A Fantastic Friday

Posted on August 10, 2019 by admin

Yesterday turned out to be a surprisingly busy day for me. Despite that, it also gave me plenty of time to rest and have enjoyable experiences with some cool people. Here are the major highlights of my day.

I started off with a good breakfast and then a wonderful morning float. This was one of the best floats I’ve ever had. My previous float was only half an hour but it felt longer. This one was an hour, which is how long most of my floats have been. However, it felt like much more than an hour and I enjoyed every minute of it. I felt great while I was in the pod and when I got out, I felt incredibly relaxed and refreshed, like I’d pushed the reset button on myself. That wonderful feeling stayed with me for most of the day and made everything else I did more enjoyable.

My other big adventure, which came early in the evening, started by carpooling with some friends to Amelia Island so we could dance to Crescendo Amelia Big Band. I hadn’t been up there to dance since their previous summer series last year. It was nice to be back and I had fun dancing and listening to their awesome music. After the show, a bunch of us headed out to Boston’s Pizza for some good food. I ordered the steak skewers, which were small bits of steak wrapped in bacon. When I took the first bite, I’m pretty sure time stopped. I knew right then that I had made a good choice and I proceeded to savor the rest of them throughout the remainder of the meal. I also greatly enjoyed the company of my fellow swing dancers. It helped that I was tired enough at that point to find almost everything funny while still being coherent enough to have good conversations. Once we finished at the restaurant, my group carpooled back to where we’d parked our cars, said good night, and headed home for some much-needed rest.

What made last night even better was the fact that I got to sleep in this morning. I got home quite late and went to bed even later, so being able to sleep for a few more hours helped a lot. That being said, even if I had gotten less sleep, I still would have had a wonderful time yesterday and been glad that I did all that cool stuff. It’s nice to have days like this once in a while and I always treasure them when they arrive.

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A Life Lesson from My Spanish Lesson

Posted on August 9, 2019 by admin

Last year, I started using Duolingo to help me learn Spanish. I managed to stick with it pretty well by making it a daily habit. There were a few days in which I missed the lesson, but a feature called “streak freeze” allowed me to maintain my streak when that happened. Unfortunately, I somehow lost the ability to use that feature a while back, so if I missed another lesson, I’d lose my streak. That finally happened two nights ago.

I spent most of my day at home on Wednesday, went out in the late afternoon to visit with a friend, and came back in time to finish everything I hadn’t done earlier. Despite having plenty of time, however, I kept putting off my Spanish lesson, figuring I could do it later. By the time “later” rolled around, it was almost midnight. Duolingo switches to the next day at midnight, so if I don’t have my lesson finished by then, it records me as having missed the previous day. I raced to my Kindle and started going through the lesson as quickly as possible. I didn’t move quickly enough, though, and my streak came to an end.

I had maintained that streak for 525 days. That’s longer than I’ve been consistently blogging, unicycling, meditating, and stretching. I managed to keep that streak going through 4 weekend dance workshops in 3 different states, many late nights and early mornings, several days in which I worked all day at two different jobs, and a number of other occasions that required me to be super efficient with my time management. And now, just because I lost track of time on a fairly normal night at home, my streak is over. No matter what else was going on, I could always look forward to continuing that streak. When I lost it, I felt sad and got ready for bed. I have enough self-awareness at this point to know that the later I stay up, the worse I feel, so the last thing I wanted to do was stay awake longer than necessary. So I skipped stretching and doing chinups like I had planned. Instead, I read one paragraph from my book and then did my nightly routine before calling it a day. Some additional breathing exercises in bed helped me relax and go to sleep more easily, as did letting my thoughts about the whole situation run for a bit without trying to suppress them.

All the stuff I did on Wednesday night helped since I felt much better yesterday. I hardly thought about losing my streak at all and when I did, it didn’t both me much. Writing this blog post helped me get it off my chest and going swing dancing with some friends in St. Augustine gave me a wonderful boost that made me feel great. All of this helped me jump right back into my usual routines and move past this experience without issue. This experience serves as a good reminder for me to work on my priorities in a timely manner. Plus I no longer feel pressured to maintain my streak, I still remember most of the Spanish that I’ve learned, I can keep using the program to learn even more, and nothing truly bad happened. As of now, I feel at peace with this situation and see it as a learning experience. I hope this post makes sense and helps you move past those little bumps in the road. Take care and I’ll see you in the next post.

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Review of Rain Man

Posted on August 8, 2019 by admin

Yesterday, I watched the movie Rain Man for the first time. I had been wanting to see it for a long time and I finally did. Although I had a rough idea of what it was about, I didn’t know exactly what I’d find. After I give an overview of the story that contains plenty of spoilers and some background information on the movie, I’ll share more of my own thoughts on it.

Charlie Babbitt (played by Tom Cruise) has a car business that’s on the brink of failure when he finds out that his father has died. Charlie, who was estranged from his father, is upset to find out that he is only getting a fraction of his father’s estate as most of it has been placed into a trust for a mental institution. When he goes to the mental institution in question, he finds out that he has an older brother named Raymond (played by Dustin Hoffman) who lives there. Shocked at this discovery, Charlie spends some time talking to his brother and learns that he is an autistic savant and adheres to strict routines to comfort himself and get through the day. Charlie decides to take Raymond with him to Los Angeles in the hopes of using him to get more of his inheritance.

Because Raymond doesn’t want to fly, the two set out on a road trip from Cincinnati to Los Angeles. Charlie, who started out being hostile to Raymond, slowly warms up to his brother as he gets to know him better. One of the big turning points in their relationship occurs when they’re spending the night in a motel in Texas. Charlie learns that, due to their age difference, he thought Raymond was his imaginary friend who sang to Charlie to comfort him when he was a little kid; he called him “Rain Man” because he couldn’t pronounce “Raymond” back then.

When they stop off in Las Vegas, Charlie is devastated to learn that his business has suffered several crushing blows. He then gets an idea for how to pay off his debts. Since Raymond has an incredible memory and is excellent with numbers, the two of them head to a casino to play blackjack. Thanks to Raymond’s ability to count cards, they win more than enough money to cover Charlie’s losses before being asked to leave by the casino security. After that, the brothers go to a meeting with two doctors, one of whom is from the mental institution, to see whether Raymond would rather live there or with Charlie. When the doctors leave the room, Charlie expresses his love for Raymond and says he wants what’s best for him. The movie ends with Raymond going back to live in the mental institution and Charlie saying that he’ll visit him regularly.

Barry Morrow wrote Rain Man after meeting Kim Peek, a prodigious savant who dealt with crippling social anxiety for much of his life. Morrow based the character of Raymond on Peek as well as a friend of his named Bill Sackter. In addition to bringing more attention to autism, the movie also changed Peek’s life for the better. The many public appearances he made after the release of Rain Man increased his confidence and allowed him to blossom and enjoy his life much more than he did before.

I thoroughly enjoyed Rain Man. I have plenty of experience being misunderstood and pushed around by other people, so Raymond was my favorite character since I could relate more to him than anyone else. Although I initially disliked Charlie for how aggressive he was toward Raymond, I appreciated that he warmed up to him over time and was treating him much better by the end of the story. I also liked that the movie ended with both main characters in good places, both in their own lives and in their relationship with each other. And I felt that the dynamic between the two of them played out very naturally and realistically. This was due in large part to the acting talents of Cruise and Hoffman, although they also had some great writing to guide their performances. If you haven’t seen Rain Man, I recommend watching it when you can. It’s a great movie that deserves to be seen by as many people as possible.

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The Daily Stoic: “There Is Always More Room to Maneuver Than You Think”

Posted on August 7, 2019 by admin

One of my favorite things about Harry Browne’s book How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World is how he repeatedly shows that we all have a myriad of options in our lives even if we don’t initially see them. That is exactly the same message in this entry from The Daily Stoic. It’s sometimes difficult to find alternatives and pursuing them can involve paying a high price, but those alternatives do exist. And it’s up to each one of us to decide when they’re worth pursuing.

“Apply yourself to thinking through difficulties – hard times can be softened, tight squeezes widened, and heavy loads made lighter for those who can apply the right pressure.”

-Seneca, On Tranquility of Mind, 10.4b

Have you ever been hopelessly losing a game that suddenly broke wide open and you won? Remember that time when you thought you were certain to fail the test, but with an all-nighter and some luck you managed to eke out a decent score? That hunch you pursued that others would have given up on – that turned out brilliantly?

It’s that kind of energy and creativity and above all faith in yourself that you need right now. Defeatism won’t get you anywhere (except defeat). But focusing your entire effort on the little bit of room, the tiny scrap of an opportunity, is your best shot. An aide to Lyndon Johnson once remarked that around the man “there was a feeling – if you did everything, you would win.” Everything. Or as Marcus Aurelius put it, if it’s humanly possible, you can do it.

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One Step at a Time

Posted on August 6, 2019 by admin

I’ve learned a lot since I started my self-improvement journey. Between the videos, books, and articles I’ve checked out and the conversations I’ve had with people who are also into this stuff, I keep learning new things almost every day. However, I’ve been thinking lately that I may be focusing too much on learning new stuff and not enough on practicing the stuff I’ve already learned. A friend of mine mentioned this a few weeks ago and I’ve heard it from other sources as well, so I think there’s something to it.

Something I’ve found is that it’s easy for me to become so fixated on reading the next book, learning the next life hack, and having the next breakthrough that I don’t spend enough time in the present. Funnily enough, the stuff that’s helped me the most has centered on mindfulness, presence, and being in the now, and yet practicing those things is one of my biggest challenges. I can be distracted by almost anything, especially my thoughts. Staying focused has long been difficult for me and always seeking new stuff makes this even more challenging. It also makes me think that the answer I’ve been looking for is always just around the corner, which can prevent me from actually taking steps toward where I want to go.

Stellar ideas that are never used accomplish nothing, while halfway decent ideas put into action can do a lot. At this point, I’ve got a lot of good stuff that I’ve learned from a wide variety of places. I still plan to keep learning helpful stuff, but I don’t want to forget to put it into practice or lose sight of why I want to learn and grow. I also want to remember to pass on what I find, which can be difficult to do if I’m always looking for the next big thing. So whichever of my goals I’ve been avoiding due to feelings of uncertainty and fear (such as entrepreneurship, financial freedom, and things related to those subjects), I’m going to work on finding the courage to move forward on them. A lot of my journey has consisted of learning how to do things as I go, so I just have to apply that same mentality toward each of my goals and trust that I’ll get there one step at a time.

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Good Communication

Posted on August 5, 2019 by admin

Good communication is essential for modern life. Anything that takes more than one person to accomplishes requires everyone involved to communicate effectively with each other. Unfortunately, I regularly see one example after another of terrible communication, both online and in real life. In those situations, people immediately go on the attack, get defensive, and focus so much on tearing each other down that they shut their minds to other perspectives and ideas. Even people who want the same outcomes can still become hostile if they disagree on the best way to get where they want to go and become fixated on points of disagreement rather than focusing on points of agreement.

Bad communication is often worse than no communication because of how it turns people against each other and makes cooperation nearly impossible. I know this from personal experience. I’ve suffered from bad communication for most of my life, whether it originated from myself or from someone around me. It’s only within the past few years that I’ve put serious work into improving my communication skills. Even in that short period of time, the results have been incredible and truly life-changing. I’m not an expert communicator but I have spent a lot of time learning about and practicing good communication and I keep getting better at it as I go. Since I have plenty of experience with bad communication and have made great progress at becoming a better communicator, I want to help others avoid the problems I’ve faced by sharing what I’ve learned.

Some things I find valuable in conversations include making sure that I’m actually listening to what the other person is saying instead of preparing a response while they talk, asking questions if I’m not sure what they mean instead of making assumptions, keeping in mind that they may be right and I may be wrong, pausing to gather my thoughts before I speak, breathing slowly and deeply, and looking for ways to resolve our differences or figuring out how we can work together for good despite those differences. There are a handful of people I know who also do this stuff when we talk to each other, which makes our conversations and discussions incredible; even if I’m talking to someone who isn’t doing those things, the conversation is still improved by my doing them. I hope that this post plays a part in improving communication so that we can work together to solve whatever problems we encounter. If even just one person is inspired to do things differently, then this post will have served its purpose and made a positive difference in the world.

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Going Your Own Way

Posted on August 4, 2019 by admin

I’ve always been fascinated by people who march to the beat of their own drum. Some think that these people are dangerous but I disagree. The ones I find interesting are all, or were, peaceful (at least as far as I can tell) in their complete rejection of the conventional path. I think that that is what their critics really dislike about them and why they consider them dangerous. Anything that’s way outside the norm is considered by many to be dangerous and destructive until it’s been around long enough for people to see it for how it truly is.

Many of the people who fascinate me have spent a good portion of their lives exploring with no real destination in mind. During that time, they were just learning about the world and seeing what’s out there. This is in sharp contrast to the people who become so laser focused on arriving at a certain point that they don’t have time to slow down and see what they find from living in the present moment. I think those who’ve lived to learn and explore can teach me much more about the human condition than those who live to work and stay firmly planted on the conventional path.

If you’re familiar with some of my past posts on these subjects, you can probably see why I’m drawn to those who go their own way. I love learning about their lives and, in some cases, drawing inspiration from them on things I can add to my own life (although I make sure to steer clear of self-destructive behavior). I’ve also done some exploring and wandering myself, during both pleasant and unpleasant times. During the unpleasant times, I wanted to forget about my life situation, so I’d immerse myself in anything that would take my mind off of it for a while. In the pleasant times, things were going so well for me that I felt free to explore at my leisure and return to that place of stability whenever I wanted. I think there’s great beauty in choosing to do things differently, not because you hate the way things are now and want to be different, but because you’ve found something that resonates more with you. At this point, I don’t see how I could do otherwise, and I look forward to seeing what I discover on this path.

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The Daily Stoic: “Stoic Joy”

Posted on August 3, 2019 by admin

For a long time now, I’ve considered joy to be more meaningful than happiness. Joy is something I’ve long considered to be deeper, richer, and more substantial than happiness, cheerfulness, and other similar feelings. There’s something about joy’s ability to last through (and get me through) even the most difficult seasons that puts it in a category of its own. This entry from The Daily Stoic describes that well and reminds me of why joy is so precious and worth pursuing.

“Trust me, real joy is a serious thing. Do you think someone can, in the charming expression, blithely dismiss death with an easy disposition? Or swing open the door to poverty, keep pleasures in check, or meditate on the endurance of suffering? The one who is comfortable with turning these thoughts over is truly full of joy, but hardly cheerful. it’s exactly such a joy that I would wish for you to possess, for it will never run dry once you’ve laid claim to its source.”

–Seneca, Moral Letters, 23.4

We throw around the word “joy” casually. “I’m overjoyed at the news.” “She’s a joy to be around.” “It’s a joyous occasion.” But none of those examples really touches on true joy. They are closer to “cheer” than anything else. Cheer is surface level.

Joy, to Seneca, is a deep state of being. It is what we feel inside us and has little to do with smiles or laughing. So when people say that the Stoics are dour or depressive, they’re really missing the point. Who cares if someone is bubbly when times are good? What kind of accomplishment is that?

But can you be fully content with your life, can you bravely face what life has in store from one day to the next, can you bounce back from every kind of adversity without losing a step, can you be a source of strength and inspiration to others around you? That’s Stoic joy – the joy that comes from purpose, excellence, and duty. It’s a serious thing – far more serious than a smile or a chipper voice.

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Daily Self-Care

Posted on August 2, 2019 by admin

One of my favorite chapters in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is the one that encourages us to Sharpen the Saw. This involves taking it slow for a while, making sure we get plenty of rest, and temporarily backing away from our usual routines to either avoid getting burnt out or to recover from burnout that’s already occurred. While I do a lot of this every so often, I also do it in small ways nearly every day.

For example, I try to drink plenty of water even if I’m not thirsty. Taking decent-sized sips every few minutes keeps me hydrated, makes me feel better, and allows me to act more effectively. I also like to have small snacks when I’m at work to keep hunger at bay or at least take the edge off. Whenever I spend a lot of time around other people, I always make sure to spend plenty of time by myself afterward since I find that draining. And, although I prefer to avoid medicine as much as possible, I will use it occasionally to prevent a headache or uneasy stomach from getting worse and turning into a major problem.

Doing these small acts of self-care can turn a bad day into a good one and a good day into a great one. It’s all about listening to my body and giving it what it needs to function properly and feel good. That can vary from one day to the next. Some days I feel ravenous and others I have hardly any appetite. However I feel on any given day, I try to follow Don Miguel Ruiz’s advice in The Four Agreements and always do my best in everything, including taking care of myself. There’s no reason not to, especially when it often takes so little work to feel so good.

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Reframing Myself

Posted on August 1, 2019 by admin

I felt on edge for a while last night. It started with the caffeine in the sweet tea I had with my dinner and the cookies I had for dessert. That, along with watching a video of people getting angry and fighting with each other, brought up a lot of unpleasant memories and gave me a lot of nervous energy. Fortunately I was able to start feeling much better within a minute by reframing myself using a combination of life hacks that I’ve either learned from other people or discovered for myself.

After I noticed how I was feeling, I remembered a concept that I learned from Daniel Kahneman in Thinking, Fast and Slow. Kahneman discusses how we tend to overstate the importance or prevalence of something if we’re focusing heavily on it; he calls this “what you see is all there is”. Since I had just finished watching a lot of violence and hostile emotions, my adrenaline was pumping, I was ready to fight if need be, and I started thinking about potential situations in which I might resort to violence. So at some point, I reminded myself that the events in the video weren’t happening to me, which helped me calm down and avoid mentally projecting myself into those situations (I can’t remember exactly when I did this; it may have even been while I was watching the video). I then recited the words to the Mister Rogers song “What Do You Do With the Mad That You Feel?” Reciting that song out loud always makes me feel better and this occasion was no exception.

Even though I hadn’t done any grounding, breathing exercises, or even changed my position on the couch, I still felt a lot calmer after doing those few things. I then went outside and juggled in the backyard for a while to burn off some energy in a positive manner. Unicycling and doing chinups later on also helped burn off extra energy in addition to taking my mind off the video and giving me something positive to occupy my thoughts. By the time I took a warm shower to relax and feel sleepy (a trick I learned from a sleep expert on one episode of Joe Rogan’s podcast) and finished my usual nighttime routine, I was feeling wonderful. The life hacks I used worked perfectly and allowed me to quickly move past the negative emotions and the nervous energy I felt earlier. This shows that life hacks work incredibly well as long as I remember to use them. I still have difficulty with this at times but it’s getting easier to put them into practice. I hope this has been helpful for you and gives you some ideas for what to do when you feel on edge.

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