Breaking My Social Media Addiction

Posted on March 26, 2019 by admin

I’ve mentioned a few times that I’m trying to avoid spending excessive amounts of time on social media. Recently, I’ve started finding ways to actually succeed in doing so instead of just talking or thinking about it. Here are some things that I’ve found helpful.

Perhaps the simplest thing I’ve done is refrain from posting stuff that’s intended to upset people and start fights. This is hardly a new thing for me, but it’s taken me a long time to see just how effective that is. If nobody’s interested in fighting on my profile, that gives me fewer notifications to check. Many of my positive posts will get reactions and a few comments, but nowhere near as many comments as my past provocative posts. This makes me less inclined to log in and get caught up in something that takes up a great deal of my time.

After that, simplifying my social media presence has made me less interested in checking it. One way I’ve done this is by posting less stuff than I used to. The less activity I have online, the smaller the chance of someone commenting on something of mine or contacting me, which gives me fewer reasons to log on. Making my life more interesting and exciting has also made me less interested in taking a break from it. I’d much rather do fun things with cool people (or by myself) than mindlessly scroll through a website. I do take regular breaks from socializing so that I can recharge, but even then it’s nice to stay away from social media.

Last but certainly not least, preventing certain things from appearing on my newsfeed has worked wonders for me. It’s easy enough to hide, unfollow, unfriend, or even block people and posts I don’t want to see. I have used and will continue to use each of those features to avoid upsetting posts, frightening images, trolls, excessively negative people, and other similar things that remove value from my life. In short, I don’t want to have a messy, stressful social media presence that’s going to drain me every time I check it. At this point, I’d much rather use it to share things I find helpful with the people I love and have it serve as an occasional break instead of a second life. I’m sure I’ll find more life hacks for taking time away from social media, but so far, these have all worked well to give me more peace of mind and helped me spend less time online.

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Review of How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World

Posted on March 25, 2019 by admin

How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World is a fantastic book written by the late Harry Browne. I had previously watched one or two videos in which Browne discusses some of his ideas about living life, but I had no idea how much thought and experimentation he put into it until I read this book. Here are some of his ideas.

The central message of How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World is that you can live a great deal of your life in freedom, which Browne defines as “living your life as you want to live it”. To do this requires getting out of what Browne calls “traps”. He considers a trap to be an incorrect, unchallenged assumption or mindset that prevents you from living as freely and happily as you could be. Browne spends the first section of the book pointing out various traps, showing how easy it is to fall into them, and discussing some suggestions for getting out of them.

In the second section, Browne goes into detail about potential ways to be free from as many traps as possible. Many of these involve pursuing direct alternatives (actions you can take completely on your own) rather than indirect alternatives (actions that require someone else to act in a certain way). This way you’re acting within areas that you control, which prevents you from having to depend on other people to do something for you (or refrain from doing something to you). Taking control of your life and preventing yourself from being dependent on others is a major theme that is repeated throughout the book.

Browne spends the third and final section of the book discussing some ideas for putting these changes into action and building the life of your dreams. The result: you’ll be able to choose between two or more things that will increase your happiness (positive decisions) instead of trying to decide which of several courses will least reduce your happiness (negative decisions). According to Browne, the more opportunities you have to make positive decisions, the freer and happier your life will be. And he gives plenty of examples of what that looks like for him and what it might look like for you.

Browne’s take on a number of subjects is quite different than most conventional perspectives. In some ways, this is the most radical book I’ve ever read, and there were a number of things that surprised me. Some of those surprises were pleasant, especially when it involved a perspective I’ve held since long before I read the book and couldn’t recall seeing elsewhere. However, there were also several points where Browne and I didn’t see eye-to-eye. Some of these include our views on morality, the degree of selfishness that we’re comfortable practicing, and the lengths to which we’re willing to go in the pursuit of freedom. Despite our disagreements, Browne and I still arrived at many of the same conclusions on a number of matters even if we had different ways of getting there, and I still think the book contains a lot of great stuff.

Trying to list all the life hacks in How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World would take far too much space here, but there are a few worth mentioning: refraining from making important decisions during times of great emotion, mentally rehearsing possible outcomes to upcoming difficult situations to better prepare for them, and considering all the potential relevant consequences of your actions before making a major decision. I learned about several of the concepts Browne discusses from other sources last year, but reading about them in this book has helped me practice them more in my life. While I plan to read it several more times, I feel like my life has already become better and freer just from my reading it once and putting some of its ideas to the test. I highly recommend you check out the book. Normally I include a link to the books I review, but this case is a little different. I read this as a PDF on my Kindle, the book appears to be out of print, and many of the existing print copies are quite expensive. That is why I’ve not linked to the book in this post. Still, if any of this sounds interesting to you and you can find a good copy in print, digital, or audio form, check it out and see if it helps you find more freedom for yourself.

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What Are You Willing to Do?

Posted on March 24, 2019 by admin

What are you willing to do to live the life of your dreams? Whatever it is that you want in life, what changes are you willing to make in order to get it? Depending on what your life currently looks like compared to how you’d like it to look, you may have to change a number of things, including your schedule, habits, mindsets, responses, location, source of income, and ways you spend your free time. There are many other potential changes you could make, and they may be permanent or just temporary. With all of them, though, it’s up to you to decide if those changes are worth it if they’ll help you get where you want to be.

Of course, you first have to recognize that you can make changes to get where you want before you can be in a position to carry them out. So many people never accomplish their major life goals because they don’t think they can, so they fail to see opportunities to succeed or turn away in fear when those opportunities present themselves. It can be difficult, scary, and even painful to make major life changes, especially since you don’t know the outcome in advance. But if you can conquer all those concerns and pursue your plans wholeheartedly, you stand a much better chance of success than everyone who never tries.

I’ve been learning about all of this firsthand over the past year or two. That’s about when I started taking these things seriously and putting them into practice. Since then, I’ve seen major improvements in every area due to all the changes I’ve made, and I’m on the brink of some incredible opportunities that should take me into the next phase of my life. Occasionally, I think back to what my life used to be like and wonder how I was ever content with that. Then I wonder what I’ll think about my current life situation, as amazing as it is, in a few more years; I have a feeling I’ll see it as a period of laying the groundwork and preparing the soil for everything that’s on the way. And I’m so excited to see what that looks like.

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Positive Relationships

Posted on March 23, 2019 by admin

Any relationship, whether it’s between romantic partners, friends, acquaintances, or family members, requires both participants to want it in order for it to work. If you’re doing all the work, what does that say about the relationship? It means the other person doesn’t have to create plans, contact you, or initiate anything; there’s no need for them to do any of that since you’re already doing it all. That’s not much of a relationship, and even less of a friendship.

There’s no need to be friends with any particular person, especially if they’ve only shown interest in being an acquaintance. It’s fine to just be someone’s acquaintance and focus on shared interests when you’re with each other without spending a ton of time together. Likewise, it’s perfectly acceptable to remain friends with someone if they’ve made it clear that they’re not interested in having a romantic relationship. Trying to force an acquaintanceship to become a friendship or a friendship to become a romantic relationship only leads to trouble. Pressuring someone, either subtly or overtly, into associating with you in a way they find uncomfortable can put an end to the relationship and ruin any chance of it becoming something more, especially if it goes on for an extended period of time. Fortunately, there are much better alternatives.

The best relationships feel natural, genuine, and comfortable, and they’re free from the awkwardness and desperation that often plague shaky relationships. So instead of trying force a relationship with a certain person to go in a particular direction, why not look for another person who is already interested in going that way? As mentioned in the previous paragraph, you can still maintain your existing relationships and enjoy the time you spend with those people. But if you’re looking for something more, there’s always the option of finding someone with whom you can have the kind of relationship you have in mind. This way, you can relax in all your relationships, accept the relationships and the people in them as they are, and not expect any one of them to be something they’re not. Each relationship can grow and develop in the way that’s best for both people without any pressure to be anything other than what it is. I’ve benefited a lot in the short time I’ve taken this approach to relationships and I think many other people could also benefit. And, from what I can see, it looks like some are already finding that out for themselves.

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Making Laziness Work for You

Posted on March 22, 2019 by admin

Although I can work hard when I set my mind to it, I can also be very lazy without even trying. Most people tend to see laziness as a bad thing and I can also see it that way at times. Other times, however, I see it as beneficial. Here are some of my thoughts on laziness.

For starters, there’s the idea that a lazy man will do the job right on his first try because he doesn’t want to have to do it again. Whenever I’m tempted to give a halfhearted effort, I think about the prospect of having to repeat it later, which usually motivates me enough to do my best. It doesn’t work if I’m in an indifferent or uncaring mindset, but most of the time it works like a charm.

In addition to motivating me to do my best, I think laziness is also why I’ve developed consistent, reliable routines. It’s much easier to establish and stick to a routine than to always make plans. Once something becomes automatic, it requires almost no thought and allows me to save that brainpower for other matters. I don’t have to think about or plan most of my days in a given week since I have solid routines, and I quite enjoy that.

Some of the heavier subjects I discuss can appear overwhelming to me and make me reluctant to even begin writing about them. Laziness comes in handy here since there are often YouTube videos about what’s on my mind, and watching them helps me gather information before writing. I could be trying to learn about something new, remind myself of something I already know, or just look at how others discuss a particular subject so I can figure out how to organize my thoughts. In each of those cases, taking some time to do something easy and productive prevents me from feeling overwhelmed, gives my subconscious time to come up with ideas, and gets me closer to completing a post.

Lastly, laziness helps me avoid burnout by giving me time to rest, relax, and recharge. I normally feel laziest when I’ve had super busy weeks with a lot of stuff going on almost every day. That lazy feeling serves to tell me that it’s time to slow down for a bit and recover; whenever I ignore that feeling, I always end up overextending myself and wearing myself out. This is just one of many ways that learning to listen to the desire for laziness has served me well. So don’t be afraid of laziness. Used properly, it can be a wonderful tool for self-improvement, productivity, and recovery.

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Review of The Lego Movie

Posted on March 21, 2019 by admin

Last night, I rewatched The Lego Movie. It had been a few years since I last saw it, so I forgot how good and insightful it is. That may sound like a strange thing to say about a movie based on small plastic bricks, but I found a lot of good stuff in it. As usual, this review contains spoilers, so I recommend skipping it if you haven’t already seen the movie.

Emmet Brickowski (played by Chris Pratt) is a construction worker who finds great joy in being just like everyone else, right down to watching the same TV show, singing the same song repeatedly, buying the same overpriced drinks, and always following his instructions. At the end of one of his shifts, he finds “the piece of resistance”, which is supposed to be able to stop President Business (played by Will Ferrell) and his plan to permanently freeze everyone in place. Emmet then teams up with a group of master builders (who can create nearly everything out of the Lego bricks around them) who believe him to be “the special” that Vitruvius (played by Morgan Freeman) foresaw in a prophecy he made up. Incredible visuals and sharp comedy accompany them on their journey to save the day.

The Lego Movie makes use of a lot of clever comedy in examining various aspects of modern life that most people take for granted. Some of those issues include blindly following someone else’s “rules”, missing out on important matters by watching mindless TV, trying to fit in with everyone else rather than finding one’s own unique identity, and subverting creativity in favor of “order”. In short, the movie points out the value in retaining one’s individuality instead of just being another face in the crowd. This is quite fitting for a movie based on Lego as the toy allows for a great deal of creativity, originality, and imagination. Although I didn’t find The Lego Movie to be among the funniest comedies I’ve seen, I still enjoy it for its message, visuals, and solid performances. If you haven’t seen this awesome movie, do yourself a favor and check it out.

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Moving Away from Materialism

Posted on March 20, 2019 by admin

For around a year now, I’ve been working on and off at decluttering and moving away from materialism. I still have a lot of stuff and occasionally buy more of it (usually books), but my interests have changed a lot over time. It was a slow, gradual approach, but I’m now at a place in life that I never thought I would be.

I’ve realized the extent to which I and most other people in the US can get caught up in “keeping up with the Joneses” and all the trouble that can cause. The more stuff I have, the more space I need to store it; if I have too much stuff to fit in a house, then I’d have to pay for another place to store it and periodically check on it. Plus, no matter where I store my stuff, there’s always a risk of someone taking it. Protecting it requires even more time and money, which drastically reduces my ability to pursue bigger, more exciting things in life.

In contrast, the less stuff I have, the more freely I can move around and travel without being so tied down to one particular place. I’ll be able to spend more money on things I truly value and less on accumulating things I don’t really want, need, or use in the first place. If I have very few possessions and I lose everything, it’ll be much easier to rebuild than if I had a ton of stuff. I can support important causes with the money that I’ll save by not buying and storing everything that catches my eye. And, by getting rid of a lot of small stuff that doesn’t serve me, I can make room for the important stuff I do want to keep. Whatever stuff I do end up keeping, I want it to be my servant rather than my master.

As I said in my post about Classic City Swing 7, I’d rather have a heart full of memories than a shelf full of trinkets, and I’ve been living accordingly as much as I can. Instead of always being on the lookout for new stuff to buy, I prioritize traveling and trying new things. I focus on learning new skills and improving at the skills I’ve already developed. And, whenever possible, I enjoy spending time with other people while doing things that cost little to no money. My best stories all involve experiences I’ve had, not stuff I’ve owned. And the less stuff I have, the more freedom I have to pursue meaningful experiences with the most important people in my life and create wonderful stories that I’ll treasure for the rest of my life.

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The Source of My Optimism

Posted on March 19, 2019 by admin

Until the past few months, I had never thought much about how I developed the strong sense of optimism that I’ve had from a young age. Now that I’ve thought about it for a bit, I think I have an answer.

I watched a lot of TV shows and movies and read a lot of books growing up. Many of these contained stories of people overcoming tremendous obstacles, becoming better versions of themselves, and mending broken relationships with their friends and family members. There wasn’t anything that they couldn’t talk about, work through, or transcend together. No matter what happened, everything always turned out well in the end and all the main characters got their happily after ever.

I read and watched these stories about near-ideal worlds almost every day. I’m sure that this, in addition to having a pretty sheltered life growing up and possibly having a natural sense of optimism, is where the vast majority of my optimism came from. I’m also sure that it’s a huge part of why I got so upset whenever a situation didn’t have that happy Disney movie ending. Those upset feelings usually manifested as anger and then often became sadness later on. I had to learn that sometimes people don’t listen, sympathize, or change their hurtful ways. Sometimes everything doesn’t get wrapped up in a nice bow by the time it’s over. Understanding and accepting that has been incredibly hard for me. The lowest times in my life came when I had lost my optimism and became convinced that everything would just get worse over time.

Eventually, however, I got out of that funk and experienced what felt like a rebirth into a new life full of wonder and possibilities. That started me off on a path of exploration and discovery that eventually resulted in my starting this blog as a place to record my observations and work through my ideas. Additionally, as I’ve gotten better at accepting and working within the world as it is now (which I think is essential before trying to make it into what it could be), it’s also given me a better sense of how to navigate life. Instead of burning myself out trying to force something that clearly isn’t meant to be, I can work on something that, though it may still be difficult, is well worth doing and adds a great deal of value to my life. Focusing on things that are directly within my control has given me a greater sense of optimism than I’ve ever had, and I look forward to seeing what the future holds for everyone.

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Overcoming Defeatist Thinking

Posted on March 18, 2019 by admin

I’ve never been good at accepting what I see as artificial limits that some people try to impose on others. This includes not seeing eye-to-eye with anyone who says that the world has always been like this and will always be, so there’s no point in trying to change anything. They’re right in a way, since taking that attitude inclines one to refrain from trying to make a positive difference, thereby making their statement a self-fulfilling prophecy. I used to argue a lot with those people but, eventually, I realized that doing so is a tremendous waste of time and prevents me from focusing on things that I can do to make the world a little bit better.

More often than not, when someone says “That’s impossible”, they’re really saying “I can’t think of a way that could be done”. They’re doing themselves a great disservice by limiting their thinking like that. The Magic of Thinking Big includes a passage that wonderfully illustrates the degree to which our mindsets affect the way we view the world. In short, thinking that a given task is impossible prevents us from seeing any way to accomplish it; thinking that that same task is possible causes us to think of several potential solutions. If someone has spent most of their life in a defeatist mindset, it may take a great deal of time for them to start seeing a myriad of possible solutions for any given problem. Likewise, if they’ve spent a lot of time seeing the world in terms of possibilities instead of obstacles, then potential solutions can come to them almost immediately and with little to no conscious effort on their part.

I’d rather start by putting every idea I can think of on the table and then trying them out than limiting myself by immediately throwing out “unrealistic” ideas. Sometimes the best ideas turn out to be the ones that initially seemed crazy or counterintuitive. In other cases, I might never end up needing an idea way down on the list because an earlier idea worked just fine, or I might find out from experience that that idea fails and look for another possible solution. To me, the more options in any given situation, the better the chances of finding a terrific solution.

At this point, I pay little to no heed to those who say that we can’t possibly overcome a particular problem. Instead, I look at the people who are already well on their way toward solving that problem, especially if they explain how they’re doing it. I’ve always been drawn to these kinds of people and the way they ignored those with defeatist mindsets, dreamed of a better world, and then did everything they could to bring it about. They didn’t always succeed in exactly the ways they had envisioned, but they always accomplished much more than those who never bothered to try. What if we took a page from their example? What if we set our minds to the idea that that we can change things and then went to work to make it happen? What would the world look like if we did that? I want to find out. Do you?

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Review of The Truman Show

Posted on March 17, 2019 by admin

The Truman Show is a wonderful movie. Before I delve into it, I’ll warn you that I’m going to spoil most of it down below, so I recommend skipping this post and watching it for yourself first if you’ve never seen it. With that said, on with the review.

The movie centers on a man named Truman Burbank (played by Jim Carrey) who is living in an artificial world. For his entire life, Truman has lived inside a massive Hollywood television studio made up to look like a small seaside town called Seahaven. Everyone in the town, from his neighbors to his coworkers to random passersby and even his wife and best friend, is an actor. They, along with everyone behind the scenes, work nonstop to make Truman think that he is living a normal life. The truth is that Truman’s whole life has been broadcast on television 24/7 for nearly 30 years. In a rare interview, Christof, the show’s creator, talks about how the viewers enjoy watching Truman’s genuine actions and reactions as he goes about his life, unaware that he is the star of an international reality TV show. Christof also says that Truman could discover the truth and leave if he really wanted to, and that there’d be nothing they could do to stop him.

Gradually, Truman begins to suspect that something is up. His first clue comes in the form of a studio light that falls out of the sky early one morning. However, he only truly begins opening his eyes once he sees his father, who was “written out” of the show in a fake death when Truman was a little kid in order to extinguish Truman’s desire to explore and see the world. From there, he notices one mistake or oddity after another until he knows that there’s more to Seahaven than meets the eye. Once he catches onto the scheme, he abandons his normal routines in favor of finding more “glitches” and seeing how far he can push the limits.

Eventually, once his “wife” leaves him after being scared senseless by his increasingly erratic behavior, Truman seems to return to normal, resuming his regular routines and mostly acting as if he had never noticed anything unusual. One night, though, the crew are surprised to discover that Truman has escaped. This leads to a massive manhunt all across Seahaven and, for the first time in the show’s history, cutting the broadcast. After searching the land proves fruitless, Christof orders the crew to bring up the “sun” and check the water. To everyone’s surprise, Truman is on a boat, sailing away from everything and everyone he’s ever known. Desperate to keep the show going, Christof resumes broadcasting and orders the crew to assault Truman with foul weather, wind, and waves; despite their initial reluctance, they oblige. This fails to stop or even slow Truman, however, so Christof increases the intensity until Truman nearly drowns. Truman recovers once the weather calms back down and continues sailing until he crashes into a wall on another side of the studio. He gets out of the boat and finds a door marked “exit” at the top of a small staircase. Right after Truman opens the door, Christof starts speaking to him through a microphone, finally revealing the truth and trying to get him to stay by promising him safety and security in Seahaven. Ultimately, Truman chooses to walk through the door and into a life of his own choosing instead of settling for Christof’s imaginary world.

The central message of The Truman Show is that some people will lie to you and manipulate you (sometimes going to incredible lengths in the process) to maintain the status quo and preserve the world as they want it to be, even if doing so requires keeping you trapped in an illusion. This could explain all the forced pleasantries and mundane activities of modern life that nobody really wants but everybody thinks are necessary or inevitable. These help to create and maintain a relatively “safe” existence for most people, but that quickly becomes repetitive and boring. Many people dream of abandoning that secure, predictable system in favor of forging their own path through unknown territory and rejecting the “normal” route, and a few brave souls actually do it. Fortunately, there are always a number of disruptions that slowly unveil the illusion to those who are listening and putting the pieces together.

Finding freedom from illusions isn’t always easy, though. In addition to the difficulty in noticing a illusion and figuring out how it works, there is often a great deal of pain involved once you begin separating yourself from it. For some, the pain, which can include severing ties with the people and institutions that kept them in the dark and drastically changing their life, can be so great as to keep them where they are. Others, however, choose to embrace the truth instead of remaining stuck in someone else’s imaginary world. These people are willing to pay whatever price is necessary to wake up and be free.

As you might have guessed by now, The Truman Show is one of my favorite movies. I’ve seen it three times now and I always find something new each time I see it. If you’d like to see more analyses of the movie, I highly recommend checking out these three videos. Each one does an excellent job exploring several awesome things about the movie and discussing them in plain English. I hope this review has been able to enhance your enjoyment of the movie and maybe point out some things that you hadn’t considered before. And I look forward to watching and enjoying the movie many more times.

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