Tag Archives: self improvement

Don’t Try. Be

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“Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

Steve Jobs

Charles Bukowski almost didn’t become the writer he had always dreamt of being. He worked in a post-office until his fifties, even though he tried and often failed to earn enough from his writing so he could quit his job.

Abraham Lincoln failed time and time again. He lost his bid for State Legislature when he was 23 years old. Six years later, he lost his bid to become Speaker in the Illinois House of Representatives.

In 1848, at the age of 39, Lincoln failed to become Commissioner of the General Land Office in D.C. Ten years later, he failed to become a U.S. Senator.

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Whether You Can or Can’t, You Can Always Try

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“Do or do not, there is no try.”

Yoda

This is one of those clever quotes that get passed around quite often.

When it’s do or die, most people tend to do.

But what if it’s not? What if you won’t die if you don’t write the blog post if you don’t send the e-mail?

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Are You Addicted to Self-Help?

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The obvious issue with self-help is this: its ultimate goal is to reach a point where you no longer need it.

Think about it: The whole goal of personal growth is to build yourself to be the person you’ve always wanted. The whole point of pursuing happiness is to reach a point where happiness no longer has to be pursued.

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A Speck of Dust in a Seemingly Infinite Universe

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This is us. All of us.

On the 14th of February 1990, just as the Voyager 1 probe was leaving the Solar System, some 3.7 billion miles away from Earth, Carl Sagan asked NASA to turn it around to snap a photograph of our home.

The resulting photograph showed the Earth as a pale blue dot, less than a pixel in size. A speck of dust in a seemingly infinite universe.

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How to Let Go of Limiting Beliefs

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For most of my twenties, there were so many things I didn’t want to be true about myself, yet I somehow thought them to be facts.

I believed I was quite unlovable, which was my excuse for not trying to be worthy of love in any way. I believed I’d always struggle financially, so I made no serious effort to earn more, to save more, or to build multiple streams of income.

I believed that life was harsh, that people didn’t like me for being skinny, kind of ugly, and not nearly as charming as everyone else, so I lived in a state of perpetual fear — I somehow expected the world to decide that I wasn’t worthy of living on this planet anymore and send me off to spend the rest of my life on the dark side of the moon or something.

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If You Don’t Get at Least a Hundred Likes on Your Selfies, Are You Even an Influencer?

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Some days I spend too much time on social media. It’s addictive, I get it. It’s also probably one of the primary causes of depression and anxiety among Millenials.

It is what it is.

But today I don’t want to talk about us comparing our day to day lives with the highlight reel of the rich and famous.

Today I want to talk about those who pretend to be rich and famous for likes and shares and a bit of money.

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Your Journey Towards Home Is Your Home

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We often think the point of being a human is to establish a self that is free from suffering, that is free from the outcome of pursuing happiness, love, success, fame, money…

The point of being human is not to travel to a place where everything is perfect. Instead, it is to understand that your struggle to establish a human self is inseparable from the self it creates.

In other words, your journey towards home is, in fact, your home.

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8 Simple Ways to Slowly Ruin Your Life

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We fall in love with fairytales because they promise us, “happily ever after.”

One of the most toxic mindsets that we can fall in love with is that of desiring completion. This fantasy that, once we reach the top of the mountain, our lives are going to be perfect.

As I am often too fond of quoting, life is pain. And anyone who tells you differently is trying to sell you something. And make no mistake, some folks make quite a bit of money by selling you this idea, by making you waste your time waiting for the weekend, for a vacation, for retirement, or for heaven.

There is no completion. There is no top of the mountain.

You know why?

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This Chinese Curse Can Teach You a Lot About Times of Chaos and Despair

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Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen, British Ambassador to China in 1936 and 1937, mentioned in his memoir that, before he left England for China in 1936, a friend told him of an old Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times.”

There’s not much evidence this expression was ever used as a curse in China, but it’s become rather popular in recent years.

While at first glance a blessing, not a curse, there’s more to this saying than meets the eye.

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Lessons on the Most Valuable Commodity on Earth From the Richest Stoic

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Manuel Domínguez Sánchez, The suicide of Seneca | Image via Wikipedia

In AD 65, Seneca the Younger was ordered to take his own life by the Roman Emperor Nero. Seneca followed tradition by severing several veins in order to bleed to death, while also ingesting poison.

This order was a response to Seneca’s supposed involvement in a conspiracy to assassinate Nero. Former consul and advisor to the emperor and one of the richest and most powerful men in Rome, Seneca decided to embody his philosophy to the very end. He accepted his fate with calm, even though those around him urged him to plea for his life.

While Seneca’s words of wisdom touched on countless aspects of life, he is perhaps best remembered for his piercing thoughts on the value of time.

This wisdom is relevant to this day, or maybe even more so, as we live in a world that makes it easy to lose track of time as we immerse ourselves in countless micro-distractions.

Carpe diem, as the Romans used to say, is an art that needs tinkering with as we do our best to seize time, rather than waste it.

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