Archive for the ‘Stimulus Space Response’ Category

#Stoicism for Breakfast

Posted: December 24, 2023 in Stimulus Space Response
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Studying philosophy, specifically Stoicism has been a life saver for me.

I have found stoicism and a meditation practice go together like peanut butter and jelly.

Which is appropriate, since the most famous work of the most famous stoic in the history of the world is called “Meditations” by Marcus Aurelius.

The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday has been one of the best things I’ve ever incorporated into my life. The book, the podcast, and the YouTube videos. I strongly recommend any and all to any person who reads my words.

Listening to the Daily Stoic Podcast first thing in the morning was a staple of my routine for years when it was just a couple of minutes long. In recent years, especially the last two, watching a Daily Stoic video on YouTube with my morning coffee has been how I start my days.

It puts my head in the right place…along with the coffee of course.

The concept of we don’t control what happens to us, we control how we respond has been not just a game changer, but a life saver. That concept completely changed my paradigm of my life at a time when my life desperately needed that change.

Stoicism is no magic pill of course. No such thing exists.

Philosophy has been a tremendous aide. A wonderful tool in the tool belt of helping myself and developing as a person. A way to help keep my ego in check.

First world, capitalist controlled, consumer countries all have out of control, exploited egos by cultural design. We suffer for it because we can never have enough externally. Stoicism teaches that we already have enough, internally.

Ready to Do

Posted: December 21, 2023 in Anarchy Journal Constitutional, Stimulus Space Response
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You have the want to change.

You have to want help.

You have to decide your’e ready.

You in this case, means me, means us.

I like the spirituality concept that we are all one, or come from one energy source.

Energy, atoms, etc.

Ten years of work to become an over night sensation.

There is a lot of internal work to do before I was ready for external.

So much baggage to let go of. So much to strip away.

Expectation, validation, opinion, anxiety, depression, laziness.

There is a lot of internal work to do.

Philosophy, mediation, exercise, journaling, yoga, psychology, communication…

Then I’m walking from one room to the next and I want to do the thing.

No thought, no worry, no excuse, no waiting, I just wanted to do the thing.

Then I did it and wanted to do it again the next day and the next day.

Years and years of nothing, no thing. No action. No doing.

There was a lot of internal work that was done.

There is a lot of internal work to do.

But I am grateful for the process.

I am grateful for the journey.

Some say that’s what life is…

First Drafts, Second Steps

Posted: December 20, 2023 in Anarchy Journal Constitutional, Stimulus Space Response
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Seeing this image helped something click in my brain.

Call it writer’s block, perfectionism, procrastination, or just being human.

I didn’t want to write, or do much that required effort. Why?

Well what if I fail. What if I don’t get anything out of it.

External. Ego.

The work is the win. It’s about doing what I love doing. Time well spent.

Who cares if it isn’t perfect, great, good?

It’s time well spent, because I like doing it. It’s part of the process.

Everything starts out bad. Every person who was great started out bad.

No exceptions, ever.

We all have to learn.

We have to learn how to live and survive, let alone thrive or specialize.

So it’ll be bad at first and down the road, if I stick with it, hopefully it will be better.

It still might only be me who ever reads these. But that’s fine too.

There’s genuine value in going through the motions.

The value is building beneficial habits.

It’s Okay to Start Again

Posted: December 19, 2023 in Anarchy Journal Constitutional, Stimulus Space Response
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I was going to start blogging again in May. I was inspired to write about one of the graphics that come up at the end of a Daily Calm mediation on the Calm app. I pinned the post to my Facebook and LinkedIn pages. I opened up an account on Medium. I wanted to write online again.

I journal daily or every other day. More consistent day to day, or bi daily journaling is one of the 2023 New Year’s Resolutions I actually stuck to. I’ve been writing but I stopped thinking about blogging again. I blogged regularly for years. That stopped when I started on a new path in life. The month before I moved was the last time I blogged.

I’ve thought about starting again a few times. This was going to be the year. The meditation blog/blurb was in May. It’s December. I was going to start again. Halfway through the year I was going to start again. Now the year is over.

So I’m starting again now. Not waiting for the new year. I’ll still put it on a resolution list. I’ve been making those simple and doable in recent years and sticking to a handful each year. So I’ll put blogging on the list…again.

I love writing. I love to write. I love to learn new things and write about them. I have wanted to write about the things I’ve learned on subjects like fitness, philosophy, spirituality, supplements, nightlife, psychology, and human nature for years now. Post an image or a quote or a link to the thing that inspired me to write, and blog about it in order to share it with the world. Not for clout or fame or attention. But for the good stuff. The deep stuff. The stuff that connects us.

And that’s why I’m writing and posting this. This is essentially a typed out journal piece to myself about starting again. A piece of content that I can look back on hopefully a couple dozen, a couple hundred or a couple of thousand blog posts down the line, and cringe with laughter.

But maybe one person reads this an feels like it is okay for them to start again too. Because it is okay to start again. For any reason. At anytime. It is okay to start again. No one is watching, no one cares, we’re all focused and busy living our own lives, focused on what we’re doing individually, so you might as well do what you want to do anyway.

I want to write. I want to share my writing. I want to write about the things I learn in life that help make me a better person. The things that help keep me sane. The things that help me get through hard times. I want to write about the things that help me live. For the good reasons. To help others, while helping myself.

Sharing means caring after all. What’s better to share than help? Sharing what helps me get through this thing called life. Sharing ideas. Sharing art. Sharing my…gift? Sharing what I love. Sharing, that it’s okay to start again.

@RyanHoliday Helps Lead Self Help’s New Wave

Posted: September 8, 2016 in Stimulus Space Response
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By @anarchyroll

Personal development and self-help are prime examples of noble causes with righteous intentions, hijacked by hacks and exploited for profit by wannabe writers and book publishing pigs. The gap between the advice of personal development material and its audience taking action is where mindless, repetitive, reused content has been plugged in for profit, for decades rather than an evolution of the genre for the betterment of the populace.

Tony Robbins seems like he wants to help the little guy, then you look at what it costs to attend his seminars and cynicism sets in quicker than you can say to yourself, I can’t afford that! I own written and audio copies of Stephen Covey books, yet no one I have ever lent them to has ever been able to implement his advice. Seth Godin attributes much of his success to Zig Ziglar, but for every Seth there are thousands upon thousands of people who bought those books on tape and got NOTHING out of them beyond something to listen to on the car ride to work.

I have listened to dozens of personal development audio books and read paper and electronic copies of even more. The vast majority of the material is presented in equal parts dense and abstract manner with ZERO emphasis on tangible application.

Tangible application is what the personal development genre of podcasts has been founded on over the past few years. Tim Ferriss is the unquestioned leader of the how to turn knowledge into application movement. His books have sold millions, and he is the unquestioned, undisputed king of podcasts as of press time. It came as little surprise to me that Tim Ferriss helped mentor Ryan Holiday into the literary and personal development powerhouse he is quickly becoming.

I read both The Obstacle is the Way and Ego is the Enemy in record time for my standards. Both books have been revised, produced, and presented in a way that is a model for personal development books to follow going forward. Easily digestible, not overwhelming, not abstract, and ALL directed towards turning the knowledge into application for the average person.

Based in stoicism, the usual amounts of inspiration quotes and past stories are given. But what Holiday proves his worth at is bringing all his concepts from thousands of years ago, to hundreds, to the present day. From camels, to horseback, to Uber. From scribes, to letters, to the iPad.

So much personal development material is based upon the concept of thoughts and general information OR is merely a tool to get people to pay money for coaching and seminars. Those are why self-help and personal development is laughable to many and considered snake oil to many others.  Holiday’s material is about action. What to do, how to do it, when to do it, where to do it, why to do it. Examples of historic figures are used but Holiday repeatedly emphasizes the importance of the readers’ duty to define what IT means to them.

Guiding people through their personal internal and external limits is no easy work. In his books The Obstacle is the Way and Ego is the Enemy Ryan Holiday does an exceptional job at leading his readers to water on how to conquer both. Both books are easy, quick reads without sacrificing depth or breadth of credible, applicable information. I can’t recommend these enough and the earlier in life one is able to read these books the better. Knowledge like this will certainly help the populace more than algebra and frog dissection.

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