What lies between Stranger and friend Is one singular question Asked with the right intent
I help busy people do inner work.
The full collection of explorations.
What lies between Stranger and friend Is one singular question Asked with the right intent
We don’t succeed because we have no weaknesses.
We succeed because we fully utilize our few strengths.
Trying to eliminate all weakness is a waste of time when you could be using all of that time to massively improve upon your strengths.
The brain is for having ideas—not holding ideas.
Find an app or a paper to do the holding.
And allow your brain to keep firing.
The First Noble Truth: life is suffering.
The reality of life that we have to accept is that there will always be suffering present in some way/ shape/ form.
The Second Noble Truth: we can identify the causes of our suffering.
When your heart is broken or you’re diagnosed with a disease or illness, identifying the source of your suffering is relatively straightforward.
When we’re children, however, we tend to bury or distract ourselves from the pain because we don’t know how to properly manage it. And this behavior often carries over into adulthood.
It isn’t always obvious from where our pain originates. But, with patience, grace and care—we can identify our pain’s root causes.
The Third Noble Truth: we can put an end to our suffering and healing is possible.
Healing is possible.
The key is to mindfully sort through what’s outside of our control (what happened in our past) and to act on what’s within our control (our choices today).
The Fourth Noble Truth: there are paths to free us from suffering.
These paths are different for each of us. But, many of them contain the following:
And just like healing is possible, so is perpetual suffering.
If we don’t accept the second noble truth, we won’t reach the third. And without the third, we won’t reach the fourth.
Take your journey towards healing at your own pace—but, keep moving forward on the path. Think tortoise—not hare.
And transform your suffering into a new, better reality—one deliberate, brave choice at a time.
One of the greatest time and energy killers is in-the-moment self-negotiation.
Those who plan their day ahead—get ahead.
Not necessarily because of what they plan (we all have a pretty good grasp on what we should be doing daily) but because of the fact that they planned and there will be less time/ energy wasted on figuring things out as they go.
As trivial as this might sound—even one good decision and a couple of minutes saved every day adds up! …I’ll take 365 minutes of my time back per year thank you very much.
Never leave your important decision making to the moment—it’s an awful time and energy sucking guide.
Do your figuring out ahead of time and focus all of your time/ energy on executing what’s ahead.
…And get ahead.
We all wear masks.
…It isn’t a bad strategy.
It’s when we don’t take our masks off that the strategy turns bad.
We need to give our “face” space to breathe.
My question for you is: are you giving your face enough space to breathe?
Instant gratification is choosing pleasure now.
Delayed gratification is resisting pleasure now for (or in hope of) a more rewarding pleasure later.
The kind of pleasure we feel with instant gratification is not the same kind of pleasure that we feel with delayed gratification.
One is a superficial, fleeting feeling of pleasure—the other is a deep, lingering feeling of pleasure. Some examples:
That said, it would follow that we should delay gratification as much as possible in our lives.
And I would agree.
The more we delay gratification, the more of that deep, lingering feeling of pleasure—what I consider joy—we’ll have. However, the conversation doesn’t stop there.
I also don’t think we should always delay gratification.
If happiness is a recipe, and instant gratification are the sweet ingredients and delayed gratification are the bitter ones, we need to masterfully combine the two for healthy AND delicious meals.
Too much sweet and we’ll be eating pixie sticks all day (and feel awful).
Too much bitter and we’ll be eating spinach all day (and become bored).
We need to learn how to masterfully combine both for healthy, great-tasting meals.