Various thoughts consume various amounts of mental energy.
Deep, intense, painful thoughts consume a lot.
Superficial, light, fleeting thoughts consume a little.
If you don’t deal with the gas-guzzling thoughts, you’ll be left feeling constantly exhausted.
And, maybe better put, if you constantly feel exhausted, maybe it’s precisely because you haven’t dealt with the gas-guzzling thoughts.
No person has the power to satisfy unlimited desire.
Everyone, however, has the power to not desire what they don’t have and thoroughly enjoy what they already do.
Want a shortcut to happiness?
This is it.
Sometimes the best way to learn isn’t through experience, but through other people’s experience.
And it’s not even like those experiences are hard to come by.
They’re abundant. They’re accessible (especially to those reading this). And there are plenty that are completely relevant to you and your path.
Here’s the thing: you could just venture out onto the path and wing it.
Or, you could chat with the guy who’s just coming back and learn a thing or two.
It’s the insider tips that not only keep you on the right path, but get you to the best viewpoints along the way—minus the headaches.
When you lie down for bed and realize you have to go to the bathroom, you have 2 choices:
1. Do what’s immediately uncomfortable and get up to go.
2. Do what’s immediately comfortable and hold it in hope it won’t wake you up later.
Option 2 almost always is a bad idea.
And so it is for most other choices in life that are immediately comfortable.
If this person/ place/ thing doesn’t serve your higher purpose why are you investing time/ energy/ effort into it/ them?
Built into this question is the assumption that you know what your higher purpose is.
If you don’t, all actions become arbitrary; all uses of time become fungible.
If you want to arrive at a certain type of destination, you need to point the GPS of your actions towards it.
And you need to know well enough not to get off every exit of the highway while you’re on your way.
Random wandering—random uses of time—can only get you, by definition, nowhere in particular.
Be generous with your thoughts.
When those who express kind, constructive, supportive thoughts are quiet, then our collective mind is taken over by those who spew overwhelming amounts of the opposite.
We may only be one, but we are connected to ten.
And so are they.
Emotionally charged energy is amongst the most powerful sources of energy for a human there is.
Think about the energy of a mom when she’s protecting her child’s life, or the lover after they’ve experienced heartbreak, or even a friend when they see a ref make a bad call during a sports game.
It’s during some of our most emotional moments when we are filled with some of our most potent, raw sources of energy.
What matters isn’t where it comes from—whether from perceptively positive or negative emotions—but how we choose to channel and express it.
Choose a constructive outlet and it can fuel the erection of an entire city.
Choose a destructive outlet and it can level the likes of an entire city.
The worst thing you can do is give it no outlet.
For energy left to pressurize without any source of release has but one, ultimate fate: explosion.
And what a tragedy for destruction to come from the energy that could have created so much for so many.
This post became the afterword for: A Short Story About Frida Kahlo And The Unexpected Gifts Pain Can Provide [Excerpt]