If you don’t spend enough time in the quiet of your mind… you won’t hear the whispers of your soul.
…And your soul is the only part of you that knows what’s really going to lead to fulfillment.
Your mind likes to think it knows what’s going to lead it there, but your mind is also heavy into comparisonism, social hierarchies, and other people’s opinions.
Your soul…? Couldn’t care less.
And once you get to that kind of space… how could you be lead astray?
It seems to me like sitting and just being with one singular person or task or thought is becoming increasingly difficult for the modern person.
And it’s because we’re increasingly normalizing “multi-tasking,” distracted presence, and boundary-less access.
If we want to feel more fulfilled, we need to do better at filling our moments with undivided attention, energy, and effort. It’s the split attention, energy, and effort that always leaves us feeling unfulfilled, isn’t it?
Think about the days when you’re brushing your teeth while putting clothes on, checking emails at red lights, scrolling through socials while in work meetings, taking business calls while chauffeuring the kids, watching the restaurant TVs while eating out with family…
It’s all so scatterbrained and mismatched!
Of course we feel unfulfilled at the end of our days.
What we need to do is try to normalize the opposite:
It’s unbelievable how simple it all is.
…And yet, it’s one of the hardest things for the modern person to do.
A quote I uploaded yesterday that I’ve been thinking about a lot:
“Because work has temporal structure, we unconsciously associate leisure with temporal disorganization. And over this deadening rhythm is played, again and again, the same psychological bolero: Monday, the Day of Wrath; Tuesday and Wednesday, the grind; weary Thursday, across whose fallowness Friday, a prostitute-goddess of inexplicably renewable freshness, beckons with a promise of unspecified fulfillment. This promise is based on the lie that human nature, unfulfilled by work, can be fulfilled by leisure. Of course the promise is never kept; we spend Saturday and Sunday consecrating the week’s successes and failures to oblivion, in deepening dread of the Monday to come.”
Robert Grudin, Time And The Art Of Living
I hadn’t really thought about it like this before, but I do feel this strange urge to be anti-temporal-structure when off work.
I still usually get done main priorities (i.e. workout, chores, errands, etc)—but definitely in a more disorderly way. I usually sleep in later… Am on my phone longer… Give into cravings more…
And while it’s true that it’s precisely this that gives leisure time at least some of its pleasure, I oftentimes feel like I finish those same days feeling less good about the day overall… Like it was mostly wasted…
And while, yes, we need this temporal disorganization space as a sort of Yin to the Yang of work, I also think we need to be more mindful than ever of what we’re choosing to do during “disorganized time…” Are we passive-entertainment-binging or casually reading? Are we TikTok-ing or hobbying? Are we actively living or screen vegetating?
Something to think about…
On weekday afternoons, as I’m sipping my coffee, I’ll read some insightful content from books and blogs.
Three of the books I’ll check out are page-a-days that feature one focused idea for each day of the year and there are maybe 5-10 blogs I’ll digest in the same way—a short insight sent out either daily or weekly.
What I’ve been feeling lately, however, is that it’s too much jumping around.
…I’ll read maybe 5-10 pages of content in total, but it’s like each page is authored by another person… and I’m noticing that I’m not retaining the ideas as well because I have to context switch so frequently.
What I want to shift to is 5-10 pages from a single content source/person and then rotate who I read from daily. This allows me to keep the context straight and read more seamlessly one idea to the next.
I feel similarly with social media.
I’ll watch video shorts for an hour and feel like some of the stuff is really great—but can’t remember any of it when I’m done. When I watch long-form videos, however, I usually leave with at least a few take-aways.
This is a shift that more of us need to make in our lives.
…Away from shorter, shorter, shorter… and find ways to move towards the opposite. Because one minute of math, one minute of social studies, and one minute of science taught in rotation for 60 rotations is NOT the same as 60 minutes of math, 60 minutes of social studies, and 60 minutes of science taught straight up.
…When do you feel like you retain what you consume the best?
While dropping off flyers at houses for the door-to-door food drive, one house had a box of snacks on the porch with a sign that read, “Please, help yourself :)”
This came in stark contrast to just about every other house that had “Beware of Dog” posters, “You’re Being Recorded” warnings, “No Soliciting” notices, “Protected by Whatever Security System” signs, bolt locked storm doors, barking dogs, extra fences, etc.
It was a brief window into the life of a mail/delivery person and how cold and hostile it can feel going onto people’s property… not that there’s anything wrong with anything listed above… but what a nice gesture at one of the busiest, most stressful times of the year for their line of work.
The benefit to having your life “flash before your eyes” is that you get it back… after those terrifying moments of feeling like it was lost.
…And the gratitude that comes with it is unmatched.
I had my life flash before my eyes recently and unmatched gratitude was slapped into my perspective in a way that’s hard to achieve through gratitude journaling.
And what came from it wasn’t just a few moments of contentment, but an overall slower pace… a more undivided attention throughout the day… more carefully placed actions and words with each interaction…
I hope you don’t experience a terrifying moment. But, I do hope you’re able to flash your life before your eyes and really elicit the power of the unmatched gratitude that accompanies it.
It really is unbelievable that we’re here…
…Is one of the questions I fought over yesterday. My answers came quick and felt surprisingly solid once written. Each borrowed from another great human who came before… being shared with you today so you might borrow and share them into other corners of the world.
1. Be the change you wish to see in the world. This is a lesson drilled into me by the head master himself. He preaches constantly how important it is to lead the lifestyle you’re promoting. If you’re teaching discipline, be disciplined. If you’re teaching health and fitness, be healthy and fit. If you’re teaching respect, be respectful. And so on. We need to be who we want our students to become.
2. Never underestimate the power of a small group to make change—for it’s the only thing that ever has. Helping one student with a single martial move can be discouraging when we hear about influencers influencing millions from a single post… but, it’s only because the perspective is wrong. It’s not about comparison, it’s about gift giving. It’s about doing what good you can with what you have. It’s about starting somewhere and committing.
3. Life grows in proportion to courage—be bold. I’ve stepped onto some of the biggest sport martial arts stages in the U.S.—and I nearly crapped my pants each time. Which is precisely what courage is: feeling fear and doing the thing anyway. So many doors have opened for me since then. The same with the courage it has taken to publish these writings daily or speak publicly or do something insane physically. Life grew for me after each step taken into the realm of fear.