Mindfulness &

how to be aware in an unaware world

Category: Quotes

  • Growth

    Growth

    “I learned to always take on things I’d never done before.
    Growth and comfort do not coexist.”
    • Ginni Rometty

    I used to have a quote on all my social profiles that would say misery accompanies growth, but now I see the error in my thinking.

    If it’s true growth, there is no misery, only minor or major discomfort.

    I will now change that personal profile pronouncement to Rometty’s interpretation, which is far more accurate: growth and comfort do not coexist.

    This simple saying is a powerful reminder that stepping out of the situational and mental comfort zones of life can bring a transformation to the mind and body.

    Take the attitude of a U.S. Marine, for example, who is told to push the mind to overcome the body and then listen to the body to overcome the fear.

    Then take the attitude of a farmer; who knows there is a day of physical toil and labor ahead of them but rises early and intently to meet it.

    The Marine becomes comfortable with the uncomfortable by saving lives; the farmer does so by producing a plentiful harvest. Both reap the benefits of that discomfort.

    By welcoming the pain rather than dreading it, you can win the psychological battle of discomfort before it even starts. The Marines call this “embracing the suck.”

    On a farm, patience and perseverance win that same psychological battle. Farmers know the underrated notion that if we desire anything inside or outside the limits of our current ability, we must be willing to work at getting it.

    What falls outside our current ability to get something? Well, if you’re anything like me, asking for help is harder than I’d like to admit, but it is an essential ingredient in long-term growth.

    How can one fight an army or plant a field by themselves? The vision can be singular, but the work must be done in a multitude.

    Now, all of this isn’t to say we should never give up and let go of some things; like the tight grasp on a rope tied to a moving object, burning the hands, and straining the arms.

    There is something to be said about giving up and the current view of it. Not only is giving up good, but it is a necessity for sustainable growth.

    This brings into doubt a notion in the famous saying: it’s about the journey, not the destination.

    But if the journey makes you miserable, then the destination isn’t worth it.

    The suck will still suck just as bad, but it will suck because you are aligned with the outcome.

    But how do you know what to give up on and what to push through? It takes a nice concoction of mindfulness and experimentation.

    Mindfulness to strengthen the mind-body experience and experimentation to give the gut some options.

    This process is like driving a car through all kinds of tough environments. When we are deeply tuned in to what the body is saying while we grow in any endeavor, we know where to turn left, right, or even turn around completely.

    Every time I travel, I feel this sense of comfort and growth battling it out in my mind. It’s not always easy choosing to grow, but boy, is it rewarding.

    Through having to change plans on a dime, find work when I’m running out of funds, or learn a language to build relationships, backpacking was for me a sort of catalyst for growth.

    Another example is cold showers. They are uncomfortable, sure, but they push my comfort zone lower and lower each time, to the point that now I really enjoy a cold shower!

    I encourage you to do just one thing that you find uncomfortable. It could be trying a new food, talking to a complete stranger, or going cold at the end of your shower.

  • Reputation

    Reputation

    “Be more concerned with your character than with your reputation, for your character is what you are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.” – Dale Carnegie

    I love this quote for two reasons. The first is that reputation is a heavy-loaded word, surrounded by double meanings, and this simple definition of the word cuts through the bullshit – straight to the point.

    The second reason is more a subtle reminder, that our character is like a tree and our reputation is like its shadow (I believe Abraham Lincoln said that, and boy was his reputation on the line).

    Most of us are generally afraid to say something wrong, do something incorrect, or make an unpopular decision. Luckily, you can please some people some of the time, but you definitely can’t please all the people all of the time (I believe Bob Marley said that one, and boy, there weren’t a lot of people who didn’t like the guy).

    The human condition of fear keeps us from speaking out, tarnishing our reputation, but is it better to have a bad reputation doing the right thing or a good reputation doing nothing?

    This isn’t to say that a bad reputation can’t follow a bad person, it most certainly can. But it can also follow a good person doing the right thing. Sometimes we must make a choice Harry, between doing the right thing and doing the easy thing (I believe Dumbledore said that, and boy did he have his share of fictional but heart-wrenching choices).

    Caring for a reputation is like caring for a dead tree, it will only rot away in the end, our time wasting away with it. Caring for our character is like tending an already strong, capable, and beautiful tree, unconcerned with all the dead trees around us.

    Haters are like crickets. Crickets make a lot of noise, you can hear them but you can’t see them, and then right when you walk by, they go quiet. (Honestly, I have no idea who said that, only that I just remembered it).

    To be more concerned with our character than our reputation is no easy task, but it is only uncomfortable when we listen to the crickets.

    Where does our good counsel come from then? If listening to chirping crickets is a waste of time, then listening to good counsel must be the key.

    Mindfulness teaches us to listen openly and kindly – directing our character towards kindness, compassion, justice, and service.

    Doing the right thing, the hard thing is a matter of observation.

    Observe your friends, family, and members of your community – who stands out? Who is doing the hard things – standing up for what they believe in? Is the core message of kindness 

    Observe yourself – what doesn’t settle right with you? What difficult choices do you have in your life right now? What does your conscious tell you in difficult times?

    Breath deep

    Clear your conscious

    Proudly stand up for yourself – for you are worth it.

    Bodly stand up for others – for they are worth it.

    Dale hit the nail on the head when comparing reputation to thought – he was reminding us of a simple confusion in definition, unfortunately, common today.

    Only we know our character – that part of us that needs no approval. Only we can grow our roots with a clear conscience and good counsel. And only we can determine what is right and what is easy.

  • Small Talk

    Small Talk

    I found this excerpt from a Medium article that I sadly can’t find for some reason. I often save excerpts like this that I find fascinating and then build a blog post around them.

    It helps to have some piece of writing to go off of as if someone provided some insightful bit in a conversation. The author ends this excerpt just as my thoughts begin this post:

    “I particularly enjoy reading works of non-fiction, but any form of good literature is utterly captivating. Keep in mind that whenever you pick up a good book to read, you are taking an extensive journey into the mind of the author. It’s amazing to me that as an ordinary person, I have immediate access to the greatest minds of the past and present, and can absorb years and years of their toiling research in just a matter of days or weeks. This ability to be captivated by the minds of others is also widely available in the form of our loved ones and friends. However, it’s the people closest to us that we often take for granted. We tend to think we know everything there is to know about them, and our inquisitive nature is often reserved for strangers and small talk.”

    Small Talk

    What comes to mind when you hear those words?

    Is small talk a set of pleasant or unpleasant words?

    To me, small talk can be a beautiful, synergistic, and very much so human way of connecting with others (known and unknown).

    I love the result so much that I have inadvertently been practicing the art of small talk since high school. The result is a new connection, a person in a place to visit halfway around the world, or the news that my mother was a badass in the field of speech pathology.

    I can see, however, how many people perceive small talk as a waste of time, and learned much from such people in my very first mini backpacking trip to Boston, New York, and Chicago in January of 2018 (yes it was freezing as shit and yes I absolutely loved it).

    What I learned from these people during that frigid winter, more so in their aversion to my small talk and body language, was that time is a valuable commodity, and most small talk is a waste of that valuable commodity.

    What I learned was that these northern folk weren’t necessarily mean, they were just being cautious with their time (and they were overwhelmed by so many people trying to talk to them all the time).

    Humans are not supposed to live like this, surrounded by masses of other humans, in tight spaces, in busy lives, in mindless routines (but that’s for another post).

    I say, “what I learned” because my time trying so hard to create small talk and learn everything about everyone was a waste of others’ time.

    I learned the opposite of this, the art of small talk, living in Nashville, Tennessee (it sounds better when you add the state). Nashville, one could argue, is the birthplace of small talk. I mean, there is so much small talk that the word got out and became the main reason so many people visit.

    Did you enjoy Nashville? Hell yeah, the people there are so friendly. I met so many awesome folks. Hattie B’s is a godsend. The best bands play in East Nash. LA Jackson used to have the best view of downtown. I digress.

    It’s almost a crime not to engage in small talk on the streets of Demonbruen or Gallatin Avenue, in Honky Tonks or Printer’s Alley. It was a place I thrived.

    Nadiia Mykhalevych describes small talk beautifully:

    “Small talk is not a small thing. It’s like a gateway to the conversation. You just need to knock on this door, wait for the response of the other person, and see whether they’ll invite you in or not.”

    There was a flipside though. A lot of that small talk, as I learned in Central Park and along the Freedom Trail, was a waste of valuable time. Meaningful conversations come from astute observations.

    When observing the Northern attitude, I was taught to find a reason to engage in small talk, not fumble for the reason during small talk. Akin to a quarterback throwing a deliberate pass to one desperately chucking the ball somewhere upfield.

    Small talk is also a strange human mechanism I find myself in all the time. An awkward silence that needs a filling: “Hows it going?”, “The weather is nice today isn’t it?”, “What is your greatest fear and why?”

    That last one was an obvious outlier. A question I think everyone should ask everyone all the time (and not in the job interview way).

    What is my greatest fear and why? Well, for starters, it’s not physical, not something that can kill me, and not a feeling per se.

    What I fear the most is having lived a life that I would regret, and so far that is not the case. So far I’ve lived at least three lives that I can say with confidence are pretty damn good lives.

    But as the human mind does its human thinking, I create this fear that I will die without having fufilled my dreams:

    Writing a book that touches many, many people, acting in a movie that inspires many, many people, and creating an album that helps many, many people find inner peace.

    These are not just dreams cultivated from fear, they are aspirations brought to me over time (but that’s for another post).

    Maybe you consider small talk a waste of time, or maybe you consider it the best waste of time, but either way, we can use mindfulness to approach small talk constructively.

    Strong relationships are the product of the right questions, and we can find out that the right questions are openings to someone else’s world, a portal through which we can learn, grow, and strengthen ourselves. 

    What we learn can then be conveyed to others, down the road, during a different, small, talk.