Category: Archives

The full collection of explorations.

What Is Love?

Published on March 29, 2023

Love is an unconditional warmth that radiates outwards from a person’s center towards all other beings. More specifically, a warmth that’s really just a majestic composition of patience, kindness, joy, forgiveness, and gratitude. Different people are made up of different compositions, but each unique composition has the same outward radiating result.

Love is not selective. Love brings warmth even to those who are cold, impatient, rude, upset, angry, and/or ungrateful. Which isn’t to say we accept, ignore, or make it our mission to change these behaviors. It’s merely to say, as the backyard fire pit warms anyone and everyone who climbs near… so, too, will love warm anyone and everyone who steps near.

What you see when people radiate warmth towards some, but act ice cold towards others is blocked love. When too many layers of cold, corrupt, malevolent, manipulative, hateful, “un-burnable” actions/circumstances gets piled on top of a person’s innate love… they’re only able to partially radiate warmth on sides where there are unblocked openings. And cold towards all is a sign of a completely smothered love.

What you see when two people devote their love specifically towards each other isn’t selective love per se. What you’re seeing are two fires who enjoy each other’s warmth so much that they decide to combine to create a bonfire. This magnifies the warmth that either individual could radiate alone and creates a combined effect that (unconditionally) warms at scale.

When a combining of fires has the opposite effect (and cools), you know it isn’t a love that’s meant to be. Love shouldn’t be something that only makes one or two of us warmer… love is something that should warm us ALL.

Schedule, Eliminate, Delegate

Published on March 28, 2023

Dear busy person,

It’s best to stop worrying over everything you have to get done… and just start getting something done. If you can manage it, block out distractions and get going on the most important thing, first. This will give you the “it’s all downhill from here” feeling that’ll carry you through the rest of the day. If starting feels cripplingly hard, do the easiest task first and snowball some momentum from there. Either way, get some momentum. And do everything you can to maintain that momentum one task to the next. It’s the easiest way to get it all done. Remember, it’s the starting that’s hard. And it’s the worrying over everything you have to get done that makes starting feel cripplingly hard. Play “start; stop; start; stop” all day and you’ll only add unnecessary resistance to your task load. Less think; more do. And at the end of the day, do your future self a favor and schedule, eliminate, and delegate every possible task you can before the start of the next day. Pick apart a giant snowball enough and it eventually collapses back into snow. Same is true when you have a giant snowball of tasks weighing on your shoulders at the start of a day. Pick it apart enough (by scheduling, eliminating, and delegating) and suddenly, there’s no giant snowball to focus on anymore. Only a day blanketed with snow that you can manage one shovel full at a time.

Sincerely,

Your inner work person

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

The 3 Crucial Mind Tools For Clarity

Published on March 27, 2023

1. We meditate to settle the sediments of our mind.

By removing outside stimulation, we allow all of the swishing, swirling, and convoluted thoughts to relax into a kind of order: the crap moves to the bottom and the important rises to the top. Through meditation, our mental priorities become more clear.

2. We journal to filtrate.

We begin by scooping a spoonful of thoughts and pour them down onto paper or screen. Then, through a careful and focused effort, we update and revise what’s poured out so as to make those thoughts more clear, concise, and aligned. What results becomes the new, filtered spoonful that gets poured back in.

3. We speak with professionals of the mind to utilize their high-end filtration systems.

Therapy allows us to, essentially, pour our thoughts through the highly filtered mind(s) of somebody else so that we’re able to get a level of clarity we’re unable to provide for ourselves. Also, when something dangerous, toxic, or overly complex comes up through the filtration process—they can swiftly help us minimize or neutralize the threat. This can be extremely beneficial for the particularly dark and/or murky mind—especially in the initial stages of filtration.

The bottom line is this: our mind is either our greatest asset or greatest liability in life.

The use or disregard of these three tools can largely determine which category our mind falls into. All three aren’t required—any one of these tools alone can lead us all the way to the “asset” category. Applying two or all three, however, is a particularly effective strategy. One that I’d say, if you haven’t already, you at least consider.

There’s More To The Story

Published on March 26, 2023

I had an incredibly sobering moment today on the basketball court.

While playing with 12 other guys and in the midst of non-stop madness consisting of dribbling, shooting, jumping, sprinting, cutting, grunting, picking, rolling, fouling, falling, etc… and in a happenstance moment where time slowed down to a crawl for a brief moment…

I saw, hidden behind one of the player’s ears and peaking out just ever so slightly from his sweaty, overlaying hair… a “;” tattoo.

Now, for those who aren’t familiar, the people who generally get a semi-colon tattoo are suicide survivors. Its meaning is pulled from the dictionary definition of a semi-colon and essentially means there’s more to the story.

Looking at this dude… and in the midst of a chaotic, enjoyable, flow-state kind of time… I never would have known.

And it was a sobering reminder that everyone we meet is living a life as rich and as complicated as we are who are oftentimes facing battles we know nothing about looking at their outward appearance.

…It was a sobering reminder to be kind; to initiate connection, and to try not to judge.

And I hope it might be for you, too.

P.s. 101 Acts of Kindness To Help Recalibrate The World.

Time Blocking Made Easy

Published on March 25, 2023

Macro: 8 hours sleep / 8 hours work / 8 hours life.

Which means: 50/50 split either daily or weekly between work tasks (things we do for survival) and life tasks (things we do for fulfillment).

Pro tip: Take life tasks as seriously as work tasks. Make formal blocks for family / friends / nature / adventure / reading / writing / hobbies / doing nothing / etc.

Bottom line: Those who master how they manage their time… become masters over the fate of their lives.

P.s. Do you struggle over the thought of your life’s fate? My guide The Art of Forward will help.

Becoming More Connected To Life

Published on March 24, 2023

Most of what we do every day is work for others, digitally lurk in the background of other people’s lives, and consume other people’s content… all of which provides no meaningful two-way connection to either others or ourselves.

This is why so many of us feel so disconnected in the age of connection.

What brings us closer to people isn’t doing work for them, lurking, or consuming one directional content… what brings us closer to people is:

Meals spent together
Rich conversational exchange
Adventures embarked on together
Activities/ Hobbies enjoyed together
Long car rides/ walks in nature together
Chats at a coffee shop/ by fireside together
Projects/ art/ problem-solving done together
And so on…

And what brings us closer to ourselves is everything listed above… only by and for ourselves.

So, if you’re feeling disconnected and lonely, make it a goal to take the initiative on one of the above mentioned endeavors (for both others and for yourself) and continue to do so regularly.

Waiting for others to take the initiative only perpetuates that disconnected feeling and strips you of the control you have over your life situation.

I promise, if you can find ways to add even just one of the above-mentioned ideas into your days or weeks… you’ll slowly, slowly, start to feel more and more connected to this life.

P.s. The next book I’ll be uploading quotes from is Make Your Bed by Admiral William H. McRaven. If you’d like to read along… info, links, and such can be found here ➜

On Serving Others

Published on March 23, 2023

To the person who’s too busy serving others to serve themself,

Remember, the outer community you’re a part of isn’t the only community that needs to be served. There is an entire inner world of characters who require time, energy, and attention, too. And when those inner characters aren’t served… they start to act out, create conflict, and rebel. This can be felt in emotional uprisings, a nagging resistance, and a lurking uneasiness. If serving others makes you happy (which is how you’ve always justified the corresponding inner consequences) maybe seeing what’s happening within as its own community of characters will help? Not only will prioritizing your inner characters allow you to still serve others (e.g. your inner child) but it’ll allow you to enter a more emotionally light place, with less resistance, and with an ever-increasing feeling of ease. And how much happier (and better able to serve others in reality) might you be if you did that?

Sincerely,

Your Inner Work Person

P.s. I finished uploading quotes from Inner Work by Robert Johnson. This post was largely inspired by what I learned from that book. Check out my 40 favorite quotes here ➜