The best way to beat a liar is to not be like one.
The best way to beat a cheater is to not be like one.
The best way to beat a bully is to not be like one.
For as soon as you act like one, you’ve become one.
And to have become one is to have joined forces with the opposing team.
If you want to be beautiful don’t make ugly choices.
If you want to be excellent don’t make average choices.
If you want to be a professional don’t make amateur choices.
Identify who you want to become and align your choices accordingly.
Worth noting: intent, goals, aspirations, dreams, desires—all have nothing to do with it.
We are a byproduct of our choices. Nothing more and nothing less.
Netflix, Playstation, Night Clubs = Hiding Places
Journals, Retreats, Deep Conversations = Finding Places
If you really want to find yourself, stop spending all of your time in hiding places.
Living your truth will set you free.
Living a lie will confine you into a cell of your own making.
Freedom is saying what you think and how you feel, as who you are.
Captivity is saying what you think others want to hear, based on how they feel, so that you can be who they think you are.
Don’t you see? The entire thinking process is under arrest by the anarchical judgements of others.
But, here, in this prison, there are no iron bars. There are no orange jumpsuits. There are no keys or guards.
This cell, the one you might find yourself in when you live a lie, is imaginary.
Whatever guards, keys, jumpsuits, and iron bars you feel incarcerated by, have been (and can only ever be) sentenced by you.
And so is the case for your sentence to freedom—it’s all decided within the confines of your mind.
So, how do you free yourself?
You cannot have an effect without a cause.
Your actions are an effect.
If you don’t like your actions: look closer at what’s causing them.
The real cause(s) might not be as obvious as you initially think.
You might be short towards a coffee shop employee because you didn’t get a good night sleep.
Or you might be short towards a coffee shop employee because of a grudge you’ve been building towards a loved one—which inadvertently has been causing you to lose sleep and your temper.
Being proactive in understanding your causes is the secret to having more clearly understood effects.
When stuck, most people will blame circumstance.
But, what’s really holding them in place is what they believe to be true about those circumstances.
Your beliefs are the real source of your stuck-ness.
Change your beliefs and you’ll finally be able to change your scenery.
We think—then we feel—then we act.
Even when we think we act before we think or feel—we don’t.
We simply act really quickly in response to something we think and then feel.
Like when you get cut off in traffic. You don’t just act without a thought or feeling.
You just go from, “What are you doing you idiot?!?!” to feeling threatened to responding with road rage in what feels like a thoughtless snap.
Because that’s the response you’ve spent the most time training. Every time someone cut you off, right from the very beginning, that was the thought, feeling, action sequence that you practiced. And so it became a habit. So much so, that it feels thoughtless to you.
But it’s not. And it can be changed. Just like any other bad habit.
But first, you have to change how you think about those bad habits.
Rather than,“What are you doing you idiot?!?!” think, “Wow, I’m so thankful for my reaction time—this person obviously didn’t know what they were doing.” And let that lead to feeling proud of yourself for your awareness/ reaction time. And let that lead to a heightened sense of gratitude rather than road rage.
So long as you continue to think of the drivers around you as idiots, the feelings of being threatened will continue to emerge, and the response will continue to be road rage.
If you want to change how you act, change how you think, first.