Archive for the ‘Stimulus Space Response’ Category

#Create One Thing at a Time

Posted: January 10, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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Many of my journal entries over the past year or two have ended with me writing the words; one thing at a time.

Getting started can be so, so hard. The internal resistance to putting forth external effort and action if measurable, would go off the charts and break the instruments.

When one is able to at least temporarily squeeze through or push past perfectionism and create something, regardless of quality, the inner pressure release and sense of relief would be the equivalent of sky diving, while holding and anvil.

One thing at a time

One action at a time

One choice at a time

What is quality? What is good and bad? The gatekeepers have been out to lunch for decades at this point. Just do it.

Spotlight effect often holds people back. I know it held me back. With a little (or a lot) of Imposter Syndrome mixed in.

One thing I realized, after a very, very long time of thinking about it, journaling about it, meditating about it, drinking about itā€¦was that if I really did think what I wanted to create was so bad then I wouldnā€™t be negatively judging otherā€™s so frequently and/or so harshly.

But thatā€™s not what weā€™re doing when weā€™re negatively judging other acts of creation. Weā€™re projecting self hatred. I know I was. It got to the point where I was getting into verbal conflicts with people I hardly knew at bars overā€¦nothing. I think back to what started those verbal tiffs and after I cringe, I slap myself in the forehead and stay there because they never actually said or did anything. I was just projecting my self hatred onto others because I wasnā€™t doing what I wanted to do which was creating.

A creator that doesnā€™t create, otherwise known as a writer or artist sans the word professional prefixed.

Just publishing blogs, articles, essays, and thoughts has changed my mental and emotional state immeasurably. Is my content good? Is it important? Is it impactful? Well all metrics of external success would say no, then to pat me on my head and say at least you tried.

But itā€™s good for me. Itā€™s working for me. Itā€™s helping me. And you canā€™t help others unless you help yourself first. You canā€™t feed others from an empty bowl. You canā€™t put on someone elseā€™s oxygen mask if you are suffocating to death yourself.

One thing at a time

One action at a time

One choice at a time

People Get These #Ideas In Their Heads

Posted: January 9, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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People get these ideas in their heads.

People meaning me, meaning us, meaning everyone, ever.

We get these ideas in our head that we need or should or could or will.

Good ideas, bad ideas, neutral ideas, beneficial ideas, detrimental ideas.

We know we can be our own worst enemy. Yet itā€™s solemnly publicly acknowledged outside of college philosophy, psychology, sociology, and anthropology classes.

Self sabotage. I donā€™t have to explain what that is. We all know it through repeated experience. Both in important and irrelevant things that weā€™ve done to ourselves over the course of our lives regardless of age.

I could ask an 18 year old and an 80 year old to tell me a about a time they self sabotaged something that could have been a really good thing in their life, and theyā€™re likely to reply; ā€œyou just want one example?ā€

People get these ideas in their heads.

Out of nowhere. Like a meteor. It strikes and buries itself in the land.

Accepted as fact that itā€™s always been there.

Thatā€™s just the way it is, theyā€™ll say. They being the voice in our head.

Has it always been this way? Have I always lived this way? Is this helping or hurting me? Well itā€™s how Iā€™m living. Itā€™s how Iā€™m thinking. Itā€™s how Iā€™m perceiving. Itā€™s how Iā€™m feeling. Itā€™s how Iā€™m acting.

I wouldnā€™t think, perceive, feel, and act in ways detrimental to my own existence, surviving, or thriving would I?

People get these ideas in their heads.

#Habit Building is About New Not Old

Posted: January 9, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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It feels like Iā€™ve spent my entire adult life trying to improve my habits.

At least the periods of time I care to remember. Which are the periods of time in which I cared to care and tried to try. I also remember many instances of the internal resistance to trying to build new habits being so strong, it felt like a literal force from within my body pushing me the opposite direction.

In 2023 I read the book Atomic Habits by James Clear. One of the best books Iā€™ve ever read. I strongly recommend it for a host of reasons. While reading the book and after reading the book, one of the concepts that stuck and that I noticed when consuming other material related to habit formation, is the necessity of focusing on and doing the new thing rather than focusing on not doing the old thing.

That was a light bulb moment for me. Reading about that in the book, I knew both in my heart and in my head that I had spent the majority of time when trying to form new habits on what I didnā€™t want to do versus the new action I wanted to cement.

This concept legitimately helped me and is actively helping me now. You reading this blog is a product of me focusing on writing and publishing my work, rather than focusing on the time spent not writing and fixating on the details of what I want to write through the paradigm of perfectionism.

I like writing. I like blogging. I wanted to write again. I wanted to blog again. I posted an article that I liked one day last year. I just wrote it, revised it, and posted it. Then when I sat down to do the next one, the old habits of focusing on the topic, the title, the body, a catchy opener, and a well wrapped up closing line all creeped into my mind and put a writerā€™s block in front of the habit of blogging.

A couple of months later I read Atomic Habits. After finishing the book I read various articles and watched various YouTube videos on habits. The concept I found myself implementing the most in my day to day life was thinking about the new action, rather than thinking about past actions, past mistakes, past failures, etc.

The value of this concept is directly proportional to the action taken. Itā€™s real value that can be measured externally, based on the real action one takes. Iā€™m very grateful to have this paradigm taking hold in me. I hope it can do the same for whoever reads my words.

Quiet & Disidentify From Noise

Posted: January 6, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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For me, itā€™s mental noise I need to quiet. For others, they need to stop talking.

Ram Dass (quoted in the graphic above) was a spiritual teacher, who, I havenā€™t studied a lot of, but whenever Iā€™ve listened to his talks or seen of videos of him speaking, would almost always give me goosebumps at some point. In a positive way of course. His cup runneth over with love and compassion.

Contrast that with the spiritual teacher I have studied the most, Eckhart Tolle. Eckhart rarely gives me goosebumps, but who communicates in a way that connects with me deeply, on whatever subject or subtopic he speaks about. I try to watch one of his videos on YouTube every other day.

Iā€™ve also read both The Power of Now and A New Earth which I whole heartedly recommend. Theyā€™re very long and dense, so going with the audiobook version is probably the most pragmatic way to go. Iā€™ve done a read through and a listen through of each.

As Iā€™ve gotten older, Iā€™ve become more quiet. Iā€™m sure I talked more and was louder and more obnoxious in the my past than my ego and memory will allow me to believe. But I am now, and for a decent number of years have been a more quiet than talkative person. I recommend it. A great quote that I find evergreen and true is; ā€œthe loudest one in the room, is the weakest one in the roomā€.

At times Iā€™m too quiet for my own good. But I find that to be a better way than the alternative. Especially in a culture where more and more people not only think what they have to say is valuable, but worthy of immediate and constant broadcast.

As Iā€™ve gotten older, my mind has not followed my mouth in becoming more quiet. Iā€™ve been meditating for around fifteen years now. On and off. The relative consistency to habitual consistency kicked in ten years ago. Meditation is one of the only things I recommend to all human beings without exception.

The practice of meditation has quieted my mind more than it was before I started the practice. Like anything else it is not a one time, cure-all, magic bullet. Hence why it is called a meditation practice. But it does help me. Thereā€™s more and more science showing how it tangibly helps people.

The greatest gift meditation has given me up to his point, is to help me quiet my mind and to disidentify from my thoughts. Individual thoughts, thought streams, mental movies, the voice in the head. Meditation has helped me to reduce their influence, their frequency, and to stop confusing those things with who I am.

So there is less mental noise. So I can hear more. So I can learn more. So I can do more. I donā€™t know about you, but I have a lot to learn and a lot to do that will help me live my life the way I know I want to. So every little bit helps.

Thereā€™s Value in Just Getting Through

Posted: January 2, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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You have to survive in order to thrive.

Crawl, walk, run.

You canā€™t pour from an empty cup.

We all want to be better people. We all want to do better.

But sometimes, some days, we just need to survive.

External factors show up.

Internal factors bubble up.

There is no instruction manual.

There is no such thing as normal.

As long as youā€™re not negatively effecting other people, itā€™s okay to just do what you have to do to make it through to the next day, the next hour, the next minute, the next choice, the next breath.

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