Sometimes our head moves fast and our heart moves slow.
Sometimes our heart moves fast and our head moves slow.
In each case, we should facilitate a compromise and have them meet somewhere in the middle.
Because both the heart and the head should be honored for what they know.
P.s. Today, I hosted a LIVE space on writing and how it can help you live a better life. Here’s the replay. Conversation starts at around the 6 minute mark. Enjoy.
The following three questions have been guiding my life for the past several years:
1. What does my ideal day look like?
2. What does my current day look like?
3. What can I do today to get my current day closer to my ideal?
Would recommend.
In Martial Arts, one of the goals is to learn how to maximize the creation of power while minimizing the expenditure of energy.
Essentially, it’s the practice of learning how to fully press the “gas pedal” while fully releasing the “brake pedal.”
Pressing the gas and brake pedal at the same time is wildly inefficient for driving. And so is it for moving the body. Yet, this is the default when it comes to moving the body with any degree of intensity.
Both the protagonist and antagonist muscle groups tense which, in effect, slows down the attempt to speed up all at once.
…And wastes a bunch of energy in the process.
The art then becomes learning how to selectively tense certain muscles while selective relaxing others in real time. And the challenge, of course, is that there isn’t only one gas and one brake pedal—there are hundreds.
And so it is for life.
The question to consider is this: in each task that you’re trying to complete, what resistance could you simultaneously reduce?
Sometimes we focus so much on the doing that we forget about the un-doing. Because while a 10% increase in speed for “doing” is good, a 20% decrease in resistance is better.
And this isn’t a question that’s asked and answered only once—it’s an ongoing awareness.
We’ll never get this perfect—for our bodies or for life. But, progress—any progress—makes the effort undoubtedly worth it.
P.s. This became the introduction for: 23 Greg McKeown Quotes from Essentialism and How To Live Better Via Less
If you burned away everything you knew about yourself… what would remain?
This was one of the most remarkable questions I was asked while at Burning Man.
Worth reiterating: if everything I knew about myself…
…was burned away—what would I have left inside?
Before you read my answer, I encourage you to pause here and think about how you would answer this question…
Go ahead, I’ll still be here when you’re done…
The answer I came up with (which didn’t come quickly or easily) was everything I had when I was born:
Which made me think: a lot of what we carry with us in identity/ experience/ education is worth burning.
Not everything, of course, because there is a lot in identity/ experience/ and education that we carry that’s worth protecting.
But, there’s a lot that extinguishes our curiosity; deadens our liveliness; contaminates our innocence; removes our immediacy; and kills our compassion.
And that, is where the real inner work begins.
Not in trying to add to what’s already inside… but in working to subtract—to burn away—everything that’s corrupting what’s already there.
How would you answer this question? I’d love to hear. Simply send a reply :)
If you can’t:
…You aren’t free.
No matter what your work title, bank account, or social media feed might otherwise suggest.
A belief I’ve recently identified that’s limiting me:
My brain: “11pm/12pm bed time… same thing”
Also my brain: “If I could just wake up at 7am instead of 8am, my day would go 100% smoother.”
Point being, if I can keep the importance of an hour in my mind at night—then I get to take back a crucial hour of my day in the morning.
…Because according to my body, 8 hours of sleep is non-negotiable.
And by 11pm at night, there’s really nothing I’m going to do that won’t be done better at 7am the next day.
Worth reflecting on for yourself: what’s a belief you’re holding on to that’s limiting you?
P.s. I’ll be going to Burning Man this week! If you enjoy these daily posts, you can send a little love via coffee here. I could definitely use the caffeine for this partially-insane experience. ;)