Category: Experiential Living

Being a “good finder” can be tough when awful things happen.

It’s not always appropriate to look for the good in the bad (e.g. like when a heinous crime is committed) but when it is, one thought that can help is the gift of perspective that comes with the awful.

When we experience real hardship, suddenly all of the other “hardships” we experienced in life shrink a little and fade into the background in comparison.

Because in comparison is how we measure “hardship.” And not “in comparison” to other people’s lived experiences—only ever in comparison to our own.

Hardship only becomes real through direct experience. Without direct experience, it’s highly unlikely to affect our perspective (e.g. To see starvation and disease on TV is one thing; to live amongst starvation and disease is another).

When I think about the strongest people I know in life, the people who always come to mind are the ones who have been through the most—hardship, awful things, direct experience with the “bad.” They have a perspective that allows them to stay calm, cool, and collected over awfully heavy stuff while the inexperienced are flustering, raging, and cursing over #firstworldproblems.

This isn’t to judge or make you self-conscious of how you respond to awful things happening—or to say you should act a certain kind of way when they do. It’s merely to remind you that, if no other good can come from an awful thing happening, take with you the direct lived experience that allows you to deepen your life’s perspective.

…One that might even give others a measure of support and strength when they go through awful times of their own.

There’s a time and a place for thinking. And there’s a time and a place for being. All being and no thinking leads to rash decision making. And all thinking and no being leads to a sheltered, inexperienced life.

Times when we’re experiencing life are times when we should drop thinking altogether. Like when we’re: walking, running, swimming, playing, hiking, meditating, listening, dancing, drawing, painting, etc.

And times when we’re reflecting on life and planning ahead for the future are times when we should turn the thinking up. Like when we’re: reading, writing, conversing, planning, researching, developing, building, brainstorming, imagining, visualizing, etc.

It’s when we get either of the two confused that we stumble in life.

It’s when we start thinking about playing or meditating or dancing that it suddenly becomes awkward and unnatural. And it’s when we spend all of our time being and none of our time writing or planning or imagining that suddenly our mistakes repeat and our life trajectory worsens.

Like most things in life, it’s a balancing act. One that I don’t think we’ll ever get perfectly correct, but one that we can and should be more conscious of and aim more deliberately for.

P.s. This post was inspired by (and became the afterword for) The Story About The Centipede and The Frog.

No day should pass without fresh content for your mind to wrestle with.

And no, I don’t mean social media posts consisting of selfies and superficial intentions. I mean content that’s been carefully observed and documented within the pages of a book, scenes of a documentary, or bites of a podcast—starting, maybe, with the highest rated ones.

There is too much certified fresh content hidden with pages, scenes, and bites that’s just waiting to paint color inside the sometimes graying and dull walls of your mind. Not because we’re graying and dull, but because we prioritize too heavily comfort and oftentimes unknowingly submit to a type of color-draining redundancy.

We must insist on something fresh every day. Whether that comes from new experiences lived or past experiences shared carefully from others. Otherwise, gray becomes our reality.

P.s. I share fresh insights daily from the pages, scenes, and bites that I consume. To read those, you can bookmark and check-in regularly with this page.

Experiences are investments.

Don’t put them in the same category as material purchases.

Material items (that aren’t investments) should be purchased scarcely and with heed—for they often weigh us down and limit our ability to invest.

Experiential investments should be made generously and often—for they become the very foundation of the story of our lives.