how to be aware in an unaware world

Tag: mindfulness

Consumerism
“Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.”
– Napoleon Hill
This quote is a stark reminder that the mind is one powerful tool. Bend it one way or another and it can do anything within the confines of modern physics.
For a personal example, I once set off to test and understand my level of discomfort and contentment by becoming a full-blown minimalist and living out of a backpack for at least one year.
Reflection
I reflected a good way into my minimalist self-discovery journey:
Over eight months and thousands of miles later, I now own under thirty items, including a great car that gets me all around this gorgeous country.
My next stop is Ecuador to visit a rekindled friendship from elementary school and explore the many volcanos, caves, and jungles that Ecuador offers.
After that, I will spend some time with dear family and friends in DC before jumping across the pond, as they say in England, to Portugal, and eventually all of southern Spain.
At each spare bedroom or couch, hostel dorm room, or campsite, I let go of something else. Whether it be an article of clothing or a gadget I barely use.
As such, I get to a place of intention, where what I own provides a real sense of purpose and is therefore deeply valued.
But even when something provides both those things now doesn’t mean it will provide it later. That’s when I let go.
What the mind of man can conceive and believe is incredible, and can be quite helpful and constructive.
Take harvesting for example: Farmers work day and night in the field, toiling with their hands and dragging their feet to produce a bountiful and abundant harvest. Through the process, the farmer grows proud of their work and because of it understands the earth and its provisions in great detail.
On the other hand, what the mind of man can conceive and believe is equally incredible, and can be greedy, gluttonous, and costly.
During the Industrial Revolution, man was working towards a future that was better and faster than the previous generation. This conception is called consumerism and it’s factually unsustainable.
Consumerism is both unsustainable for the planet and for human progress, it’s illogical and bewildering really.
And we are wasting such precious human talent on selling more and more and more junk.
I believe we have danced around the seriousness of consumerism for far too long just so we can lay in the comfortable piles of stuff a for little longer.
There is a tangible necessity to redefine capitalism so that it’s both beneficial for us and the planet.
How do we consciously consume without becoming overly dependent on products and their successors?
The company that immediately comes to mind is Apple. It’s a company that I have personally wasted money on my entire adult life.
Do I buy the newest iPhone? Do I upgrade to the newest AirPods? Do I wait until a newer version or do I buy it now?
The amount of time I spend contemplating Apple products and services is honestly ridiculous. My talent is wasted in rumination about a stupid new gadget or gizmo (as my dad calls them).
The fact is, Apple does make great products and services, but there is no need to upgrade every time a new version is released. Doing so costs so much hard-earned money, and more importantly, valuable time.
Apple is no different from any other company born out of capitalism, with majority shareholders, wealthy investors with lots of special interests, and a bottom line for unimpeded growth.
The questions we should be asking ourselves are:
“Does this product or service serve a purpose in my life right now?”
“Does this product or service work just fine in my life right now?”
If our answer is yes, then we can keep and use the product or service until it doesn’t serve a purpose in our lives anymore.
If our answer is no, then we can get creative, try a way to fix it, sell it, or give it to someone who would value it.
These two simple yet powerful questions remind us to come back to what matters, using our many products to fulfill us in some way, and then becoming resourceful in keeping our things in shape.
Another word for this is frugality: A prudent and sparing use or appropriation of anything.
In behavioral science, frugality has been defined as the tendency to acquire goods and services in a restrained manner, and resourceful use of already owned economic goods and services, to achieve a longer-term goal.
Encouragement
I know this all sounds daunting and difficult but it doesn’t need to be. All it takes is a little reflection, taking note of the things we own, and then deciding to keep them or not.
I encourage us to come back to the present moment, remembering that we already have everything we need to be happy and healthy.
And our capability to be happy and healthy is rooted in mindfulness.
Beyond this is desire, the wanting of the mind.
Remembering this will help alter our relationship with consumerism and clarify our needs.
Resources
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October 2, 2023
Action
“Iron rusts from disuse; water loses its purity from stagnation, even so, does inaction sap the vigor of the mind.”
– Leonardo Da Vinci
By design, some people think more and some instinctively act more. The head and the heart are at play in every decision we make.
But no matter how we approach the Book of Life, we have to write the chapters ourselves, we have to take action for our character.
Whatever we call it, inaction, laziness, or sloth, the result is the same.
Our minds need attention, purpose, and pause to stay vigorous.
For instance, reading can bring vitality and imagination to a stagnant mind. Whereas movies, television, doom scrolling, and social media do little to engage our minds in an active, rigorous way and can actually be detrimental to the mind.
Practicing mindfulness involves being fully present in the moment, and paying attention to our thoughts and sensations without judgment.
The Book of Life represents the unfolding story before us, with each moment and experience being a page or chapter.
Mindfulness encourages us to live more fully and consciously, recognizing the significance of each moment in our life story.
Reflection
Even waking up earlier can be the catalyst to a bright, purposeful day, with time to set our intentions and focus our energy.
There are 5 things I try my best to do every single morning: Wake up at six (much harder than it sounds), take a cold shower, work out, meditate, and journal.
I know that after doing those five small things (in under an hour and a half), I have set myself up for a great day.
And I’m not alone. The happiest people on the planet have a morning routine (see the link at the bottom).
Routines require rigorous action. It doesn’t have to be a giant, exhausting action either, often the smallest choices make the biggest impact in the long run.
It’s kin to building a house brick by brick rather than plopping the whole structure down at once, each brick laid is a deliberate voice, ensuring quality and craftsmanship.
Every small action relies on another even smaller action to complete.
Complete? But that’s not the right word. Is anything ever really completed? Are we ever finished with something, no matter the size and detail?
There is continuous improvement, evaluation, and backtracking to every endeavor.
These small actions, like brushing our teeth, rely on even smaller actions, like buying toothpaste or a toothbrush, which relies on going to the store, which relies having the means and health to travel, which relies on the knowledge that brushing your teeth is good for you, which relies on the ability to comprehend that knowledge, which relies on working memory to store that knowledge, which relies on an intact brain to store that memory, which depends on, well, you get the point.
This reminds us to understand the complexity of the world we live in and the propensity to often take it for granted.
It also points to a fascinating topic that some people study their entire adult lives: behavior. If we are a collection of our daily choices, then doesn’t that give us so much possibility to affect our behavior?
There is little fluctuation in behavior when we are grounded in self-disciple and good-natured, daily choices.
The one thing that is a constant in life is that everything changes, and the observation of that change over time is called mindfulness.
A person’s practice of observation (meditation) is at the core of every action, no matter how small.
Encouragement
I encourage us to pick up a good book today and read for a while, maybe go on a long walk in the woods or paint aimlessly, draw something completely random, pick up an instrument, or play a challenging game!
No matter the choice of action, make sure to focus on the intentionality and to note as always how you feel in the process.
Links
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September 30, 2023
Failure
“Every artist was first an amateur.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
What comes to mind when you hear this quote? What constitutes a failure to you?
When I think of failure, I don’t think of how unfortunate and frustrating it is, but rather how helpful it can be.
Failure is defined as the condition or fact of not achieving the desired end or ends or the condition or fact of being insufficient or falling short.
Failure is a choice that is reinforced as unacceptable by a high-achieving society.
But failure is a beautifully ironic thing. Without it, we would have no success, and yet it’s the last thing we want when pursuing success.
We must accept that we suck at something to ever not suck at something.
And even when we get as far as mastering something, we must be humble enough to act as if we’re still an amateur.
Children are a great example of this. They are amateurs at everything they try. They have seemingly unaffected beginner’s luck. A fresh, new, untainted, unafraid approach that is so beautiful to watch.
They may fail, cry, stamper, and pout, but at least they tried, without much hesitation, and eventually get up, dust themselves off, and try again.
We call it luck when they finally get it right, but it’s not luck, it’s a failure.
It’s like poker. Some play it for the first time and win hand after hand after hand, and the whole table chalks it up to beginner’s luck, but that’s no luck at all.
That’s both having no idea that their cards are the best at the table and playing without much care as to their card’s odds of winning the hand because they didn’t know that those cards made a good hand in the first place.
It’s a childlike carelessness.
Furthermore, never trying things that frighten us is one unhealthy habit to develop.
The fear of failure (or Atychiphobia) is a universal feeling, one that every single person on Earth has and will experience multiple times in their life.
Reflection
“There’s no way I can do that!”
“Are you kidding me?”
“I don’t want to!”
“I’ll never be that good!”
“What’s the use?”
I hear these phrases far too much, people giving up before the fight even begins.
We are selling ourselves short every single time we mutter those words, both inside and outside our heads.
We are selling ourselves short every time we refuse to try something new or retry something old and forgotten.
Forget what you cannot do and there is so much left over that you can.
Over time, that fear of failure will dwindle to but a speck in the mind, and eventually we will come to even seek out failure.
Failure is also different than letting go.
Failure implies that we are unsuccessful at accomplishing something less important to us.
Letting go implies that we are opening space for something more important to us.
It’s a matter of importance.
When something is important enough to you, nine times out of ten you will try over and over and over again to learn it with accuracy.
Encouragement
I encourage you (as I encourage myself each day) to try something new with the expectation that you will fail and to know that failure itself is an essential part of the learning process.
Then, I encourage us to keep that vision we try, over and over and over again.
It can be something as minuscule as a drawing, writing a poem, or cooking a new dish. Or it can be something massive like a trip outside the country, learning a new language, or getting a pilot’s license.
Links
Thank you deeply for your time and attention in reading this post, it is a rare gift these days.
Feel free to comment, like, and share it. You can also support me by Buying Me A Coffee. Thank you in advance!
September 26, 2023