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Category: Archives

The full collection of explorations.

Becoming More Useful By Practicing Uselessness

Published on February 26, 2022

Beware: in many cases, it’s when we’re attempting to be most useful to the world that we actually end up being the least useful to ourselves.

An outward focus on productivity and getting things done can easily turn into a toxic work ethic that leads us to disregard the things we most need to do for our own personal wellness.

This is classic workaholic-ism.

Now, beware: the remedy I’m going to offer, like most pills, might be hard to swallow.

What we need to become comfortable with and practice is the idea of uselessness.

That’s right—being more useless to the world.

Did that thought make you cringe a little?

It’s got a distinctly counter-culture sound to it that might make you feel uneasy when thinking about.

Which would only further prove my point.

Being useless to the world isn’t an attack on your self-worth. It’s the very means through which you get to be more useful to yourself.

…Time when you get to stop compromising, negotiating, accommodating, pleasing, bending-over-backwards for, and sucking up to others in order to get things done.

Being useless to the world is about total and complete surrender to outward obligations and a wholesome focus towards the calls of your spirit.

Not towards distraction, inaction, or suppression—but towards introspection, healing, and overflowing.

Because we can only ever be as useful to the world as we become useful. And if we’re only ever focused on being useful to others, we never have a chance to be useful to ourselves. And one of the only times we get to ever be most useful to ourselves is when we’re most useless to the world.

Swallow the pill.

Noticing The Burn Before The Out

Published on February 25, 2022

Burnout generally happens slowly, slowly, and then all at once.

It’s sneaky.

It isn’t obvious that it’s happening. But, once it happens, it’s already too late.

The question to consider is, how can we notice the burn before we become all the way burned out?

My thought? By noticing whether or not we’re taking time away from what’s required for a full recharge. Here it is in three steps:

  • Step 1: Determine what’s required for a full recharge. For some it’s 6 hours of sleep. For me, it’s 8. For others, it’s 10. I also add a 20 minute power nap into each day and spend 20 minutes meditating to check in on my mental state. This is what’s required for a full recharge for me.
  • Step 2: Notice when you’re taking away from full recharge time. Staying up late to work? Feel like binging on Netflix until an ungodly hour? Remember that if you can’t fully recharge, you’ll have to go about your next day, well, not fully charged. Too many of these in a row will undoubtedly lead to burnout.
  • Step 3: Give back with every take. When I take an hour of sleep from one night, I’ll try and add it to the next. Or I’ll take a 45 or 90 minute nap instead of a 20 minute one. At the very least, I’ll attempt to get a streak of full 8 hour recharges back to compensate.

Because here’s the thing about recharging: if you don’t mange this yourself, eventually your body will force you to do it—in full—without your consent.

And burnout never has good timing.

Burnout Is Sneaky

Published on February 24, 2022

“Burnout is sneaky because you don’t realize you’re borrowing from tomorrow to push through today.”

Emily Leahy, Twitter

And when you borrow too much from tomorrow (or from too many tomorrows), you’ll eventually have nothing left to give in the current day.

And when that happens—when you’ve reached your “credit limit”—your body cuts you off from future energy supplies and shuts down.

Hence why burnout often feels like life in a vegetative state.

And hence why burnout often looks like an absurd number of hours spent sushi rolled up in your fuzziest of blankets while Netflix plays reruns of shows you’ve already seen as you fill yourself up with the emptiest of calories you have stored in the darkest of corners in your kitchen as emotional music plays softly in the background of your dimly lit rooms.

It’s not because you’re lazy, a failure, or because you suck at life—it’s because the energy from each of those “absurd hours” has already been spent.

And until you get current again with your “energy payments” it’s likely that “sushi-ed up” is how you’ll remain.

Until eventually, you become current, have a renewed source of life energy and get another chance to start spending again.

Except this time, hopefully you’ll only spend what’s within the limits of your current day—one day at a time.

When More Self-Care Is Needed

Published on February 23, 2022

Today marked one of the first times I can recall…

Where I felt irritable and anxious…

And told myself…

I’m going to need to double my meditation time today.

This, I’d say, is an excellent marker of progress for my own mental health awareness.

Communicating Love

Published on February 22, 2022

Saying: “I love you.”

And holding the door, putting down the phone, setting the table, cleaning the dishes, picking up the kids, making the bed, helping prep dinner, baking a surprise desert, giving free massages, calling just because, giving a compliment, sharing a vulnerability, thoughtfully replying to messages, randomly showing affection—all with a big smile on your face…

Both communicate love.

But in powerfully different ways.

Criticism Surgery

Published on February 21, 2022

Want to learn how to become shielded from the unsolicited, hateful, derogatory critiques of others? Stamp this onto your brain:

Don’t accept criticism from people you wouldn’t go to for advice.

  • Someone called you dumb? Would you ever ask this person for their honest opinion on your character? No? Then why listen to them when you didn’t ask?
  • Someone hated on your creation? Is this the type of person who actually understands this type of creation and can genuinely comment? No? Then why take their comment to heart?
  • Someone said something rude or hurtful? If I told you to list your top 5 favorite people to get advice from, would this person be on that list? No? Then why let them on that list now?

And if the answer is ever, “Yes”—you would go to this person for advice—then it’s important to reflect on the following:

(1) Is this the best person for you to be going to for advice? People who give advice in hateful, derogatory, negative ways may cause more harm to our path forward than benefit.

(2) If the answer is still yes, then, assuming there is anything constructive in their feedback, we must train our minds to surgically remove the gems from the emotional weight that burdens and collapses in on what’s said.

Because here’s the bottom line: feedback won’t always come in a pretty package.

And if we can learn how to accept what’s useful, how to disregard what (and who) is not, and how to keep ourselves in mentally healthy places so we can conduct criticism surgery with precision and poise at even a moment’s notice—our growth will become inevitable.

Building Bridges Takes Two

Published on February 20, 2022

Worth noting about bridges: it takes effort from two sides.

You can construct a bridge a majority of the way from one side towards the other—but, without the consent from the other side—the bridge will remain incomplete.

And an incomplete bridge isn’t a bridge at all.

It’s an untravellable construction site.

How hopeful or desperate you might be for the bridge to be completed is irrelevant.

What’s relevant is the other side’s reciprocated response.

Without that, we might as well build our bridge(s) elsewhere.

Because untravellable construction sites don’t do anybody any good.

Especially not those who commit all of their resources to doing the constructing.