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The full collection of explorations.

New Reference Points

Published on August 4, 2024

Last night I saw Richard III—the Shakespearian play—performed by a crew of high school students, one of whom was a martial arts student of mine.

I was blown away.

Not only by the memorization of their lines, the acting, the setup, etc—but by the raw passion and confident expression that these 16 and 17 year olds were able to cultivate and showcase.

What really brought this home for me were the final moments after the play concluded when the organizer came on stage and gave the audience and performers an opportunity to interact.

“What words come to mind when you think about what you saw tonight?” she asked the audience.

“Confidence!” “Passionate!” “Moving!” Were some of the things the audience shouted.

“What words help define what you tried to bring to this performance tonight?” she asked the performers.

“Self Belief!” “Commitment!” “Going all in!” Were some of the things the performers responded with.

And what the organizer said was that those were called, “New Reference Points.”

Points that, once lived, become evidence-based aspects of their identity that they can reference and call back upon at any point of their life from there forward.

Because having confidence or being passionate or going all in on self-expression, for those students, were no longer abstract thoughts that linger in the back of their minds as they self-consciously worry and wonder about what other people will think of them.

…They’re real parts of their identity that were awakened, allowed to emerge from the depths, and will forever hold a space in (their) reality.

Inner work prompt: What type of experience(s) would you try that would give you new reference points?

Don’t Bury Your Head In The Sand

Published on August 3, 2024

One common rebuttal to joy, optimism, and positivity is, “but there’s so much suffering, injustice, and hate—how could you?”

But, this same logic can be used to argue the inverse: “But there’s so much light, beauty, and love—how could you feel sad, anxious, and hateful?”

What’s important is simply not to live in only one world or the other; to not bury your head in the sand towards any of the sides.

What’s important is to help alleviate the suffering, act against injustice, and deploy the opposite of hate… while also soaking in the plentiful light, admiring all the world’s beauty, and allowing yourself to feel and express love.

What’s important is to remain present, open-hearted, and brave. To not become so overly immersed in only one aspect of the world that you can no longer see the opposite. Because the one aspect helps deepen the appreciation and understanding of the other just as the other helps build the same for the one.

Lean into it all. Don’t bury your head in the sand. Life is found throughout.

Time Waste

Published on August 3, 2024

Thirty minutes spent thinking… sitting… staring at a blank page… as much as it might feel like a time waste… especially when the goal is to fill that blank page with words…

…Isn’t time wasted.

The real time waste happens when we forget what the real goal is.

…Which, at a more fundamental level, isn’t to fill blank pages with words.

…It’s to reconnect with the present moment of life that we have now.

Too easy is it in today’s world to forget that we even exist. Too much time do we spend distracted, selling our attention, consuming the lives of countless others and comparing the countless ways in which we lack.

When really… all we need to do to start feeling better… is cut all that.

…And maybe spend significantly more time thinking… sitting… staring at blank pages… confronting what it is that’s going in our minds… these minds we’ve been gifted… as we trudge forward through the thick and thin of it all… this whole experienced wrapped as a miraculous gift… the gift of life.

Never Apologize For Feeling Joyful

Published on August 1, 2024

“It ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive.”

Bruce Springsteen

In a world full of hate, violence, poverty, depression, hopelessness… it can be hard, even guilt-inducing, to feel the opposite.

I know I’ve had the thought run through my mind: “How can I feel joy when there are so many awful things happening in the world?”

But you know what? …It ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive.

To be clear, this is not to say that we should bury our heads in the sand and ignore the hate, violence, poverty, depression, and hopelessness of the world.

…It’s simply to say, sometimes the absolute best thing we can do for the world is find our joy and spread that into the world as an anecdotal, proactive response rather than becoming just another passive, infected part of the ever expanding, depressing problem.

P.s. There is a ton happening in the world that is joy-inducing, too.

My Divorced Parents Are… In A Band?

Published on July 31, 2024

After getting divorced when I was around 11 years old and both having gotten remarried, my mom and my dad announced this week that they’re playing together in a band, at what’s going to be their official public debut, on my birthday, this month.

To add a little more context, my parents were in a folk band with several other friends when I was a child, that slowly fell apart as life happened to the band mates. Fast forward to around two decades after their divorce, and my dad reached out to my mom to see if she wanted to join a little band practice thing he started in his basement with a few other friends. She eventually agreed. The band grew. The practices continued and the sound kept improving. And now, today, they’re ready to share what they’ve created with the public and jam again.

The reason I share this with you is to remind you that when you can confront your pains, learn to forgive and find common ground, evolve/grow, and lead with compassion and understanding… you get to move on and do other things with your life. Things that don’t revolve around the ruins of the past, but feature new growth that sprouts into the future.

P.s. This is their announcement poster and band name (lol).

Plan How You Recharge Or Recharge Will Do It For You

Published on July 30, 2024

If you don’t plan recharge intensity accordingly, you’ll most likely compensate for intense busyness in other, maybe less obvious ways.

Going back to my strategy game example from yesterday, and when I think about the spectrum of activities I might do to appropriately recharge from an intensely busy day, this seems to me to be a higher intensity recharge task. Versus working on my side hustle, for example, which can feel very much like continued work/busyness and is maybe something I’d be less likely to do when I’m coming off some of my most busy days.

And when I think about people who lead the busiest lifestyles, I tend to see a similar pattern, where the busier they are the more mind-numbing types of tasks they tend to seek. Things like video gaming, partying, drinking, clubbing, TV binging, doing drugs, and so on.

Whereas people who balance recharge intensity more proportionally tend to come off their days with more energy for (additional) mind-stimulating types of tasks. Things like working on their side hustle or passion project(s), spending quality time playing with their children, having more involved conversations with loved ones, doing chores to help around the house, exercise, prepare dinner, and so on…

Worth thinking about is what types of activities you typically default to at the end of your days… more mind-numbing or more mind-stimulating types of tasks? The answer could reveal a change you might want to make to the former parts of your days.

Fill Your Head Wisely

Published on July 29, 2024

I played a strategy game yesterday for a few hours as I was intensely recharging.

Last night, I dreamt almost exclusively about the gameplay.

It was an isolated yet stark reminder that what you choose to fill your head with, acts as the raw materials with which your mindset and interpretation of life are formed.

It’s critically important to remember—now more than ever in the history of mankind—to choose what you fill you head up with wisely.

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