Posts Tagged ‘life lessons’

Finding Freedom Over Fright in Knowing Everything is Temporary

Posted: June 29, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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The good news is; that nothing lasts. The bad news is; that nothing lasts. 

Freeing if one perceives things going neutral or worse in their life situation.

Frightening for those doing well or better and want to go on winning living forever.

Stoic philosophy came into my life at the right time. After my mother passed away, along with therapy and psychedelics, stoicism helped me process my grief by providing a bird’s eye view or long-term perspective on life itself. Guided meditations, which had already been a part of my life before her passing, became an even more significant part of my mental-emotional survival. 

Death, the knowledge of death, and acceptance of death play a significant role in why I still study stoicism daily. We are all going to die – it’s the only guarantee in life and something all living things have in common.

No two people experience life the same way. But we are all going to die someday. 

Everything that rises must fall; everything that comes up will pass away. And so the beat goes on.

Change is the only constant.

Permanence is an illusion.

“Nothing is permanent in this wicked world, not even our troubles” – Charlie Chaplin

I find that to be very freeing. 

But like the concept, the thought itself is fleeting. I haven’t remembered that thought when anxiety, melancholy, or laziness hijacked my mind in the past. Albeit, only temporarily.

In the blink of an eye from one moment to another – one choice to another – one day to another – one week to another – one year to another – everything goes from being identical to being completely different.

Yet there is something about human nature that makes us unconsciously cling to the concept of permanence. Regularity and reliability are lionized, why? Because they are the exception. 

Order is not the rule, chaos is. Nature is chaos. Life is chaotic. Yet we as humans think if we surround ourselves with concrete and cement we can shirk the truth and natural order of existence. 

Eventually, everyone finds out that everything is temporary. 

The good news is; that nothing lasts. The bad news is; that nothing lasts. 

A simple, irrefutable fact that like many things, is easy to forget. Stoic philosophy and guided meditation practices help me to remember. I recommend them both wholeheartedly. Because we can all benefit from remembering the transient nature of life more frequently than the current western world status quo. 

Unfollow Shame & Cultivate Growth Through Mindful Media Consumption

Posted: June 22, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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“There is beauty and humility in imperfection.” – Guillermo del Toro

We are our own worst critic. We identify with our thoughts by default. We think we are our minds by default. So the idealized image of ourselves that we have in our heads is the standard we hold ourselves to. Regardless of how unrealistic that image is.

Then life layers wouldas, couldas, and shouldas on top of that idealized self-image. Social media inundates us with non-stop upward social comparisons. The rest of the media seems determined to scare and isolate us. Now all of a sudden negative self-talk that was once a pesky house fly, has evolved into a full-on rodent infestation. 

Our lives are constantly a work in progress. Social media not only encourages but actively boosts and rewards people and brands who present their image as a finished polished product. In the moment, how could we not compare ourselves and feel less than?

“Comparison is the thief of joy,” – Theodore Roosevelt

Self-criticism, like everything else in life, doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It often spirals, like all bad habits seem to do.  Before we know it, we haven’t just had our joy taken from us, but our confidence, esteem, and belief in ourselves. 

Curating our social media feeds is a more tangible option than deleting them altogether. Much like how eating a little better and doing a little exercise is a more realistic way of getting in shape. Small steps, one at a time, will add up more consistently than radical change at once for the majority of us.

The current era of social media has made philosophy, mindfulness, psychology, health, and wellness information more accessible, digestible, and entertaining than ever before. Searching topics and following accounts on informative and educational content has been a big help for me since the COVID lockdowns. 

Not a day goes by that I don’t watch at least a couple of Reels or YouTube shorts with clips from some of my favorite authors or thought leaders on self-improvement material. Whereas I once had to choose to watch a twenty-minute video or listen to a whole podcast, I can now get snack-sized, 30-second, personal development information on pretty much any platform. 

This can serve as a positive/productive double-edged sword. In that, it can make people feel less bad/wasteful about using social media in the first place, then provide beneficial information that is as easy to consume as it is to understand. So we’re beating ourselves up less for doom scrolling, and beating ourselves up less because we’re feeding our minds healthy information instead of metaphorical junk food.

Every little bit helps.

It really does. Every little beneficial thing we do for ourselves does help and does add up the more we do. No cure-all or magic pill of course. Consuming some informative content while we’re staring at a screen doesn’t do the work of self-actualizing for us. But it’s a step in the right direction, even if it is a baby step.  Baby steps still mean we’re moving forward. 

Some of the accounts I follow that create content that adds value to my life:

The Daily Stoic, The School of Life, Eckhart Tolle, Robert Green, Philosophies for Life, Therapy in a Nutshell, Dr. Tracey Marks, HealthyGamerGG, T&H, Einzelganger, Hellohappie Inspiration, Huberman Lab, and After Skool…

Check any/all of those out, let me know what you think of them, and if you have some recommendations of accounts you think I should look into, please let me know in the comments.

Busyness ∞ Escapism is a Trap

Posted: June 5, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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Busyness to escapism is a vicious circle and a trap. 

Either can be confused with purpose which is dangerous. Put together, they’re deadly for one’s spirit and steroids for one’s ego. 

Busyness is not productivity or discipline it is avoidance and anxiety put into physical action. Keep busy to avoid _______________.

Stay busy long enough and you need an escape. A treat. A vacation. Some me time. Some self-care. Candy, carbs, social media scrolling, video games, sex, drugs, binge-watching, a drink, a smoke, a weekend getaway, and so on. It’s all the same. 

I’m burned out from being busy but I still need to avoid __________________ so I need to take/do my favorite ____________ so I can feel ______________.

 

“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” – Blaise Pascal

A meditation and journaling practice are the simple answers here. Getting one’s thoughts out of their head by writing them onto paper, helps to clear the mind for a meditation practice to help detach and observe one’s thoughts mindfully while focusing on an anchor like one’s breath or body. 

But life isn’t simple and people aren’t simple. From a detached, safe, secure, bird’s eye view things may seem simple and easy. But life is not lived from a Goodyear blimp angle looking down. We’re in the trenches daily, minute to minute, breath to breath, trying to do our best with what we have. 

To stay busy long enough to earn an escape via entertainment is what many in first-world, capitalist-controlled countries, are incessantly conditioned to believe is what makes for a good life. Carrot and stick. Cheese in the maze. Do your job, earn your treat. Create shareholder value, have a pizza party.

However mental health is declining exponentially with every passing generation. Depression, burnout, and loneliness increased as consistently as the US Stock Market over the past century. Much like economics in America, a small percentage are doing very well while the vast majority suffer due to systemic failure. 

Therefore things like meditation, journaling, yoga, philosophy study, heavy weight training, nature bathing, cold exposure, deep breathing exercises, light therapies, legalized cannabis and hallucinogens, etc. all exponentially move from the fringe to the mainstream with every passing generation. Why? To counteract the systemic failures forced upon them, by the prior generations that seem to become exponentially more; fearful, greedy, and angry with each modicum of increased control and longevity they gain.

What do all the listed above, formerly; fringe, new-age, woo-woo, alternative, holistic, organic, practices have in common? They get a person present, focused, out of their head and into the present moment. Out of the delusion of the undue stress modernity thrusts upon them ad infinitum and into their physical bodies while detaching from their mind activity. They cultivate mental-emotional space, which can help put one in a space of non-doing and non-attachment. 

Cultivating that inner space, between stimulus and response, is how we break the vicious circle of busyness to escapism. Many great philosophers and spiritual teachers of the past and present have talked about this. Alan Watts, Ram Dass, Wayne Dyer, Eckhart Tolle, Wim Hof, Tim Ferriss, Ryan Holiday, Mark Manson, etc. 

Breaking that cycle, getting out of or avoiding that trap; is how one builds, one conscious choice at a time, a purpose-driven life. And a purpose-driven life doesn’t mean one tries to save the world or become a monk living on a mountain, or a motivational speaker. It simply means you live your life for you on your terms.

You have the space to get to know yourself, deeply and fully. You can determine your actual values, your actual morals, your actual wants, and your actual needs rather than the ones externally assigned and forced upon you. Then you assemble your ideal life step by step, action by action, choice by choice, day by day. Then, the real work of living begins. 

Experience Has No Substitute

Posted: June 3, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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Inaction is the norm in the first world. It’s hardwired into us since we no longer have to be hunter-gatherers but still have the brains of hunter-gatherers.

Back seat drivers, armchair quarterbacks, and hindsight critics abound.

Paralysis of analysis, has become the new gold standard of inaction origin, in the so called information age. I know I had a detrimental perception of action, doing the work, and getting the reps in on actions, abilities, and ways of life I was passionate about for a long time.

Resistance, as the great author Steven Pressfield puts it, is in all of us. We all have our own unique form of resistance that stops us from self actualizing. The most common terms for resistance are laziness and procrastination.

Laziness and procrastination are as easy as they are deadly. Deadly for our spirit, psyche, and self esteem. They feel so right in the moment of choice. It’s the devil we know. The warm blanket of certainty. What we think we want as long as we’re warm, fed, and dry.

Yet to lack experience is to not know what one wants. We don’t know because we haven’t done.

There is no substitute for experience. First new experiences to find who we really are and what we really like, for ourselves. Not what we inherited or were told or had forced upon us. Then we need repeated experience. We need to get our reps in to gain proficiency and hopefully maybe one day mastery.

Competence breeds confidence.

Action begets more action. Inaction begets more inaction. Inertia.

Fear of failure likes to crash the party when planning and early action gets put into place. Fear of failure is let in by the ego. Again, it’s natural, it’s normal.

“You mean I can try and not only fail but also might find out not only am I not great but that I’m not special?!”

That’s right. Taking right action is only the minimum. It’s the cover charge. Action doesn’t guarantee one’s desired outcome. Taking action guarantees a result. The result could potentially shatter our self perception.

Self perception is often, to put mildly, a delusion. Having the idea of who we think we are popped like a bubble is often what we fear more than external failure. It’s the internal perception atomic bomb that we want to avoid most. And with good reason. We aren’t taught how to handle ego death. In fact culture and society pushes us in the other direction. The more ego the better. Bigger ego = better person.

Better to keep lying to ourselves on the sidelines than face the truth in the arena.

Failing is hard, I know from vast experience. Being forced to see and admit one isn’t as good or as special as one hoped or assumed we were, that’s harder. A lot harder. I know that from experience as well.

Sometimes our mental/emotional cuts callous and we’re tougher, but sometimes they remain open wounds. Life can be hard and complex as it is. Going through life, accumulating more metaphorical open wounds, can make living much harder.

So it’s normal and natural to not even try and invest deeper into the stories in our heads. Double down on identifying with our life situation, our thought streams, our mental movies, our emotional narratives. I understand that. I spent, oh, probably the majority of my life in that space.

It’s still day to day, what isn’t? I know I had to live that way, and experience that way of living to know that that way of living isn’t experience and is no way of living at all.

I would never want to consciously go back there. Yet I’ll wake up in the middle of a day and realize I slipped into unconscious, detrimental habits and have been living on the sidelines instead of the arena for minutes, hours, days, weeks, months…

It’s day to day, action to action, choice to choice… what isn’t?

I’m finding as I get older that the fulfillment, contentment, and satisfaction of effort and action are far greater than the pleasure of passive consumption. Rest, relaxation, and escapism are not to be confused with purpose, but it’s easy to get them mixed up.

Inertia.

Inside Out or Upside Down

Posted: June 3, 2024 in Stimulus Space Response
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“Cliches are cliches because they are true.” – Harsh Bhogle

Self-improvement, like all things, has many cliches. One of the longest-lasting, most prevailing self-help cliches is that everything you need is already inside you. That can come across as a slap in the face to someone who has experienced trauma and/or is currently experiencing mental-emotional suffering.

But if what we needed to live a life of fulfillment and contentment was outside of us, something that we could buy or consume, that would be the world’s most sought-after product. What’s the most valuable company in the world right now? Apple? Amazon? Are they selling a fulfilling life of purpose and contentment? 

The path that we all must walk on our journey of personal development involves looking outside of ourselves initially. Just like learning to walk or ride a bike. We have to fall. This can hurt because it is often a metaphorical fall that brings us to self-help, personal development, and self-actualization knowledge in the first place. 

“I already fell, I’m already hurt, I’m already broken…now you’re telling me I have to fall again?!”

No, I’m saying you’re going to fall way more than just one more time. I’m saying you’re going to fall so much your body is going to callous like if you were training for the military, martial arts, or pro wrestling. 

There’s no getting around pain, no avoiding suffering, no matter how much we may initially wish it wasn’t that way. When we get to the other side, those of us who are lucky enough to live long enough to get to the other side, we always find that our pain and suffering were our greatest teachers and wisest guides. And they don’t point us out there, they point us back inside. 

Now we do need external things to trigger awakening in my opinion. Trigger doesn’t have to be a dirty word regardless of what the last decade-plus of the white-privileged culture war in America may lead us all to believe. 

My experience has taught me that positive external things can trigger an internal awakening,  internal paradigm shift, or internal growth of one’s locus of control. Were those external things needed for me? Are they needed for you? 

Well, we all have to walk our own path in this life. No two people experience life the same way. No magic pills, no cure-alls. What is external can serve as an aide or a salve or a push or a rail. But nothing external can create permanent change within us. If it was possible then that’s what Apple or Amazon or Walmart or Google would be selling. 

So we have to do it alone because it has to come from within, but nothing great can be accomplished alone. So of course external factors play a role. They certainly have for me. But a personal trainer can’t make a person get into shape. A dietician can’t make someone eat healthy. A doctor or surgeon can’t give someone health or life. 

So ultimately it comes back to us, over and over and over again until we pass on. We have to find and cultivate and grow abundance, grit, discipline, positivity, and all the ways we wish to see and live in the world from the inside out. 

And like everything else in life, it’s not a one-time thing. We don’t sweep and mop the floor once and it stays clean forever. We don’t mow a lawn once and it stays trimmed forever. We don’t do our laundry once and we have clean clothes forever. We don’t lift weights once and stay strong and muscular forever. We don’t eat once and stay full forever. We don’t take one drink of water and stay hydrated forever.

…and the beat goes on…

It’s a lot. It really is. It never ends until our physical life ends. So if that’s how it is, and it is, then we really need to find within us that which can never be taken away, that which can never be exchanged for goods and services. We have to find it, we have to accept it, we have to cultivate it, we have to nurture it, we have to love it, we have to live it.

I never thought I’d be a walking talking writing new-age self-help stereotype but here I am. And I’d never want to go back. 

I never want to go back to sleep. I do sometimes. Just because you awaken once doesn’t mean you stay awake forever. We slip, we fall backward, unconscious living and detrimental habits show up, and go on auto-pilot in the blink of an eye. 

Then what? I awaken, tune in, pick myself up, dust myself off, and get back on my path. The inner path first, then the outer path of tasks, goals, etc. 

But none of the external is possible without getting the internal aligned first. Don’t believe me?  Take a look at the rich and famous. Take a real look, past the filters and Photoshop. Do they seem aligned? Do they seem content? Do they seem fulfilled? That’s why they need to be in public right? That’s why they need to be constantly, externally validated…because they’re so fulfilled and content…

Inside out. Internal to external. Otherwise, you’re going to find yourself perpetually upside down. 

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