With vulnerability and authenticity, arguments aren’t needed—genuine connection happens seamlessly.
When walls are built around emotions and facades cover feelings, arguments act as the storms that tear down those “fronts” to finally expose what’s fortified underneath:
Vulnerability and authenticity.
I find that the best moments often closely follow the worst ones.
If you find yourself in some of your worst moments, hang on. Allow the depth of the experience to move through you. Let it deepen your roots into the ground.
Remember that, eventually, your worst moments will be no more. They will pass as all moments do—best and worst alike. And, more solid into the ground, you will be able to reach higher into the sky than ever before.
How do I know this? Because it’s how great heights are only ever reached. Not in spite of the worst moments—as a result of them. Not without deepened roots—precisely because of them.
Where’s the best place to make a pond ripple?
Answer: there isn’t one.
Where’s the best place to make a difference?
Answer: there isn’t one.
Right where you are is as good as any.
Just start turning your ideas into actions and toss them into the pond.
The ripples will follow.
Question #1: Who brings out the best in you?
Question #2: Who brings out the worst in you?
And now for my real question: Is it really ever anyone but you?
In other words, sure, it’s easy to think that the best people will bring out the best in you and the worst people will bring out the worst in you. But, what comes out from you shouldn’t ever be dependent on them.
What comes out from you should solely be dependent on you.
Everybody should get your best. Not because they deserve it or have earned it—maybe they haven’t. But, because regardless of who you’re surrounded with, even the worst, nobody has the right to control your state of mind.
Life is too short to spend even one minute (that’s sixty seconds we’ll never get back) in your worst state.
And that’s not all—it perpetuates. Their worst state becomes your worst state which likely will become someone else’s worst state. We have to become the alchemists of our minds. We must learn to convert anger to patience; frustration to perseverance; pain to creativity. We must choose to break the cycle.
Otherwise, we might as well pass over the quality of our life to the people nearest to us throughout our days. And hope for the best.
Every act of creation
adds a drop to the tide
every compliment made from nothing
every thank you properly shared
every smile gifted to another
every work of art created with care
every loving embrace
every bridge made from here and there
adds a drop to the tide
that lifted us from down there
Every act of destruction
takes from the tide
every comparison made
every expectation shared
every frown imposed upon another
every opportunity for work, done without care
every embrace avoided
every bridge burned leaving some here, some there
takes from the tide
that lowered us from up there
From nothing to something
we are the creators of tide
From something back to nothing
oh, don’t you damn hide
It’s you and it’s me and it’s all of us together
creating and destroying
lifting and lowering
caring and not caring
that results in the tide that we
like it or not
all have to share
While working out, I think about how I don’t want to workout.
When I don’t workout, I think about how I should’ve worked out.
The first burns ~60 minutes of thinking from my day.
The latter burns closer to ~600 minutes.
Get it?
Now go get done what you know needs to get done.
With the possibility of a 10x return on your investment, you’d be crazy not to.
“The MOST IMPORTANT feature of a sustainable habit: You don’t hate doing it.”
Mark Palmer, Twitter
This doesn’t mean you have to love doing each of your daily habit tasks, just that you don’t hate doing them—there’s a difference.
Moving even one tick back from “miserable” to “don’t like it,” can remarkably lengthen your habit’s lifespan and prevent you from burning out altogether.
Like when you move one tick back from “red zone” to “yellow zone” while running. That minor pace adjustment can give your legs a major boost in life. And you’ll last far longer than you ever would’ve if you stayed in “red.”
While “red” is what moves you fast, “yellow” is what takes you far.
This is how I approach all sustainable habits. Fast isn’t what I’m after—far is what I want. The question I often ask myself is, “How can I make this more like an enjoyable run and less like an all out sprint?”
And I move things a tick back wherever I find myself in “red.” Similarly, I move things a tick forward wherever I find myself in a “green.” Because being in “green,” of course, doesn’t take you anywhere far or fast. It keeps you comfortable where you are.
And even though I don’t like being uncomfortable, I make sure that what I’m doing never makes me miserable. Because not only is “miserable” bad for the run—it’s bad for all future runs! And if you want to go far, going in misery is no way to go.