When your device is unplugged, the battery will drain. Plug it in and it’ll charge.
The opposite seems to be true for the mind.
When your mind is unplugged—from devices, work, drama—the battery recharges.
Plug it in to one of those things, however, and the battery will drain.
If you find your mind in a nonfunctional state, maybe it’s not because you’ve been plugged in too long—but, because you haven’t been unplugged enough.
Don’t let the wind uproot you.
Let its best attempts
To topple, twist, bend, and break
Be the exact force you need
To shimmy your roots deeper
Into the very ground
It was plotting to yank you from.
The person who tries to dodge every raindrop gets hit just as many times as the person who walks calmly forward.
And so it is for the person who tries to dodge every mistake, error, issue, problem, challenge, obstacle, fault, slip-up, oversight, flaw, imperfection, adversity, responsibility…
The way I see it, the rain is inevitably going to come down over each of us. We can try to dodge, duck, dip, dive, and dodge every drop to avoid getting wet—which will only end in vain.
Or we can feel the rain and walk calmly forward.
You’re naïve if you think the media you consume doesn’t affect your mental health.
Just like you’re naïve if you think the food you consume doesn’t affect your physical health.
What do you think happens when you consume too much bite-sized, sugar-coated, empty-calorie content?
Probably the same thing that happens when you consume too much bite-sized, sugar-coated, empty-calorie food.
If you want your mind to be healthy and fit, you have to treat the media you consume the same way you’d treat the food you’d consume if you wanted to keep your body healthy and fit.
For food, you already know that if it’s in the kitchen, you’re probably going to eat it. Likewise, if the media is in your field of vision, you’re probably going to consume it.
Want to immediately upgrade the quality of your life in one hour?
Step 1: Unfollow, block, mute, and otherwise remove any and all sources of highly processed, click-baity, shallow content.
Step 2: Follow, subscribe, befriend, and otherwise immerse yourself in sources of nutrient dense, clean, trustworthy content.
You can do this for people, brands, and ads alike—for every media platform.
I know of no better way to disproportionately upgrade the quality of your life in as little time.
Big media isn’t going away. Vilifying big media for being sources of shallow content is lazy and irresponsible. About as helpful as vilifying grocery stores for carrying processed foods.
Those who take their media diet seriously will enjoy the same results as the person who takes their food diet seriously.
Ready to upgrade? I hope so. Take an hour and get to it.
If you love what you do, you will never work a day in your life.
But, don’t let the love for what you do be your only priority.
Finding and committing to the right work is important, but living a balanced life filled with family, friends, and other non-work related experiences… is more important.
Three areas worth considering when thinking about fulfillment in life are growth, connection, and contribution.
Here’s the thing, if you’re one of the lucky ones who feels like the work they’re doing is helping them grow as a person, connect with beautiful minds, and give back to a greater good—you may feel like you’ve hit the fulfillment tri-fecta!
What you’d be missing, however, is your growth, connection, and contribution as a father/ mother/ husband/ wife/ son/ daughter/ brother/ sister/ friend/ lover/ grandmother/ grandfather/ uncle/ aunt/ cousin/ neighbor/ niece/ nephew...
Your growth, connection, contribution as an employee/ employer is but one dimension to the fulfillment whole.
And a whole slice of pie is not the same as a whole pie.
Imagine coming across someone who was looking at their reflection in the mirror, without moving, for a considerable length of time. And you ask them what they’re doing, to which they reply, “I’m waiting for my reflection to smile.”
You’d probably chalk that person up as crazy.
But, what’s the difference between that person and the person waiting for a considerable length of time for their circumstances to change? Staring at your circumstances unwilling to make the first move until your circumstances smile back at you—is the same thing!
Circumstances change when you change.
Smile first.
When choking, a drastic and sudden thrust is required—either by cough or Heimlich maneuver.
When choking on fear, maybe what’s required is the same—a drastic and sudden thrust.
Either by temporary uncharacteristic courage or by clever maneuvers against the mind.
Some people’s most memorable moments were closely preceded by the phrase: “F*ck it.”
Why? Because it allowed them out-maneuver the belittling thoughts of their mind and thrust forward, uncharacteristically, into the fear of the presented unknown.
This isn’t always good advice. But, when it is, it’s precisely the kind of Heimlich maneuver required to free a person from the suffocation of a comfort-zone filled life.