Category: Personal Growth

Don’t be (quite so) careful

Personal Growth

via Daily Prompt: Careful

I was a very careful child.

“Be careful!”  “Don’t drop it!”  “Don’t cut yourself!”

I think I’ve only cut myself once, and that was by accident, when I was carving my best friend’s name into a piece of wood.    I almost never drop things. I’ve never broken a bone.  I’ve never hit another car in traffic.  You could say I’m careful.

But I’m also rather neurotic, ruled by fear, and terrified of taking risks.  I’m overweight because I didn’t run, jump and play enough – in part, I was afraid of getting hurt.  I was careful.  I listened to people too much when I was young.  I didn’t develop a healthy sense of rebellion either.  I learned the fine art of sneaking instead.  “Be careful” turned into “don’t appear to do,” or “don’t try at all.”

Sometimes we need to give ourselves permission to make mistakes.  We need to try new, audacious things.  Stretch outside of the other-made prison of careful.  Take risks.  Move past fear so we can see the other side – then instead of careful, be mindful.

Mindfulness means we think about what we do, we look at it, but we weigh the risks and sometimes we decide a risk is worth it.  It’s being careful in a new way.  The way I did it as a child, it was fear motivated.

“Whatifwhatifwhatif?”

That consumed my young life.

“Well, so what?”

The mistake might not be so bad and the result not the end of the world.

Mistakes can be recoverable.    In the meantime, that scary trip you wanted to take but were afraid to?  Take it.  That exercise class that’s a little too vigorous?  Do it.  Be mindful, and fear won’t rule you.  Sometimes being a little less careful can lead to learning.

 

Depersonalize, and everyone wins the argument

Personal Growth

via Daily Prompt: Argument

I get myself into trouble when I personalize.   This happens when someone disagrees with me about an idea, and I think it’s about me, not the idea.  I start thinking they are attacking me instead of trying to find a solution to something that’s outside both of us.

This has a terrible effect – fights, hurt feelings, raised voices, strained relationships, long periods of moping, and more.  This habit has nearly destroyed me at times.

There’s a way out and through, though.  A discussion of any tough topic doesn’t have end in hurt feelings, no one needs to feel attacked.  The secret is a shift in mindset.

The best way to discuss something is to use arguments, rather than have them.  Think of the discussion as two people working together to solve a common problem.  There isn’t anything personal about it, nobody’s good or bad, the object is for you to work together to find the right answer.

The next time someone disagrees with me, or says something I find difficult to accept, I’m going to shift my focus from myself to the idea.  Thinking logically is the antidote to all the ruin that can happen if I personalize.

 

 

 

Daydream your way to happiness

Personal Growth

via Daily Prompt: Pretend

Remember when you were young, and you pretended that you were someone else?  When I was little, sometimes I’d be a bus driver, sometimes a pilot, sometimes a doctor, sometimes a vet, sometimes a detective.

Just as  kittens stalk leaves and toys as imaginary mice, we mold our young brains by pretending.  Fortunately, it’s not entirely that deadly serious, or otherwise I’d be trying for a career as an elevator or trolley car!  However, we can shape our thinking by pretending.

As adults, many of us forget this.  We live our lives, rooted in the ordinary routine.  We might forget to stop and wonder what things would be like if we were other people, or acted in different ways.  We miss out on a rich buffet of possibilities.  Later, we see an opportunity and say “why didn’t I see that coming?  Why couldn’t I have taken advantage of that and live my dreams?”

We can get around this by pretending.

Taking a few moments to let your mind fly free, and imagine every detail about how things might be if circumstances were different can prepare you if things really do change.  Some might do this to roleplaying games, others through guided meditation, but daydreaming can be done most places, in just a few minutes, with no special equipment or partners. It’s also a form of meditation if you allow it to be.

If you take a moment and just wonder, pretend, it might open up doors to opportunity you never saw.  Who would you be if you could be anyone, do anything?  What would that feel like?  Is there something you can do right now that is more along those lines, instead of your mundane everyday?

Let’s pretend.

Contentment

Personal Growth

Everybody wants contentment.  They want that quiet, calm feeling that everything is okay.  They want to have enough to get by, they want the right electronics, nice clothes, a good place to live, the right partner, the right job.  Many think those things are the way to contentment.

A person will never find contentment unless they first embody it.  Contentment comes from within.  You can be perfectly content if you are destitute, even if you aren’t sure where your next meal is coming from, if you have mastered yourself and are a source of your own contentment.  You can be happy with absolutely anything if you’ve learned this.

A common thought is that if you are content, you will never try for anything more.  Not so!  People often use this as a reason not to try for internally motivated contentment.  I know I’ve done that.  Being content with what you have still leaves plenty of room for improvement, while at the same time giving you a safe, calm internal place to work from.

How is that done?

Mindfulness meditation is very good for this.  If you take a small pleasant experience, such as drinking a cup of tea, taking a walk, or looking up into  a sunny sky, fill yourself with the whole sensation.  Notice everything pleasant about it.  The true key is, you can do this with ANYTHING.  That knowledge is true contentment.

Mental Quests as well as Physical

Personal Growth, Photography

via Photo Challenge: Quest

 

For me, quests have always been twofold.  Mental, and physical.  My cover photo represents my quest for images, for seeing deeper, for finding new things to write about.  This picture, below, is of the biggest prickly pear cactus I’ve ever seen – and I found it in a back alley of my neighborhood!

IMG_0033

There are other quests in life.  The quest for health, the quest for fitness, the quest for wholeness.

When I was young, my quests often happened on a TV screen.  I loved playing a game called Ultima: Quest of the Avatar. Conceived by Richard Garriott, it was innovative for its time. I played the version made for Nintendo. In a way it was like a really primitive version of Fable – in the free-roaming world of Britannia, you could complete your goals in whatever order you liked. Your choices directly affected your chances at success. As in life, this game allowed you to cheat – at a penalty – but ultimately you could only succeed by following the rules laid out in the game.

Britannia was a great place to adventure, full of dusty castles and ancient keeps, deep forests and wide oceans, with several cities and towns and eight dank dungeons. There was even a hot-air balloon you could control with Wind spells!

I may have mentioned before that I wrote an ebook about this game. I’m revisiting the subject because it’s been rather relevant to me of late. I really liked Ultima because it provided a very solid system of morality, neglecting nothing, and yet it wasn’t religious at all. There were no gods mentioned, no worship.

There were shrines and meditation was mentioned, as was magic, but no one made themselves subservient to anyone. The player might check how they were doing with Hawkwind the Sage, but otherwise they didn’t compare themselves to anyone else – they strove only to beat their own personal best.

Honesty, Courage, Compassion, Sacrifice, Honor, Spirituality, and Humility were the Eight Virtues. There was a system of colors, and different in game tasks that improved each of those virtues. There was also a network of dungeons to travel through in your Quest, as well as different cities and towns to discover.

One theme that I truly enjoyed was the idea that you, the player, were transported into that world – that once you mastered the Virtues you might carry them into your own life and be a hero there as well. A theme of the game was “the Quest of the Avatar is Forever.” Even now that I’ve been spoiled by awesome graphics and epic storylines, I still occasionally pine for that game.

One of the themes that I found most valuable is the idea that Virtue is something only achieved after hard work and long practice. There are no magic pills or instant philosophies. The journey is the adventure. At the end the final boss battle is a fight with a dark form… of yourself. If that isn’t a great philosophy for life, I don’t know what is! What was the reward after Quest’s end? Gold? Gems? Fame? Only a book… but one that contained ultimate knowledge. I can’t imagine a better treasure.

If you want to read more, check out my books page.

The true cost of cable

Personal Growth, Science and Techology

When I asked my friends how much cable costs, I was shocked!. One told me she pays $275 a month for TV and internet, and she’s thinking of cutting out the movie channels so she can save $30 or $40 per month. That’s it? That would still leave her about a $235 bill!

It seems to me that cable is not much more than a vacuum cleaner attached to your wallet.

How many DVDs can a person buy with $200 a month? I deduct $75 because that’s the price for cable internet, in my area at least. That’s all I pay, and I get all the entertainment I can handle.

An Amazon Prime subscription only costs $100 a year. You get unlimited 2 day free shipping plus a huge selection of movies and TV shows.

A Netflix membership doesn’t cost much more.

The library is free, and so is Youtube.

Now, let’s consider the time expense of cable. I used to be completely addicted to it, and watched TV all the time. My grades suffered, I didn’t work on my homework, I learned less. Ultimately, I wasn’t qualified to get as good a job because of this behavior.

I don’t blame cable for this. I did it to myself. I ask this question now: would it have been a good idea for me to pay for the privilege of having poorer earning power?

Yet, isn’t that what we do? We pay a company a lot of money (often thousands a year) for content we can buy for far less elsewhere! Learning is free. Entertainment is free. Even so, the addiction of passive entertainment can be really hard to shake. We don’t think logically when it comes to TV. We think emotionally.

If you are thinking of kicking the cable habit, consider how much more time you’d have if you didn’t watch as much TV. Consider the benefits to your eyesight. Also, tor your waistline. Think about how much you could get done if you freed up three or four hours every day. You could start a side business, read great books, exercise, spend more time with your kids.

Are you too tired at the end of the day to do anything else? Think about that, too. Is that really true, or could it change? Watching TV always made me feel more tired and lethargic, while doing things always made me feel better right away. This blog is about making your life more awesome. It’s hard to be awesome just watching TV all day. It saps your creativity and your energy.

There’s one final benefit to getting rid of cable. You will be exposed to less slick advertising and therefore you won’t feel like you need as much. This can lead to you spending less and being less of a slave to consumer culture.

With all the benefits of getting rid of cable, why keep it? The reason I keep hearing is that somebody else in the house wants it, so it can’t be gotten rid of. I’d say that some persuasiveness is in order here, if you do want to unplug the cable and plug into more money every month.

I’m not telling you to get rid of cable. I’m just asking you if the cost is worth it.

The power of routine

Personal Growth

A friend of mine recently lost his leg to a really bad case of sepsis. Previously, he smoked two packs a day, and had for forty years. Since he couldn’t smoke in the hospital anyway, and he thought he’d recover faster if he didn’t start again, he decided to quit. Cold turkey. He said it was easy.

No patches, no Chantix, no gum. No help at all other than one thing.

I was amazed! Then he told me how he did it.

You don’t have to suffer a major injury like

he did –

– but you can still change any habit you want to.We all have things we’d like to stop doing. We all have things we’d like to improve. It might be something like smoking or eating sugar, or it might be stopping negative thinking. It can be so hard to quit!

Luckily, my friend’s secret works. This one trick makes a bad habit much, much easier to stop.

Change your routine.

That’s it.

The reason why my friend was able to quit smoking, was because routine changed entirely as he coped with life with one leg. By the time he got back to work and started dealing with a more normal routine, the habit was already beaten.

Your mind often operates with preset “programs” that it runs during the day. Your daily routines happen almost without thought on your part, and that’s the secret. For example, a person might get up, brush their teeth, hit the shower, have a cup of coffee with a cigarette, head out the door, drive to work, have another smoke outside before going in, then go to their work station. If the routine contains a bad habit, then the bad habit is going to “run” along with the rest of the routine.

How to change your routine if your life is already set

It can seem impossible to change your routine. You’ve lived the same way for a long time, and what’s to change about it anyway? You have more control than you think. There’s always something to change. Here are some ideas. They are simply suggestions, meant to spur your own creativity.

 

Breakfast

Eat different foods or eat them in a different way. Change the color of the dishes you use. Wash up right away if that isn’t your normal habit. This tells your brain your circumstances have changed.

Morning Chores

If you usually make your bed, brush your teeth, and watch TV while eating breakfast, try brushing your teeth, making your bed, and eating breakfast while reading the paper or a book, for example.

Take a walk

Leave your shoes in an obvious place you can’t miss, so you don’t forget. If possible, do this before your shower – that way you don’t have to shower twice.

Make your bed

If you already make your bed, use a different colored top blanket.

Change your music

Listen to different music while you commute. Or listen to a book on CD.

Change your route

If there’s another way to get to work, try it. Or try another method for a while. I snacked in the car less when I started carpooling.

Rearrange your furniture

Changing the environment you live in, and changing your travel patterns within your home can also signal your brain that things are different.

Watch your triggers

If there’s something you always do near the time you do your unwanted habit, see if you can change that. If you eat a candy bar every day, for example, change your route so you don’t see the vending machine. Leave healthy snacks for yourself. If you always have a smoke with coffee, try tea for a while. Changing the flavor of the coffee might be enough. If you have problems with always being grumpy when you come home, for example, try a couple minutes of deep breathing and meditation.

The more you interrupt the usual pattern, at the same time that you are changing your habit, the better off you will be.

Living Radically

Personal Growth

via Daily Prompt: Radical

The word Radical can have many meanings but one of them is to completely change the nature of something.

If you were to live radically, you would be changing your nature.

What would you do, if you could do anything?

What kind of person would you be?

Would you be wealthier, for example?  More generous?  Kinder?

A radical shift in attitude happens in small steps.  It’s a transformation.  A butterfly does a lot of walking and eating and growing before it finally forms a chrysalis and emerges with wings.  It’s not an instant transformation.

Successful people aren’t born that way.  They usually work very hard, and that means constant effort – even if it’s not hard, it is steady.  People born to wealth need to work to keep it.  A radical shift means a thousand small changes, a few a day.  Eventually you wake up…

…and you’re the person you wanted to be.

 

Your Dream Hobby

Personal Growth, Thoughts About Life

Is there a hobby that you’ve always wanted to try but never thought you could do it? Something you want to do but don’t think you have the time, space, or money for?

Sometimes it’s fun to think about what we’d do if we could do anything. Then, at least, we can possibly think of something else to do, that scratches the same itch but isn’t quite so tough to get into.

Some “dream hobbies” are simply impossible. Like orbital skydiving if you’re already 85. Some seem impossible but aren’t, really. For example, Teddy Roosevelt was once told by his doctor that his heart was too weak for vigorous exercise so he ought to take it easy. Instead of taking a desk job like he was advised, he climbed the Matterhorn soon after. Now, if you have legitimate medical reasons not to do something then that’s understandable, but sometimes those reasons aren’t quite as immutable as we think.

However, this article is about fantastically impossible hobbies that are just fun to think about. Mine is falconry. I’d love to learn the ways of raptors, fly them, befriend them. Maybe do some education in schools, or get a job chasing off birds at an airport. Another “dream hobby” is raising Akhal Teke horses.

What would make me follow those goals? Enough land to do them in!

Do you have a cherished dream that you know won’t happen? What would it take to make it happen?

Is there another, lesser form of that dream that you could do?

Reality Cheat? Life in the Matrix

Personal Growth

via Daily Prompt: Cheat

 

Consider, for a moment, what it would be like if your entire life was a computer simulation.  Only, you didn’t know it was a simulation.  Everything around was created for you, all bodily sensations, etc, and the “real you” was a body lying in a vat somewhere, or hooked up to cables as a battery, or something like that.  It might even just be a disembodied brain.  Or it could be that long ago, your consciousness was digitized and uploaded into a vast matrix – and the entire world as you know it was in some huge group of servers.

What if you became aware of this?  Would it change how you behave?  You couldn’t really change the laws of the place your consciousness resided in, because the program would work the same way, so there wouldn’t be any Neo like abilities to suddenly know Kung Fu or fly a helicopter.  But, might that realization change how you face the world?

Might your own habits seem a bit less immutable?  Might you live differently, knowing your thoughts and perceptions were under your control?  Might you decide to really crack this oyster of a world and learn all there is to know, and gain real influence?

Maybe not… but maybe so.

You wouldn’t have had a way of knowing what this Matrix was beforehand, after all.

Also, how could you know that this isn’t really happening right here and now?