Today, my dad asked me what I’ve learned from 35 years of life.
After thinking about it more, and to keep it concise, I’d say what’s become more and more clear to me—in these modern times—is that the path forward almost always goes against the current of society.
The current of society is pushing with increasing intensity each day towards:
- Screens… swim against it and aim to keep your screen time to an absolute minimum.
- Social media… swim against it. Spend more time IRL. Minimize comparisons. Reclaim your attention. The attention you bring to your moments become the building blocks you use to define your life.
- Comfort… swim against it. Maybe not all of the time—it’s good to spend an appropriate amount of time relaxing. But, for a good chunk of your day? Aim for uncomfortable. Exercise… learn… experiment… meditate… fail… etc.
- Hate… swim against it. Divisive media that elicits reactions gets pushed to the top of timelines—push love instead. Modern news is war, crime, death, collapse, fear, and so on… spend your time consuming the opposite instead.
- Busyness… swim against it. Intentionally slow down. Intentionally free up time. Intentionally stop looking at/thinking about everything you need to do and just focus on one thing at a time. Not being in a hurry is an EXCELLENT sign that you’re enjoying the process. And not enjoying the process, let’s not forget, is not enjoying your life.
I could go on and on with this analogy, but as I mentioned above… concise.
Swimming against the current has become a sort of mantra and guiding light for my life. One that I’d encourage you to think about for yours.