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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Layers

Posted on July 31, 2019 by admin

When I became serious about self-improvement, I didn’t know what to expect. It became clear early on that this would be painful much of the time, although regular progress and periods of deep peace more than made up for the difficulties. Still, I think I expected the path to be fairly straightforward and that it would look something like this: notice something in need of work, do the work, and then move onto the next thing. Has it been like that? No. No it hasn’t. It’s like that on occasion but a lot of the journey has involved taking several steps backward, getting stuck in some places for weeks or even months at a time, revisiting pain that I thought I healed long ago, and consistently running into situations that challenge me to relinquish destructive habits in favor of better ones. Overall, my journey has been anything and everything but straightforward.

My mindfulness buddy describes this as working through many different layers. Even after spending a lot of time making progress in a wide range of areas, there is always more that can be done. As I continue to go deeper, I keep finding new layers that contain more things to work on. This continuous discovery gives me ideas for new subjects to discuss or new ways to view subjects I’ve written about before. And every time I think I’m nearly “there”, I come across another layer and realize that the rabbit hole keeps going.

Will there ever be an end to the self-improvement journey? Will I ever run out of layers? I don’t know. Several people who have way more experience with this stuff than I do have said that there are always things to address while we’re alive, so this may very well be a lifelong journey. Even those who appear to have “made it” may still have some struggles I know nothing about since I’m only seeing their successes. Whether I make enough progress to fully self-actualize within my lifetime or end up making regular improvements until I take my last breath, I still plan to do as much learning, growing, and sharing as possible.

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Some Recent Realizations

Posted on July 30, 2019 by admin

I had some startling realizations yesterday at work and on my way to get some food after my shift ended. One of them was that I still do a lot of people pleasing in certain areas of my life. Another realization may have given me some insight into why that’s still a habit for me. If that’s the case, then it has to do with failure. I’m not afraid to fail at some things since much of what I’ve learned (including juggling, dancing, unicycling, and the limited Spanish that I know) has involved a huge amount of repeated failure. However, I don’t like to fail in front of other people. More often than not, I practice things in private until I get good enough that I can do them fairly consistently whether I’m alone or with someone else.

I think this is because I want other people to perceive me as capable, talented, and impressive in many different areas. Even though I know this isn’t the case, I still have the feeling that I’ll be seen as clumsy, uncoordinated, and lackluster if I can’t do something well in public. When I juggle at the park once a month, I tend to only demonstrate patterns that I can already do pretty well; I rarely work on new things or things I haven’t done in years at the park. I also haven’t unicycled around most of the people I see on a regular basis. I practice with my unicycle in my driveway so that my efforts go unseen and I intend to wait until I can control it much better before doing it around those close to me.

I don’t know exactly what to make of these realizations at this point. This is where I’d usually share a lesson I’ve learned or a plan I have to solve a particular problem, but right now I have neither of those. All I know is that I have to be aware of the things that I’m doing before I can do anything about them. So all I intend to do for the foreseeable future is continue observing my behavior and thinking about what makes me act how I do. Maybe this will give me the insight I need to change some old habits, or maybe it’ll just make me more mindful as I go about my day. Either way, I’m looking forward to seeing what happens.

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The Daily Stoic: “What’s on Your Tombstone?”

Posted on July 29, 2019 by admin

I always enjoy finding places where two or more books I’ve read overlap. This entry from The Daily Stoic fits together nicely with Stephen Covey’s recommendation in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People to begin with the end in mind. Both entries deal with imagining the end of your life and thinking of your potential regrets, accomplishments, relationships, etc.; you can then use those “findings” to determine the kind of life you want to live and work toward it one step at a time. This is a powerful exercise that everyone should do, and I’m glad to see it appear in two of the most amazing books I’ve ever opened.

“When you see someone often flashing their rank or position, or someone whose name is often bandied about in public, don’t be envious; such things are bought at the expense of life…. Some die on the first rungs of the ladder of success, others before they can reach the top, and the few that make it to the top of their ambition through a thousand indignities realize at the end it’s only for an inscription on their gravestone.”

–Seneca, On the Brevity of Life, 20

Sometimes our professional commitments can become an end unto themselves. A politician might justify the neglect of his family for his office, or a writer might believe her “genius” excuses antisocial or selfish behavior. Anyone with some perspective can see that, in fact, the politician is really just in love with fame, and the writer enjoys being condescending and feeling superior. Workaholics always make excuses for their selfishness.

While these attitudes can lead to impressive accomplishments, their cost is rarely justified. The ability to work hard and long is admirable. But you are a human being, not a human doing. Seneca points out that we’re not animals. “Is it really so pleasant to die in harness?” he asked. Aleksander Solzhenitsyn put it better: “Work is what horses die of. Everybody should know that.”

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Lighting Candles

Posted on July 28, 2019 by admin
Related image

The quote in that picture serves as an occasional reminder for me to keep my priorities in order. For many years, I spent a lot of time criticizing things that I disliked instead of figuring out how to take action that would make a positive difference. I’ve since changed that and now, with occasional exceptions, I try to include potential solutions to problems that I see in the world whenever I criticize something.

Standing for something rather than standing against something else makes this easier. For example, if I were to merely oppose darkness, that would keep my focus on the very thing I want to eliminate. I may end up creating an identity for myself around opposition to darkness. That could very well cause me to speak out strongly against darkness while doing everything in my power to keep it around in order to preserve my identity; if darkness were eliminated, what would that do to my sense of self and sense of purpose? I’d be much better off by taking an approach based on adding more light and being careful to avoid making that part of my identity. Then my energy would be spent on figuring out how to take positive action to bring about a desired end, which would make it much more likely that I’d accomplish my goal.

This approach of being proactive rather than reactive also facilitates good communication. If I’m clear about what I want to accomplish, then those with similar intentions can work alongside me and those with different intentions can find something else that resonates better with them. This greatly reduces the chances of misunderstandings or alliances that are based on shared opposition to one thing rather than shared support of something else, which can often be more trouble than they’re worth. Fortunately, these problematic alliances are easy to avoid as there are plenty of candles that we all can light by ourselves every day. And by working together, we can all help fill the world with light, one candle at a time.

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