think about.

  1. Thoughts don’t hurt; the emotions underneath them do.
  2. Depersonalizing thoughts, emotions, and opinions (such as saying “an opinion” rather than “my opinion”) makes it easier to let them go.
  3. Suppressing unwanted thoughts and emotions doesn’t make them go away, it just causes them to build up within us and results in a lot of problems, including physical ailments.
  4. Allowing ourselves to fully feel our emotions without resisting them is how we let go of them.
  5. Surrendering to a lower emotion allows us to move up to higher emotions.
  6. Through daily practice, we can overcome our conditioning and choose how to respond to whatever happens to us.
  7. Even with the best life hacks for handling emotions, pain, and other challenges in life, we can still suffer if we don’t practice them regularly.
  8. People project what they don’t like about themselves onto others.
  9. Regularly working on releasing the built-up negativity within us is essential for healing and being free from the past.
  10. Some things that we thought were healed actually require more work before we can fully move on from them.
Posted in Getting Along with Each Other, Great Books, Inspirational People, Life Hacks, Personal Freedom, Self-Improvement | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Good Stuff from Letting Go

Hard Times, Good Communication

Posted on October 17, 2019 by admin

I once heard Jocko Willink say that on nights before he records his podcast, he tries to get less sleep than he usually does. This keeps his emotions closer to the surface and helps him during the recording. I’ve noticed something similar in myself. I seem to be more genuine when I’m sufficiently tired or stressed. I don’t try to act differently than how I feel or pretend that I’m ok if I’m really not. Maybe I just don’t have the energy to fake it or care how I come across when I feel like that.

Additionally, I have an easier time talking to people when I’m feeling off. I’m less concerned about how they’ll react, so I feel more free to say what I’m thinking. This seems to work well overall; contrary to my expectations, most people appear to be fine with me being more straightforward and assertive. I think this is because I still have some filters in place, I’m not intending to be rude or hurtful, and, as I’m finding out, people seem to appreciate direct, open communication.

These have all been fascinating revelations about myself as well as other people. I’m still trying to figure out what to do with all of this stuff. I don’t want to feel bad all the time just so I have an easier time communicating and being genuine. Since I now know that I can be straightforward without running into trouble as long as I remain mindful while I speak and maintain good intentions, I think I can work on making this the norm for me in every season of life. As with many other things, getting out of my head appears to be the answer. Now it’s just a matter of practicing this regularly, and I’m going to do my best to make it happen.

Posted in Communication, Getting Along with Each Other, Inspirational People, Life Hacks, Personal Freedom, Self-Improvement | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Hard Times, Good Communication

Avoiding the Ideology Trap

Posted on October 16, 2019 by admin

I spent most of my life trapped in one or more ideologies. Although some of them were beneficial to me in certain ways, they all kept me from seeing as much of the big picture as I could have without them and caused me problems in many other areas, especially in my interactions with people in my life. By the time I realized how much I let other people and their ideologies think for me, I was horrified and knew I had to change that. I still struggle at times to avoid being an ideologue but I can mostly avoid it at this point.

Trying to make everything fit into one specific ideology, narrative, agenda, or worldview with no contradictions whatsoever is maddening. I did that for years and I’m tired of it. Now I’d much rather take an honest look at something and come to my own conclusions about it. I quite enjoy finding new ways to look at the world and seeing many things differently than I once did. It’s wonderful to have changed my mind on a number of topics and given myself permission to feel however I like about anything without being constrained by any ideology. Sometimes I’ll have contradictory thoughts and I’m ok with that. I’ve never gotten better at something without making a lot of mistakes along the way, so if some of my thoughts contradict each other, that may mean that I’m getting better at understanding the world. Or it may mean that life doesn’t fit perfectly into a box and that contradictions are not only possible but rampant throughout the universe. Both of those possibilities are fine with me.

Sometimes I can tell that another person is stuck in an ideology from the way they behave since I used to behave the same way. If someone speaks as if they could never be wrong, automatically disregards anyone who disagrees with them, only looks at information that supports their positions and ignores information that casts doubt on them, speaks badly of and makes assumptions about people who think differently than they do, and is unwilling to consider alternative perspectives, then chances are good that they are deep in an ideology. When I’m in a good state of mind, I feel bad for these people and hope that they get out of their ideological traps so they can see some amazing things that they’re currently missing. I also check myself during those times to see if I’m thinking for myself whenever possible; if not, I make sure that I resume taking ownership of my thoughts. The mental peace and freedom I receive from doing this is well worth the effort. I look forward to receiving even more peace and freedom as I get better at freeing myself from ideological traps.

Posted in Communication, Getting Along with Each Other, Life Hacks, Personal Freedom, Self-Improvement | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Avoiding the Ideology Trap

A Short Guide to Mindfulness Meditation

Posted on October 15, 2019 by admin

Some people have told me that they haven’t tried meditation because they don’t think they can calm their minds enough to be free from thought. I don’t know what it’s like to be in their heads but I have managed to learn how to settle my incredibly active mind and stop my thoughts altogether, at least for short periods of time. Additionally, what I usually say when I’m talking to other people about this is that meditation doesn’t have to involve abstaining from thinking. Mindfulness meditation involves watching whatever thoughts appear without judging, labeling, resisting, or becoming overwhelmed by them. In this post, I’ll describe how I typically meditate, although this isn’t set in stone. If this method works well for you, cool. Either way, you can try out different things until you find a method that you like.

Start by sitting upright on the edge of a couch, bed, or chair. This keeps you more alert than laying down or sitting with some type of back support. Close your eyes and take slow, controlled breaths. Focus on each breath as it comes in and goes out; notice how your body moves and changes as you do this. After a few minutes, you’ll find it easier to breath even more slowly and more deeply. Keep as much attention on your breath and your body as you can. If you notice some thoughts coming in, simply observe them without trying to hurry them along, change them, get rid of them, or get lost in them. When you can, shift your focus back to your breath and your body. You might think that you’ve failed at this point but, by noticing that you’re thinking and then returning your attention to the present moment, you have succeeded at mindfulness meditation. Continue this as long as you like and, when you’re through, take a minute to enjoy how you feel as you look around the room before resuming your regular activities.

With regular practice, you will likely see major positive changes in your life from mindfulness meditation. It will also become easier to meditate over time as well and you may find yourself doing it while you’re waiting in line, traveling by bus or plane, relaxing in bed at night, etc. This might also help you get to the point that you can go without thought for brief periods of time. Finally, there are a number of guided meditations that you can check out if you like. Sometimes I use this guided meditation from Alan Watts if I’m particularly stressed or having a lot of trouble focusing; no matter how I’m feeling at the start, it always makes me feel much better by the end. I hope all of this makes sense and, if you try mindfulness meditation, I hope it adds much value to your life.

Posted in Inspirational People, Life Hacks, Personal Freedom, Self-Improvement | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on A Short Guide to Mindfulness Meditation

Resistance and Surrender

Posted on October 14, 2019 by admin

Letting go of resistance is key to living my best life. It’s natural for me to react defensively to anything that I dislike and wish that it ends as soon as possible. However, in most cases, that does nothing to end the unwanted situation; all it does is create a lot of unnecessary suffering within myself, which makes the situation feel longer and more drawn out than it actually is. There is a much better approach.

I’ve heard the idea that action is the solution to fear. I agree with this to an extent. Action can reduce, suppress, or even eliminate fear in some cases, but what happens if you’re unable to act? What if you can’t work toward completing a goal, exercise, remove yourself from the situation, or even move your body? Action is of no use to you then, so what can you do? Surrender. Acknowledge whatever emotions and thoughts arise within you and offer no resistance to them. Even if you’ve lost the ability to do everything else, this still preserves your freedom to choose how you respond to your situation and prevents anyone or anything outside of you from dictating your response.

Whatever I don’t address and work through remains stuck in my subconscious where it can cause me all kinds of problems. Observing my thoughts without resisting, judging, labeling, or getting stuck in them lets me see how flimsy they truly are and removes their power over me. As difficult as it can be to work through certain thoughts and feelings, I’d rather go through the comparatively minor pain of bringing them into the light than live with the much greater pain of leaving them in the dark.

Posted in Life Hacks, Personal Freedom, Self-Improvement | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Resistance and Surrender

The Daily Stoic: “Revenge Is a Dish Best Not Served”

Posted on October 13, 2019 by admin

Another reminder from The Daily Stoic of something that’s hard for me to do. Even if I don’t retaliate against someone who I think has wronged me, you can bet I’m fantasizing about doing so. What helps me sometimes avoid acting out those fantasies is reminding myself that I don’t know what other people are going through in life, that they may not have intended to hurt me, and that responding with compassion and forgiveness makes the world a little bit better. Additionally, whenever I choose not to fight fire with fire, I feel a great sense of peace both in the moment as well as later on. That usually helps me respond appropriately and I hope I get better at this the more I practice it.

“The best way to avenge yourself is to not be like that.”

-Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 6.6

“How much better to heal than seek revenge from injury. Vengeance wastes a lot of time and exposes you to many more injuries than the first that sparked it. Anger always outlasts hurt. Best to take the opposite course. Would anyone think it normal to return a kick to a mule or a bite to a dog?”

-Seneca, On Anger, 3.27.2

Let’s say that someone has treated you rudely. Let’s say someone got promoted ahead of you because they took credit for your work or did something dishonest. It’s natural to think: Oh, that’s how the world works, or One day it will be my turn to be like that. Or more common: I’ll get them for this. Except these are the worst possible responses to bad behavior.

As Marcus and Seneca both wrote, the proper response – indeed, the best revenge – is to exact no revenge at all. If someone treats you rudely and you respond with rudeness, you have not done anything but prove to them that they were justified in their actions. If you meet other people’s dishonesty with dishonesty of your own, guess what? You’re proving them right – now everyone is a liar.

Instead, today, let’s seek to be better than the things that disappoint or hurt us. Let’s try to be the example we’d like others to follow. It’s awful to be a cheat, to be selfish, to feel the need to inflict pain on our fellow human beings. Meanwhile, living morally and well is quite nice.

Posted in Communication, Getting Along with Each Other, Great Books, Inspirational People, Life Hacks, Personal Freedom, Self-Improvement | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on The Daily Stoic: “Revenge Is a Dish Best Not Served”