It Doesn’t Have to Be Perfect

Posted on August 16, 2019 by admin

I try to maintain some consistency with the look and feel of this blog. For example, when I’m posting something from The Daily Stoic, I’ll pull up previous posts from that book so I can keep the same format. However, I try not to be a slave to this mentality; some variance is fine with me as long as I clearly express my ideas. That’s why I’m not super concerned if some of the smaller details change from one post to the next.

For at least the past few years, I’ve cared more about the message than the messenger or the medium. There are many wonderful speakers who have used their extensive vocabularies, perfect enunciation, and beautiful voices to deliver exciting, encouraging, and motivating speeches without ever missing a beat or stumbling over a word. Some of them, however, were all about style and had little to no substance. Their speeches are remembered more for their appealing arrangement than for their message. Given the choice between listening to a speech that sounds good but feels empty and a speech that’s full of meaning even if the presentation is lacking, I’d gladly take the latter option.

I’m perfectly willing to read something that has a lot of typos, watch a low-quality video, and listen to people who have great things to say even if they’re not the best speakers. Likewise, while I always do my best to make my posts look good and contain as few errors as possible, I’d rather focus on crafting a clear, relatable message that people enjoy reading than get so hung up on the presentation that I lose sight of what I’m trying to say.

Even though I know that some people would frown upon certain aspects of my writing and that this isn’t the ideal theme for a blog, I don’t worry about either of those things. I’ve developed a writing style that fits me well and lets me clearly communicate my ideas and chosen an appearance for this blog that I really like and works well enough. I don’t make any money off this blog and I don’t intend to do so, so having a certain appearance isn’t crucial. I blog because I enjoy it, it’s a great way to get my thoughts out there, and it helps me and several people who’ve talked to me about it on numerous occasions. As a recovering perfectionist, getting used to things being “good enough” rather than perfect has been difficult, but blogging has made it easier. Doing my best to put out quality work always makes me feel good, and that’s good enough for me.

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My 1-Year Blogging Anniversary

Posted on August 15, 2019 by admin

My first blog post went up on August 15th, 2018, so I can officially say that I’ve been blogging for a whole year as of today. It feels like I’ve been blogging for much longer than a year, which may be due to the fact that I’ve put up more than 365 posts at this point. I avoided making a separate post about that because I wanted to celebrate both milestones at the same time.

As of now, my plan to continue posting every day for the remainder of 2019 looks a lot more achievable than it did months ago. I’ve somehow been able to put up a new post every day since I started, so I figure I can keep that going since I’m so close to the finish line. Once 2020 rolls around, I’m going to switch to weekly posts so that I’ll have more time to work on each post, examine the subjects I discuss more thoroughly, and ultimately create better posts. Plus it’ll allow me to focus more on my other interests and even explore new things. Since I’m in the habit of posting regularly, I’m confident that I can post once a week without forgetting, falling behind, or losing my touch.

I’ve come a long way since my first blog post. It’s now easier for me to express my thoughts through writing as well as speaking, I’ve gotten more courageous at sharing what’s on my mind (at least through my writing), and I’ve explored a lot of things that I had previously discussed with only a few people before I started blogging. Writing and posting regularly has shown me connections and possibilities between many subjects that I’d have otherwise never noticed; it has also made me rethink a lot of things and see the world very differently than I used to. Further, my life situation is overall much better now than it was last year, much of which is due to the reading and writing I’ve done for this blog. This is especially true for the handful of friends that I’ve grown much closer to through talking about the subjects I typically include in my posts.

There are countless things in my life that I’ve started and quite shortly thereafter. However, blogging has brought me so much joy, clarity, peace, and personal growth that I can’t imagine ever giving it up. As long as I still have ideas worth mentioning and some way to write them out, I’ll keep sharing my thoughts with whoever’s interested in reading them. This journey has been incredible so far and I’m looking forward to seeing where it takes me next.

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Self-Confidence

Posted on August 14, 2019 by admin

For the past few weeks, I’ve been feeling a lot less social than I usually do. This is especially the case around people I hardly know or don’t know at all, but I’ve even felt this way around some of my closest friends. My job is very social and I think I’m still doing ok at connecting with people there. That’s probably the case because I love what I do, I mostly talk to just one person at a time, and I get to recharge by spending plenty of time by myself. Even so, it’s still taken a lot more effort for me to make those connections as of late. It’s been even more difficult when I’ve gone out purely for social reasons.

One aspect of this is that I’ve been having a hard time finding and maintaining interest in conversations. I still want to connect with people but I also don’t want to fake interest. Additionally, I’ve been feeling like a lot of the stuff that I’ve used as helpful aids in conversation is manipulative or shallow, which makes me want to avoid using it. Since I’ve leaned heavily on a lot of that stuff for the past few years, where can I go from here? I have an idea.

I’ve heard Penn Jillette explain his approach numerous times. He seeks to avoid trying to convince anyone to adopt his perspective since he sees that as manipulative and disrespectful. Instead, he simply shares his thoughts in an honest, straightforward fashion. That includes feeling whatever emotions he’s feeling at the time and saying what he thinks, even if it’s unpopular. He’s also completely open to the possibility that he might be wrong about anything, which allows him to genuinely listen to the perspectives of others. I think he’s onto something. I like how he describes that approach and the self-confidence he has that allows him to use such a direct approach. I probably won’t duplicate his style exactly since he and I have quite different personalities but I think that there’s a lot of good stuff in how he approaches these things.

In a few recent conversations I’ve had about how I’ve been feeling lately, the issue of confidence has come up. Some people who are close to me have expressed interest in helping me gain more self-confidence so that I can fully develop into the person I’m capable of becoming. I’ve had small tastes of that in the past. During some seasons in which I’ve had a great deal of confidence, I felt much more comfortable speaking my mind and interacting with nearly everyone I met. That deep sense of peace alongside a feeling that I’d be ok regardless of what happened allowed me to do some awesome things. I’d like very much for that to become the norm for me. I somehow figured out how to get there before, so I can absolutely find my way back if I apply myself.

Those conversations helped me feel better since they brought into the light a lot of stuff that was once hidden away and I think they also helped me pinpoint the causes of my confidence issues. If so, then I know what to do to heal that pain within myself and move forward into greater self-confidence and inner strength. I’m glad to know a lot of great life hacks to help me with this as well as some great people who are encouraging me and helping me get where I want to be in life.

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Describing Problems

Posted on August 13, 2019 by admin

I had a phenomenal heart-to-heart yesterday with someone who helped me learn a lot more about myself. That exchange also reminded me of a great concept related to solving problems: if you can describe the problem, you can solve it. This approach works well for me because it forces me to slow down and think things through from a simple starting point. That prevents my mind from running away from me and making me feel overwhelmed. When that happens, I can easily imagine many different ways that the problem could get worse but I can’t think of any way to solve it. Pausing and thinking about what I’m trying to change helps me determine what’s wrong and then find a solution.

Sometimes this requires a lot of thinking but occasionally the answers come to me with hardly any effort. On those occasions, I’ll just start talking about a problem I want to solve and I’ll find a solution within a matter of minutes (sometimes even seconds). Although this works well when applied to external matters, it also helps when directed inward. Describing something I’d like to change within myself allows me to watch my behavior as if I’m an outside observer. Doing this, along with thinking of myself as someone I’m supposed to help, can give me enough separation to see possibilities that would otherwise have remained hidden from me.

This is one reason I value these heart-to-heart exchanges with people I trust. For one thing, talking openly about my concerns and struggles just feels good. I always enjoy being able to let my guard down and fully share myself with another person who is also doing the same. Additionally, doing this helps me notice behaviors I had never thought much about before and find ways to change them if I like. Like I mentioned in the previous paragraph, this gives me some extra self-awareness, either by simply sharing things that are on my heart with someone I trust or getting feedback from them about things they see in me that I can’t see in myself. I’m going to try to keep all of this in mind and make good use of it. I hope this helps you as much as it’s helped me.

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Unexpected Joys

Posted on August 12, 2019 by admin

Life is full of unexpected joys. These joys can appear at any time and work wonders. They can make a wonderful season even better or make a rough season easier to manage. Here are a few of these joys that I’ve experienced lately and which have made things a little better for me.

  1. Receiving thoughtful, unexpected gifts outside of gift-giving holidays
  2. Hearing a kind compliment about yourself through the grapevine
  3. Speaking your mind about a difficult subject and having it go over much better than you’d expected
  4. Receiving sympathy and understanding after revealing a struggle
  5. Finding out that someone thinks highly of you in ways you didn’t expect
  6. Having a heart-to-heart with someone you trust
  7. Having someone show you things they see in you that you don’t see in yourself
  8. Suddenly discovering a solution to a problem that’s plagued you for years
  9. Running into a dear friend after recently thinking about them
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Asking the Right Questions and the Overview Effect

Posted on August 11, 2019 by admin
Image result for thomas pynchon questions

The above quote from Thomas Pynchon has been incredibly influential to me. I think of it more quickly, more easily, and more often than most other quotes I know. Its message is so simple and straightforward, yet the more I think about it, the more it affects how I look at life. Sometimes it’ll come to mind when I’m seeing one distraction after another fly by on my Facebook newsfeed. Other times I’ll remember it in the middle of a rant about something that’s gotten me hot under the collar. In any event, it always makes me pause and examine my approach to whatever I’m doing at the time.

There is so much fluff in modern life. So many things that are not only completely unnecessary but actually prevent us from focusing on things that matter. As long as enough people can be misdirected into paying attention to irrelevant things as if they are important, they can be prevented from taking effective action to make the world better. Some of this misdirection is intentional and some is mere happenstance. Either way, it’s a problem. Fortunately, there is a solution.

Astronauts have talked about the perspective shift that occurs when they’ve gone to space and seen the Earth from orbit. This phenomenon, called the overview effect, gives them a sense of connection to everyone on Earth and shows them their place in the universe. As a result, they quickly become aware of what is truly important and can see through most of the blinders intended to keep us in the dark. It’s the ultimate example of zooming out and seeing the big picture without anything trivial obscuring the view. This new perspective isn’t limited to just their time in space as it stays with them even after they’ve returned to Earth.

We can experience this same perspective shift without ever leaving the planet. Meditation is one way to get it. I’ve felt that sense of connection and love for all beings a handful of times in deep meditative states. Floating also offers an excellent chance to experience the overview effect. In addition to the calming effects of floating, the pods provide a feeling of weightlessness that removes all tension from the body and simulates being in space, allowing one to feel totally at peace with life, the universe, and everything. These are two ways I’ve found to experience this higher perspective and I’m sure there are many others. I like taking a big-picture view of things at least a few times a week. It helps me avoid the fluff, remember what’s truly important, and make sure I’m asking the right questions. If enough of us keep those three things in check, then we’ll all have a lot to look forward to in the years to come.

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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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