Category: Archives

The full collection of explorations.

Just Vibes

Published on December 6, 2023

The first time I heard the song Who Do You Love by ARTY feat. Rozzi, was when I was dead in the middle of running my first ultramarathon.

…Like dead.

…In the middle… maybe not even half way.

…While running a 50k in the desert.

And right before I heard it… it was dusty and rugged and mute. And I was alone. And I was hurting. And I was trying to quiet the deflating chatter of my mind. And I was definitely questioning my life choices.

And then… I heard the song faintly in the distance. And then I heard it getting progressively louder behind me. And then I was starting to wonder if I was hallucinating… Until, lo and behold, a dude on his bike with a bluetooth speaker strapped to his basket passed by with the song blasting.

And the song filled me with the life that was quickly exiting my body in that moment. And it gave me the mental patching I needed to hold more of that life inside as I continued on my way… like a mechanic expertly patching a pierced tire that was in danger of soon hitting rim to road. And I even got a boost that allowed me to pump my arms to the beat, crack a smile, and shout him out as he passed.

And not even a minute later… he was gone.

…Peddled off into the dusty desert going wherever his wind blew him.

…And I never saw him again.

And this was all it took to give me the critical boost I needed to carry on with my fight.

…No interaction. No major endeavor. No fancy tactics.

…Just vibes.

Painted Rocks

Published on December 5, 2023

“It’s actually pretty gratifying.”

…A friend of mine said about her painted rock side hustle.

What started out simply as a hobby that entailed collecting rocks on her morning dog walks that she would then paint by night as a creative/ calming outlet… slowly turned into a business name, with chic branding, and small pop-up stands.

…Not with the intent of massively scaling and changing the world.

But, with the intent of sharing her unique gift with those who cared.

And the funny thing about sharing gifts with those who care…

…Is that it’s actually pretty gratifying for one’s self.

Noticing What Isn’t Mentioned

Published on December 4, 2023

I found a small 2 inch by 4 inch piece of paper hidden inside one of the books I’m currently reading.

On it were two fill-in-the-blank sentences with handwritten answers by, presumably, Becca—who wrote her name sideways in the bottom left corner of the paper.

The first sentence started with, “What I really admire about you is…” which was filled in with the following answer: “…how you care for your friends when their front teeth are missing :)”

The second sentence started with, “At work, you are great at…” which was filled in with, “…always having a warm and pleasant demeanor.”

…I’ll sometimes do this exercise in schools when giving a presentation where I ask the student audience if any of them have a best friend. Most will raise their hands. Then I’ll ask if any of them can tell me why that person is their best friend. What follows are usually things like:

Is kind
Is funny
Is helpful
Spends time with me
Cheers me up when I’m sad
Has the same interests as me
And so on…

What’s worth pointing out in both of these above examples is what isn’t mentioned. Neither Becca nor ANY of the student body groups (I’ve spoken to so far) said anything about:

Is rich
Is (insta)famous
Wears brand name clothes
Never makes mistakes
Has the freshest Nikes
Has the newest iPhone
And so on…

At the end of the day… what people remember about you isn’t what you bought, how well known you were, how “perfect” you were…

What they remember is your character, your personality, the actions you took…

…Don’t let List #2 make you forget it.

Cut And Dried [Poem]

Published on December 3, 2023

I ask you
About your tattoos
Like everybody else
Probably… Obviously…

But why then
Change so visibly
If not to have people
Question… Ask…

Or does ink
Cut and dried outwardly
Do something
Visceral… Inwardly…

Nearly every inch
Recolored; redrawn; recreated
As if away from
Blank… Incomplete…

You suddenly smile
And there’s nothing I can see
That isn’t already
Finished… Complete…

Too late though
Your lines and your patterns say
Asked and answered
Inked… Dyed…

Another deal sealed
And the thought of us together
Filling in the blanks
Cut… Dried…

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

Rebalance The Week

Published on December 2, 2023

When it comes to priorities and life balance, I’ve written a lot about thinking in terms of days.

If Sleep/ Work/Recreational Time are priorities, split each according to the hours of your day (e.g. 8 hours each).

If Family/ Friends/Health are priorities, split each inside the 8 hours of “recreational time” you have (e.g. one hour meal time with family, one hour happy hour time with friends, one hour exercise every morning).

If Growth and Contribution are priorities, maybe block out 20 minutes to read, 20 minutes to write, and 20 minutes to help somebody just because.

And then there’s four hours left inside your “recreational time” to account for commutes, screen time, fun, snoozing, procrastinating, spontaneity, etc.

I like the idea of daily because every day we do the things that are priorities… it’s a good day.

It’s usually on the days when we aren’t able to hit our top priority areas that we feel like the day is a wash.

However…

It never plays out as simply as it’s laid out, does it?

Life gets in the way.

And when it does, a simple solution to keep your life balanced and in tune with your priorities is to shift from daily to weekly thinking.

…Put more time in at work than you planned? Subtract it from another day or deliberately block time for the missed priority on your more flexible days.

…Get caught in another media rabbit-hole and lose some high quality sleeping hours? If you can’t add it to the morning, ban yourself from even viewing media at all the next day or two.

Rebalance the week if/when you can’t rebalance the day.

Honoring Imagination

Published on December 1, 2023

One benefit of having an active imagination that you honor and hold space for is you get to see things before they happen. And the more vividly you see things before they happen, the more real the feelings about these happenings can be. And the more real the feelings are, the more you stand to learn from the experience… before it ever happens.

…Which allows you to apply these visualized learnings to your life minus all the painful trial and error.

Some examples where this is particularly useful:

Vividly imagining a presentation so that you can experience the feelings and flow and make the necessary adjustments before the actual one.
Vividly imagining how various life paths might unfold so you can better navigate your day-to-day decision making before “life happens.”
Vividly imagining death so the reality of how fleeting and short life is can once again come to life in your being.

Do you have a space that you honor that’s for your imagination to roam and explore the possibilities of the future? If not… you might be experiencing more error from your trials than you need to.

Borrowing Energy From… Tomorrow?

Published on November 30, 2023

We only have so much energy we can utilize in one day.

And because of the productivity-obsessed, it’s-never-enough, hustle-based culture we live in, many of us are inclined (brainwashed) to try and squeeze every last drop of energy from our being every single day.

And while in theory this sound logical—after all, YOLO—the problem arises when we start borrowing energy from tomorrow.

See, what so many of us do in our modern world, is squeeze every last drop of energy we have… and then take substances (e.g. caffeine) that give us a few drops more… and then stay up late even though we’re utterly exhausted to squeeze a few drops more… and then try to wake up earlier to preemptively squeeze a few more (because, you know, 5am club)… and so on.

Until, of course, we’re so exhausted of drops that there’s hardly any left to give. Imagine an orange pressed through the juicing machine on it’s 30th consecutive press…

That’s you on your 30th consecutive press of energy without giving yourself the proper recovery and recharge that allows you to switch out the orange altogether.

…Hardly worth the effort.

Rather than obsess over how you can squeeze every single last drop of juice from the orange of our day… What if we focused on squeezing the 70% best juice of our day and then… here’s a radical idea… we stopped squeezing.

What if we left 30% juice in the tank for the next day?

What if… instead of obsessing on 100% squeeze today… we focused on 70% squeeze, every day, for a decade?

What if… starting today… you squeezed smarter instead of being so obsessed with harder?