I write 1-minute insights daily. Below are my latest. Like? Enter your email to get updates.
I help busy people do inner work.
I write 1-minute insights daily. Below are my latest. Like? Enter your email to get updates.
One of my students stayed late after martial arts class last night and vented to me about many of the life problems they’re facing.
All justifiable ventings, too. This wasn’t complaining or gossip.
Towards the end, after about 30-minutes of sharing heavy, grief-causing, out-of-their-control life situations… they made one final comment about their cats.
…And how on top of everything else they had just mentioned, the damn cats won’t let them sleep.
If they’re locked out of the room, they’ll paw the bottom of the door and rattle it and mew until they’re let in.
If they’re let in, they’ll knock stuff over, crawl all over them while they’re sleeping, and mew before the sun comes up because they want to be fed.
To which I said, you know what?
…This is something you shouldn’t compromise on.
And if that means fixing the door so it doesn’t rattle… using ear plugs… getting a white noise machine… and locking the cats out of the room… then so be it.
Life is hard enough as is.
As was evidently outlined in the 30-minute vent session leading up to this point.
But what makes life absolutely intolerable and miserable is being intolerant and miserable because of an ongoing lack of sleep.
If you’re going to take on the relentless and unforgiving blows of life… the least you can do is get a full night of sleep so you can take it on with a full energy charge.
…Or at least do everything in your power to facilitate it.
…Starting, yes, with the cats.
What is inner peace but the act of dwelling in harmony?
And what is harmony, but a living feeling of balance?
One of the reasons I think we modern humans find it so hard to dwell peacefully… is that we live in a world of stimulants and irritants designed to do precisely the opposite—throw us off balance.
The ploy is simple: peacefully dwelling humans don’t feel any particular urge(s) to buy anything. So make them feel ugly… make them feel inferior… make them feel left out…
…And what just so happens to pop up on the other side of those campaigns? The product or service you can buy that’ll fix the very problem they created for you in the first place.
The modern day path to success—if we define success as dwelling in harmony—should be (1) to eliminate as many of those polarizing and irritating campaigns from our perception as possible and (2) to include as many of the opposite as we can find.
…Then, we can finally begin the (inner) work of balancing what’s already been polarized and irritated thus far. Leaving us… eventually… feeling more neutral… more present… and more peaceful in the small moments that make up the majority of our lives.
I have heard it said that camera roll communicates priority. Because moments you consider important or remarkable within the context of your life—you capture.
If your camera roll is filled with family cheesing, friends posing, and animals wildin’ out… it’d be pretty easy to see how they would be considered important.
If your camera roll is filled with watercolor skies, natural scenery, and breath-taking landscapes… you might say the outdoors are important to you.
If you camera roll is filled with crowd-filled venues, ecstatic dancing, and roller coaster beat drops… you can see how music, dance, and experience would be seen as important.
…But what if your camera roll is filled with something else? Something that, if you were to list out your top priorities right now, wasn’t on your list? Something that you would actually not want people to reference and use as insight into what’s important to you in life?
What if all that was filled in your camera roll was pictures and videos… of you? What do you think that communicates? How would that make you feel? There’s no right or wrong answer… just an idea worth contemplating.
I don’t understand a lot of poetry I read.
And I think many times, it’s because meaning is encoded. And decoding doesn’t just happen after one pass of the words.
There’s an intentionality with just about everything in poetry. From specific word choice, to word count per line, to line length, to rhythmic structure, to breaks/punctuation/capitalization, and so on…
In other words: what poetry might be missing in length, it adds in encoded depth.
And to the most careful and keen of readers… that depth may be uncovered and enjoyed in full.
And to those who give the poem a once-over, scratch their head, and simply move on with their day… confusion will be what they’re left full of.
And you know what…?
It feels to me that the same is very much true for life…
P.s. Trying to decode some meaning? You can check out my poems here.
Yesterday, I found myself sitting stuck between the idea of staying in or going out… and I spent upwards of 30 minutes staring out my front window trying to decide which path to take.
See I was tired from the day and am always down for a relaxing night in. But I also had the chance to go see an incredible DJ play two hours away from where I live—which was an event I had been thinking about on and off for several weeks leading up to the day.
And when the moment came to make the call… I couldn’t decide. And the longer I waited, the more stuck I felt.
…Until I had the following thought: there will be a time when I won’t even be able to entertain this as an option anymore. And staying in will just be the default.
And with that… I gathered up the energy I had, bought the ticket last minute, packed up a toothbrush and some power bars, and hit the road.
I know for sure it would’ve been something I would’ve regretted if I didn’t go. And if you ever find yourself stuck in a similar situation… maybe a similar line of thinking can help you get to where your life’s limited energy has the potential to take you… before it’s too late.
For those who have lived through intense physical and emotional experiences (i.e. abandonment, abuse, betrayal, trauma, manipulation, etc.)—defensive layers against the world almost become a requirement.
Otherwise, the repeated pain becomes too much to bear. And so layers of armor go on, walls are built, and ways into the tender softness of a person get closed off and locked up.
It’s no wonder, then, that once the intensity subsides… and a person grows or escapes into a more tame, calm, predictable environment… that they can feel numb to many of the more tender, soft, physical and emotional experiences of that environment—you’ve go armor on, walls built, and locked gates!
…Of course you won’t feel the warmth of the sun as it touches your armor… or the raindrops as they fall gently from the sky onto your helmet… or the cool, calming earth beneath the steel on your feet… at least not yet.
Like a flower, you need to give yourself time and space in this new environment. Your nervous system is used to desert-like conditions… intense storms… dramatic changes in climate. You’ve built walls and layered up in armor to protect yourself against the harsh conditions you’re used to getting bombarded by.
Gentle feeling comes back only after you’ve taken some of that armor off. After you’ve opened up. Once you’ve relaxed into the moments of normal, modest weather and have allowed yourself to feel as you did when you were a kid—before the desert and the storms and the pain.
It’s not that you don’t feel… it’s that you’re learning how to feel again.
There’s the thrill of a roller coaster… and there’s the thrill of hearing someone say, “I love you”—in an I see you kind of way.
There’s the thrill of buying the latest luxury item… and there’s the thrill of walking barefoot in the sand—free of desire.
There’s the thrill of sexual pleasure… and there’s the thrill of sitting in a rocking chair, next to a life partner, reflecting on the pleasures of having done life with them.
I hope you get to experience both in life.
And maybe even more so, I hope when the time is right, you’re able to move from the former in the above examples, to the latter.
Because it’s the latter… yes… it’s the latter, indeed… that holds a depth to the thrill that even the highest roller coaster drop could never compare.