Month: June 2024

The Worst Awning Creaking

Published on June 9, 2024

I have a metal awning covering the front door of my house.

It has been making an awful creaking noise whenever the wind picked up for the past few weeks.

It’s definitely not new and is something my mind started budgeting for as soon as I started hearing the screech. I figured I would first budget time to see if it was something I could fix myself. I could call over my handyman dad and see if whatever was loose could get tightened and we could clean her up—leaving her good as new.

If that didn’t work, I figured I would budget money for a new one and I started thinking about different colors and styles I might choose to replace it.

This went on and on in the background of my mind since I started noticing the reoccurring sound several weeks ago.

It wasn’t until I actually went outside today and took a closer look that I realized all of that horrible creaking… and screeching… and reoccurring annoyance…

…Was from one singular, oh-so-tiny bush branch—no bigger than my pinky—that was rubbing up against the front of the awning in such a way and at such an angle that it made that obnoxious noise.

I reached up, broke off the branch, and voila… problem solved.

How often is it the case that we do silly things like this? Make something oh-so-tiny into something way bigger than it needed to be? Something that could’ve been solved at the outset with a little up front investigation and energy… but got delayed and blown out of proportion instead…

Oh, how much energy I (we) could have saved…

Traveling the Distance

Published on June 9, 2024

Today, the Martial Arts Association I’m a part of hosted a black belt and higher level degree test for 80 candidates.

Each earned their way onto that testing floor from years and years of consistent hard training and well displayed martial arts culture / respect.

And each outlasting many of their peers who started on the same journey with them. Maybe only 1% makes it all the way from white belt to black belt. And maybe .01% makes it to the higher degrees. Their dedication carried them forward to a place where most never travel.

And so it is with everything we do in life.

There’s nothing wrong with stopping something you’re no longer passionate about or choosing to explore other areas of interest. But, do that too much, and you’ll never get to travel to that place where only the smallest of percentages get to.

What you pick doesn’t matter per se… what matters is that you pick.

And that you give what you pick your absolute best shot… through thick and thin… when it’s sunny outside and when it’s rainy… when you’re feeling lazy and when you’re feeling on top of the world… when you’re feeling low and when you’re feeling unstoppable…

Traveling the distance is what gives us roots. It’s what gives us depth. It’s what gives us wisdom.

Miyamoto Musashi said, “To know ten thousand things, know one well.” …And this is what he means.

Go deep in one specific domain and the rest of the universe reveals itself. Submit to your lazy nature and dilly dally your way from one thing to the next to the next… and you’ll forever only understand what’s on the surface.

Who Is A Rich Person?

Published on June 7, 2024

…This is the question we’ve been discussing this week at the martial arts school I teach at.

Some of the student answers we received ranged from, “Someone who has a lot of money” to “Someone who has a lot of kindness” to “Someone who has a lot of friends” to “Someone who has a big house and fancy car” to “Elon Musk/Jeff Bezos” etc.

And after discussing those answers, the answer we offered for the students to reflect on was, “Someone who appreciates all they have.”

…If your mind immediately goes to rich by comparison, then you’ll always be poor.

There will always be someone out there who has more money, more luxury items, more connections, more resources, more privileges, etc. Always.

And this is the trap so many of us fall into when we equate richness to being about what we have in comparison to.

Richness, I’d encourage you to consider, has nothing to do with comparison.

Richness has everything to do with perspective. It’s a feeling that can be cultivated—not a title earned from a number of zeros.

And once we realize this and can start actively cultivating that feeling of richness in our lives via appreciation, gratitude, mindfulness—suddenly the game we’re playing changes.

…Suddenly we get to step off the hamster wheel we’ve been trained to run on (the one that only speeds up and gets harder the harder we speed up and run)—and get to start soaking it all in instead. With each step… each conversation… each touch… each smile… each exchange along the way.

P.s. I also published: 20 Heavy Michelle Zauner Quotes from Crying In H Mart on Cancer and Grief

Problem Solving Like A Gardener

Published on June 6, 2024

An inner work exercise: pick a problem, any problem, you’re facing in your life right now… write it down.

Inquire as to whether the problem is being caused by a deeper rooted problem or if that problem is the core problem that can’t be traced any deeper.

If it can be traced deeper, write down that bigger problem and continue until you get to the core.

Next, move in the opposite direction, start at the core problem and string together all of the additional problems that one root problem is causing—creating a roots-of-a-tree looking diagram.

Continue until all of your ideas are exhausted.

Then… study that diagram. Look closely at the impact of that one root problem. Imprint that impact on your mind. Let it soak deeply into your conscious awareness.

Continue this inquisition by imagining, like a gardener tending to the weeds of a garden, how this problem will respond if you remove or “solve” one of the superficial layers… visualize how, with the root still in tact, it’ll just grow back and manifest itself equally, if not stronger, than before.

Then, visualize how the problem will respond when you remove or “solve” the core problem… visualize how, like a weed being yanked out in full, all of the connected problems will be solved, too.

Finish by mentally repossessing all of the energy you normally devote to the solving of superficial layer problems, and vow to unleash ALL of that repossessed energy on the root problem itself.

Sometimes, we feel overwhelmed and outnumbered—not because of the number of problems per se—but, because of our lack of focus on root problems vs superficial problems.

Maybe Fighting Isn’t The Answer

Published on June 5, 2024

A mother of one of my martial arts students was recently diagnosed with stage 4 cancer.

…Yet, seeing her in person, you’d never know.

She’s vibrant, she’s warm, she’s smiling, she’s taking care of her 7-year-old son’s needs without so much as a single complaint (that I ever hear)… and she’s even DJing on some weekends.

At first glance, some might see this as being possible denial. A possible refusal to acknowledge the diagnosis so the pain or reality isn’t felt. A possible toxic positivity, some might say, to focus exclusively on the good while ignoring fully the bad.

…But, this isn’t the case with this mother at all.

After further inspection and conversation, the vibrance and warmth she’s emitting isn’t coming from denial… but from a refusal to fight.

Which might sound confusing… refusing to fight a cancer diagnosis?!

The idea, she explained on her GoFundMe page, came from the admin of Love Your Cancer Free Life group. He said: “When you fight, it fights back. Rather than fight, accept.”

“Obviously he doesn’t mean to just roll over and play dead.” Lisa explains.

“…It’s more about not feeding into the story that everyone is told about how cancer should look and feel. What he means is come to peace with its presence and accept the need to respond for change.”

She then continued to quote the admin saying, “Fighting is a reaction. Acceptance is a response. Taking authentic action, not reaction, to create the change needed for healing. Stop putting energy into the fight and start placing energy in your POWER for healing.”

…Something we might consider doing in the “fights” of our lives, too.

Looking Problems Dead In The Eye

Published on June 4, 2024

I felt an interesting shift happen in me when I sent out yesterday’s post about NOT being on track with my 2024 goals.

…Like that post in and of itself helped replenish my depleted inner sponge.

…Like admitting I wasn’t perfect at following through on what I initially set out to do freed me in some unexpected way(s).

…Like sharing something imperfectly human like that made me feel more in tune with my imperfect human nature.

…And, most surprisingly, like I can now proceed forward from that “wrung out” slump and begin the process of “refilling” and engaging in additional creation efforts.

It makes me think that this is why we state the challenges we’re facing out loud… so that we can (finally) look them dead in the eye, see them, shape them, feel them, understand them, and begin the process of moving forward from them.

…Rather than allowing them to remain as open processes in the background of our mind that lurk in the shadowy parts of our awareness… sucking life energy from our days that could otherwise be devoted to solving the very things we’re just not clearly stating (and therefore not looking at) as problems.

P.s. I finished uploading quotes from The Prophet. You can read my 18 favorites here.

Currently NOT Crushing My Goals

Published on June 3, 2024

I’ve been having a hard time creating outside of these daily 1-minute posts.

My new year resolutions were to write one additional longer form article each week, create two new digital product guides, and create my first ever video course.

I have barely made any progress at all on the latter two goals and have published only a handful of new, longer form articles since the new year.

The feeling I’m having is one of being too wrung out—like a sponge who has been squeezed too tightly and is only left with a dampness and a slow trickle of fresh water to re-soak with.

I can think back to times when I was creating easily. Busting out longer form articles almost daily… creating guides with volumes of enthusiasm… building digital ideas well into the night—even on weekends and holidays.

Which isn’t what I’m feeling now. And I’m learning to be accepting and mindful of it so as to not stop showing up or quitting—this is a comfort zone trick—but to keep showing up anyway while simultaneously feeling every bit of what I’m feeling.

This is the real trick: to merge with what you create so that what you create can help make you. Every part of the journey matters. No part should be skipped. Now is the time for a heavier focus on refilling. Soon, it’ll be time for another season of wringing. This is what the mindfulness and acceptance allows… a complete cycle.

…Which might be worth considering if your art is chronically incomplete.

P.s. In case you missed it, you can read the best of what I posted to MoveMe Quotes last week, here.