"the blog!"
Welcome readers! I am excited to be sharing these sometimes thought provoking and/or relatably entertaining blogs. They are meant to inspire you to challenge yourself and hopefully grow a deeper curiosity about your own potential in life. Enjoy!
Blog #4
F.O.M.O. Fear Of Missing Out
I think one of the hardest things about being human is our need to compare. We seem to believe that we are always missing out on something and that perhaps, oh, I don’t know…that the grass is somehow always greener on the other side! We’re always measuring what we have to others. Yes, I know you know what I am talking about. Although even though I am certain that we all deal with our personal comparison to the world in different ways, it’s still a form of measurement nonetheless. Whether we like it or not, we are all constantly measuring ourselves to the world around us. Okay, maybe not you, right? You’re the exception, I know.
But for the rest of us, perhaps it’s our ego that doesn’t like feeling like we are missing out or being left behind and so therefore we must chase what others are chasing. But the harder we chase the more we lose ourselves because we are caught trapped in the pursuit of what society has deemed worthy dreams and worthy trophies to display. It’s like we get caught up in this need to have what others have and then parade them around a little with the pride of believing that we are now somehow accepted in the tribe of humanity.
But has it really come to this? Are we really so shallow that we don’t dare wandering off the path of what others have? Clothing, music, images that we portray to the world that we want to belong to something. Even the people that try to be different and “alternative” and send messages to the world that they just don’t care are actually just playing into their egos vision of how they believe the world is. Which coincidentally their favorite musicians and or leaders of the tribe that they call home is also doing.
I’ll use myself as a perfect example of what I talking about here because I too am human and have a strong fear of missing out and need to belong. I have gone through different phases in my life, and I am the first to admit that I am still just trying to figure it all out. But isn’t what we are all doing… just trying to figure it all out? Absolutely! But this is exactly what I am talking about too, from the outside, we see others that appear composed and calm and busy being them. They appear to have it all figured out, although… if you were able to hang out in their heads for a day, you’d probably find out that their world is perhaps not a lot different than yours. They too have problems, stresses and issues, just like you. The Buddha says that “to be human is to suffer”. This means that we are all suffering from the dilemmas that we fabricate in our heads. We see the world, not for its beauty, but from a perspective of where we are in relation to the rest of the world. Like it or not, we are in a race, a human race to not feel like we are falling behind. We all want to get ahead. Ahead of where we are now, ahead of our competition, so that we don’t live our lives feeling like a lesser person. So we want what we don’t have which feeds our dire need for progress. For some, it could be our need for keeping up, like the achievement of a goal, or gaining stature in the community, or whatever. We are all suffering from not having something that if we receive we believe will bring us happiness, acceptance, recognition, it doesn’t matter. And the very fact that we all listen to this internal narrative inside our minds that leads us to believe that we need it, is what it means to be human.
Now, as I was saying, I too have gone through different phases in my life. I have gone through a phase where I wanted more, so I worked hard to get it. I have had dreams, and I too have worked hard to get them. I have gone through failures, so I have worked hard to overcome them. And I have had trophies with big tires parked in my driveway as proof of my achievements. Now, I know, I sound like a bit of a douch-bag, especially with the whole trophy thing. Perhaps I had to prove to myself (my ego) that I was able to rise above my raising and needed proof of my progress? Although I never drove it for braggadocios rights, I actually just loved the experience and the personal feeling of being a little victorious at establishing myself and achieving some monumental goals… Okay, you’re right! That does sound a little douch-bagish!
But I am beyond that now. Well, for the time being anyways. I mean, after the whole covid thing, I have developed a lifestyle where I am more in love with the process of being me. So who am I? To be honest, I have no idea. I thought I would feel better if I had chased money or trophy’s, but then realized that those things never made me feel real. They just made me feel more accepted and a little more proud. Like I could hold my head up high or something. But not more proud of who I am. So I repeat, who am I? Well, as I was saying, after covid, I was able to reduce my hours of work and of course take a cut in pay too. It’s all good, because we are making ends meet and I have a lot more free time to enjoy life. Although when I say, I have reduced my hours of work, I need to say that I used to work 70-80 hours a week. I now work around 40 hours a week. My car in the front of my house has average sized tires… well, perhaps a little smaller than average simply because I don’t like doing what so many others do and take a loan, just to drive a nicer car and appear like I am better off than I am. Yeah, you’re right, I should probably be one of those annoying people that put one of those bumper stickers on it that says “At least mines paid for”…but I won’t, because who am I kidding, nobody cares anyways.
Besides, by owing less, I am more flexible to do the things I want because I don’t get caught up having to work more to pay more. I suppose you could say, at this chapter in my life, it just feels right to have the freedom to find out what makes me really happy, time. Time is, after all the richest currency of all, and once you find that out, you will be willing to make sacrifices and drop the things that are less important to you, such as trying to impress the world that to be honest, doesn’t give a crap about you and couldn’t care less what postal code you have, the trophy you have parked in your driveway or the clothing you have on your back. The facts are, people are going to judge me, no matter what I am driving… it is human nature to judge people. If I drive a nice car they judge me, and if I drive a shitty beater, well yes, they too will judge me. Besides, this decision was mine to take. Oh, I am not doing the whole van-life thing, but I do see those people through a more positive light and with some respect too. To be honest, it’s kind of liberating in some ways to down-size myself from the Matrix. Not completely off the grid, but trying to escape the whole comparing myself to others thing…No, I am not completely there yet, but I feel like I am on the right path.
Time! Time is now on my side. From the outside, I may appear like I am less shallow and douch-bagish, and in the beginning I’ll admit, that’s exactly what I was going for. More time to reflect and figure it all out, because the other me, with the big tires, didn’t exactly feel right either. Does this mean that I now have it all figured out? No! Because, even though I am a new me, I am still searching for who I am. And as embarrassed as I am to admit, I sometimes think back to the old me with a little envy occasionally, especially when I see a car with big tires drive by, thinking, hmm, did I make the right decision to leave that life… and the answer is, absolutely YES! But there is and probably always will be a small part of me that fears that I am missing out on something. I mean, I lived for over 40 years believing that wealth was something worth giving up my time to pursue. I bought into the belief that if I am not chasing money, then I am missing out. And you can just erase all those years of believing in that instantaneously, can you? But, yes, realizing that there is more to life than chasing what others want or have was the right decision for sure at that time… I am afforded the time to chase my dreams and goals that give my life purpose and balance instead of wasting my time caught up in chasing the dream of just trying to find acceptance and fit into what society tells us is the dream.
But it isn’t always easy, and I am not going to lie to you. I am not a saint and I do have weak moments and I still feel FOMO from time to time! My ego driven insecurities of missing out on others respecting me with a little envy, and not to mention the fear of feeling like others are looking down on me as if I am no longer their superiors or even their equals. Like when driving my car with big tires, nobody EVER cut me off in traffic… in fact they would often wait and let me past or let me cut infant of them in traffic with some sort of road respect… though now, I get no respect and people cut me off all the time! Stop laughing… I know it sounds absurd, but it’s true.
It’s like I have taken a few steps backwards in the eyes of society, although in my own heart I feel like I have taken a few steps forward. It’s like I am caught in an adjustment phase so it’s understandable that I sometimes feel a little bit of turmoil. Of course, I know that this is all going on in my head, although I am human, which means that like the Buddha said, “To be human is to suffer”. And most of the time, the suffering that we feel is caused by our own emotions dictating our feelings and getting the better of us.
All I am saying here is that I think it is human to never be satisfied with where we are in life. As humans, we are always looking on the horizon for the next big thing that we hope will bring us happiness. But once we arrive there, we never stay happy for very long…and so we remain always trapped somewhere in the pursuit of happiness. This is what psychologists call the hedonic adaption theory, also known as the hedonic treadmill. It’s when we adapt relatively quickly to new situations mentally. Whether we win the lottery, or lose a limb in an accident, neither scenario will make us more happy or more sad once the initial emotional reactions wear off. We eventually adapt mentally to our new situation and then return quickly to a relatively stable level of happiness or sadness despite major positive or negative events or life changes.
However… and this is a massive however folks. I believe, we need these bigs things to search for on the horizon to give us hope. No, they will not bring us happiness, but we do need something to fight for in life, and that’s where our happiness is hidden. It is the struggle of chasing something important to us that forces us to get out of our comfort-zone and grow. If we don’t have something to fight for, then what is the purpose of living? Okay, that might of come out a little twisted… what I meant to say was, if we choose to push ourselves harder to get what we want, our lives find a purpose and balance because we are striving for personal growth that we otherwise might not feel. Without something to fight for, we can often feel a little lost. Now does this mean that we need to want what we don’t have? If it’s for the right purpose then yes. If we are doing it for ourselves, meaning something that attributes to personal growth and a goal that we honestly feel connected to, then yes. But if we are doing it because the neighbor has a new car and so therefore we too feel like our car is too old, then it’s like we are caught up in the world of the “Jones’s”.
Comparison is and often will always be the “killer” of passion. When we compare ourselves to others, we are in essence using their ruler to measure our progress. Although, this is a seriously dangerous thing to get caught up in because we never will know the sacrifices that others have made to get what they have achieved. The other thing is, that we all learn a different rates. I myself can speak from the personal experience of always being a slow learner. Although I wonder, if I stopped comparing myself with others, would I improve faster? I mean, yes I am slow at learning new skills, but usually only because I feel like I am slow. But is this judgement based off my comparing to others? I definitely have a chip on my shoulder from my days in high school when I was an undiagnosed dyslexic that convinced myself that I was slow and must be stupid. I had a learning disability that back in the GenX’r days wasn’t really a huge focal point in the learning institutes. But aside from that, I actually did pretty good in individual sports and arts, and it was only once I started getting caught up in comparing myself to others that I began to magnify my rate of progress and lose my passion for both practice and competition in those too. The problem was, I was comparing myself to others results and not to the sacrifices or efforts that they had made. Their sacrifices were not visible, but their results were.
But then again, this is all fine and dandy to reminisce about now that I have a few more years of life experience under my belt… in fact it’s only just now at this phase in my life that I am beginning to figure out that all those cliches “Don’t race yourself - pace yourself”, or “It’s not the destination, but the journey” are true!
They are cliches for a reason, and depending on where we are in our life will determine on how much we realize the importance of them. So I’ll be the first to admit, for most of my life, I have been caught in a trap of comparing myself to others and as I mentioned a couple paragraphs ago, I am still feeling a little fear of missing out, even though I have somewhat withdrawn from the rat-race of life.
“You either quit or keep going. They both hurt, remember that.” - Brandon Carter
Can this be true? Are we really damned if we do and damned if we don’t? Am I really so weak and brain washed by society that I will always feel like I am missing out on something… maybe. And if you don’t, then I applaud you, because you are a bigger person than me.
But I will say this one thing, I am also really enjoying my life too, even if I feel a little FOMO from time to time. But I guess, this whole ordeal has made me realize that, it’s healthy to have wants and needs and to always look on the horizon. Because if we are doing them for the right reasons, then it is the pursuit of those wants and needs that will give our lives balance and make us feel purpose and happiness.
Which brings me to my next chapter,
Keep yourself busy!
#3 Blog
The Beginner Mindset
The Beginner mindset (Chapter from an upcoming book called "For the love of it")
“Having an attitude of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions when studying a subject, even when studying at an advanced level, just as a beginner in that subject would have.” Shoshin, (The beginners mind) Zen Buddhism
This “beginner” concept believes that those who approach life with few preconceptions will be open to new ideas and perspectives. While those who believe themselves to be experts will only see what affirms their own bias beliefs, and therefore often miss crucial learnings.
The people that often see themselves as experts in a particular area are not open to change or potentially new improved methods that could help them grow. This is actually a mindset in itself which is often called “the expert syndrome”. For example, a person that has 20 years of experience of which they have decided to actually use one of those years to learn and then hit repeat for the remaining 19 years can arguably only have one year of experience. Does that make them an expert? In their own minds, absolutely. They may feel like they’ve always done it this way and so therefore it is easier for them to remain with the comfort of their often limited knowledge, in their comfort-zone. They may build a wall around their often fragile ego that protects their ideas and closes out any new ones that may conflict with their bias beliefs. This of course closes them off to potential growth. Although, there is a certain amount of merit and time required to learn and develop ones skills in any field. And if we just bounce around from idea to idea without developing any true real understanding in one area before becoming curious and attempting to test and poke holes in it, then that also may have some disadvantages to allowing oneself to develop and grow.
Therefore, I don’t think the expert syndrome should be confused with deep concentration and “time spent in the water” which is also a requirement in developing ones skills. Although, that being said, we need to show up during those hours spent in the water with an open mind that is observant to potential triggers that can help accelerate personal growth.
I am a golf coach and have being coaching golfers of all levels for over 20-years. In my field there are a lot of “method” coaches that from their experience have developed a belief structure that their methods are the best suited for everybody that steps up to the tee and wants to swing a golf club. But even though I will explain and draw on my own experiences through my profession, I think it is generally safe to say that people in all professions draw biases to their own beliefs and so therefore develop a mindset that believes they know best.
I golf, many of these method coaches have become renowned for their teaching methods and almost sell themselves and their beliefs by knocking the other methods down. It’s kind of like watching politicians that are campaigning for office. When they speak their opinions, they start off by building themselves up by putting others down. Listening to them “campaigning” about why everyone else is wrong makes me lose interest entirely in what they are offering. But, like in politics, the louder they yell, the more people listen. I watch instructors marketing themselves as a specific “type” of instructor and using social media to explain mostly why everyone else in the industry is wrong. We are all looking for answers and the more confident one comes across the easier it becomes for others to follow, so follow they do! It’s not that what they are saying is necessary wrong, but it’s that they have convinced themselves that they are right without even opening their minds to the “possibility” of seeing how different techniques might benefit some people in easier ways. I mean, come on, it’s not rocket science, it’s about teaching people how to swing a golf club in the best suited way for the individual golfer.
Okay, okay… I have probably lost the majority of you, especially if you don’t play golf. And yes, this is beginning to come across as a bit of a rant, I agree. But it’s also an example of how easily we humans can develop a narrow minded belief structure that allows our egos to cloud our judgement in the biased belief that we are the “expert” here.
But please bear with me for a moment. Because even though it may not be rocket science, it is science nonetheless. But since we are on the subject of rockets and science, even the highly intelligent people of NASA had to hire people from outside fields of expertise to help them resolve problems and issues that rocket scientists weren’t able to figure out due to them learning previous bias beliefs of what can or can’t be done in the field of rocket science. This is because they only new what they had learned, and weren’t able to expand their vision to what they hadn’t yet learned, so they needed to hire outside people, and it worked!
“If all we have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail!” - Maslow (Abraham Maslow was an American psychologist)
But back to the golf swing, and perhaps life in general, because if we are not careful, we might just become rocket scientists or method teaching golf pros in a world that strives for being an expert in something.
“Heroes not Zeros” - the ego
But with my 20 years of “expertise” in an industry of hammers and nails, I am constantly reminded by watching people that believe themselves to be experts, that they are just defending their often inflated egos that have developed biased opinions that are ignorant to seeing all the facts. Because one of the most dangerous things about the human psyche is our ignorance to believe that we are none other than the “heroes” of our own story and we will go to the far reaches of the universe to defend our beliefs.
Our egos are a funny thing. It is easy to convince ourselves that we are right, because admitting the opposite leads us to what feels like a vulnerable place. If we feel like we are an expert, we may feel like we should know everything, and so it is easier to become defensive and ignorant instead of interested and intrigued.
The funny thing about the different methods that are taught for swinging a golf club is that there are successful students and great players of the game of golf that use all different methods. There is simply no one way to swing a golf club that is perfect for everybody. And the fact that our bodies all move differently due to different lifestyles, injuries, age level, skill level, strength, flexibility and physical limitations is perhaps the biggest factor when teaching a golfer how to make the most efficient golf swing that is best suited to that specific individual.
So where am I going with this? I’ll tell you. I have spent the last 20 years of my career attending different seminars and courses with many of these renowned method teachers because I am curios and interested to learn why they believe their method is best. But what I have really received from attending them is the gift of realizing that the more I learn, the less I know.
There, I admit it… I’ll put myself out there and I am not ashamed to say this. Acknowledging that I know “less” is in fact a humbling place for me to be. It reminds me that I am exactly where I need to be, in the beginners mindset and open to learning and developing new skills. The result is, the more I learn from these renowned experts that are somewhat limited in their biased beliefs, the more tools I have in my shed so that I am able to adapt and try to use the different methods or mix them so that they help me hybrid up and develop a new method that is best suited for the individual student that comes to my lesson tee.
But most importantly, the number one thing that I gain on a personal level from developing my career in this way is; that I MAINTAIN MY LOVE FOR IT. I don’t grow stagnant and lose interest simply because I am intrigued and willing to answer my curiosity to learn more. Having this ability leads to personal growth. And this, is what keeps me in balance with happiness and gives me a feeling of purpose in what I do.
It’s true what they say, knowledge is power… but not in the way that gives our ego the right to feel superior over others just because we’ve spent X amount of years learning about X Y and Z.
The bottom line is, and what makes the beginner mindset so important for us to develop is, the fact that nobody has it all figured out in life and nobody is an expert. We are all just students of life and the faster we realize this, the less stressed and insecure we will feel about who we are. The beginner mindset is something that we should all dare to lean into. It’s about leaning into the mystery of answering our curiosity and developing our skills and learning about ourselves in the process.
Because if you think you know more than the next person and that you’ve got it all figured out, you are wrong!
So how does this tie in to this book; For the love of it. When we are a beginner, we are innocent and our love for the participation of an activity is pure. We are in the “honeymoon” phase. We are curios and open minded and eager to learn and grow. This is a mindset and a state of learning that we need to hold on to throughout our entire life. It’s just a is fun place in our mind to be and in my opinion, when we begin to take ourselves and life too seriously, we lose interest in those things that we once found interesting.
The beginner mindset offers a way back, to the beginning. To a place in our career, or hobby, or our passion that is refreshing and fun. It’s exactly where we need to be, if we want to stay in love with the process of exploring our potential.
So the next time you allow yourself the opportunity to walk in to a room, remind yourself that you have two ears, two eyes and one mouth. Find out which order works best for you to allow yourself to morph into a sponge that is wet from soaking up life instead of being a brick that is so hard in its ways that nothing new can sink in.
Open your mind to new ideas, allow your opinions to be willing to listen and then lean in to learning and personal growth. Because at the very least, you will discover 1000 ways to not build a light bulb before succeeding(Thomas Edison) instead of finding a 1000 reasons why you shouldn’t even try.
#2 Blog
Love - Hate!
Immediate vs. Delayed gratification and how we need to eat more marshmallows!
Anyone that has ever stuck with something for long enough knows that they are doing it because they love doing it… it’s never for money or fame.
But let’s be serious, what does that really mean? Because they love doing it? Love is crazy, it’s insane and from the outside doesn’t make any sense. Why? Because love comes from the heart, which goes against the safety of what our rational brains are saying. Our hearts have overrun our brains so when we are doing something for the love of it, it doesn’t need to make any sense. Which means, when you are doing something for the love of it, you are a little bit insane and off your rocker.
And believe me, it’s never going to be 100% for the enjoyment of it with the false presumption of rainbows and unicorns either. And sometimes, we may feel a little frothy around the mouth and grunt and groan like all mad scientists do… a Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde thing.
This is why love is an obsession that our brains will sometimes try to oppose. We question ourselves regularly, because there’s nothing sane about doing something for the love of it. Our obsessed love has possessed us with the dire need to answer our curiosity of what if? What if we might succeed?
There’s a fire that’s fueled by passion and a whole lot of hope, which is a clear indication in itself that we have overrun our brains defense mechanism that wants us to stop doing what we are doing immediately. This is because our brains default is to protect us from failure, humiliation and those dangerous emotions that are felt from having a broken heart. But despite what our brains are saying, our heart is in control and we can’t help doing it anyways because our love for it has possessed us with the belief of what if?
But our heart often has a few tricks up its sleeve to keep us interested and coming back for more, despite what our brains defense mechanism wants for us. Because our hearts infect us with FOMO: We are struck with a definite fear of missing out if we don’t apply ourselves with a mad passion to stick with it and follow our dreams through.
There’s always a love - hate relationship with ourselves, with our goals, with the world and with the tedious and sometimes unforgiving process of chasing something important to us. But once we set sail, we are too involved to turn back and besides, we know deep in our heart that we would be miserable if we did.
Being goal driven means, often making painful sacrifices and enduring heartache and failures all in the hope that someday those hardships will payoff in the form of delayed gratification…This is why most people fear the journey, because there’s no guarantees, it can’t be purchased in the supermarket, it needs to be grown.
We live in a world where most people are searching for a quick fix…like junkies, but in the form of quick and easy results.
But people in the know such as psychologists, research professors about positive psychology, coaches and motivational speakers understand the process to achieve anything substantial isn’t going to come from overnight success. They understand that those people that are taking the easy route in life are walking a path that is addicted to searching for the next high. Therefore they are only willing to do things that can give them immediate gratification.
But it’s not their fault because we live in a world where we have painted a picture of overnight success where we never meant to see the story behind the real story. We never walk a mile in others shoes and we often only get to see a very small part of the real journey involved in others success stories.
It’s true, most people will never learn the true discipline and tenacity necessary to achieve their goals, because they are expecting things to come way easier than they do and so they give up on themselves and their dreams more or less even before they get started. Their need for immediate gratification leads them down a path of numbing their lives and searching for easier rewards that they can milk their ego with a short lived high of feeling good here and now.
I get it, why work hard for something that may never come, especially if you can take the easy route and get something perhaps less substantial, immediately. After all, something is better than nothing! Even if it has less meaning and personal worth, at least we can entertain ourselves with the novelty of feeling rewarded immediately with a quick fix of happy hormones. Besides “delayed gratification” doesn’t sound so sexy. It doesn’t have that attractive and glorified ring to it… Suffer today so that one day, way off in the yonder, if we are lucky and all the stars are aligned, we might find gratification if we reach our goals?…
But “I” see it differently. I think immediate gratification gets a bad wrap and for those who have started their journey down the path of searching for knowledge and personal growth and have read all those books by those positive psychologists and modern day Stoic philosophers need to know that even though delayed gratification is great, we need both if we are to succeed. I mean, why wait for delayed gratification when you can have them both?
What I am trying to say is that yes… you can take nibbles on the marshmallow and still achieve great things in life because delayed gratification is only part of the story.
Delayed gratification is what experts are trying to tell us we lack and is therefore the reason that so very few of us become successful at achieving our goals and great things in life. What they are saying is that, we aren’t disciplined enough…great!
Discipline! (Sounds like punishment!)
Sacrifice! (Sounds painful)
Tenacity (sounds grueling and hard)
So what we are basically being told is that if we want to succeed then we must suffer today and that once all our suffering has paid off, we will be rewarded with gratification and happiness, right? Is it a destination? But true happiness doesn’t occur when we reach our destination, it’s a mirage… it happens when we are are buried deep in the journey of struggling, overcoming obstacles, failing and then getting back up again. It happens when we are fighting for something important to us. Which basically means that it is hidden in the sacrifices and the hard work, and so therefore is achievable every single day because it’s all around us.
Granted it may not feel like happiness, because we often confuse happiness for excitement. And let’s be honest, there’s nothing exciting about the process of applying consistent honest hard work. This is why I would best describe true happiness as balance. The balance of knowing you in the process of working on something that gives value to your life and purpose.
The problem is, I think most of us are searching for more happiness in life because we think we should feel excited all the time. Like if we don’t feel great and happy, then we must be the opposite, ungrateful and unhappy. But this couldn’t be further from the truth. I think we are just searching for happiness in the wrong places and so therefore we live in a world of either or, which can often feel like a rollercoaster of emotions leading to impatience, disappointment, frustration and a lost feeling of disconnection from ourselves.
In my case, when I reach my goals, that “delayed gratification” never seems to fulfill me as I had hoped it would. Or if it does, it is often shortly lived. Oh don’t get me wrong, I am grateful for achieving my goals and yes I would be lying if I didn’t feel some sort of confidence boost and inner strength that achieving them confirms within me. But the purpose of those goals goes way deeper than just the achievement of them. Because for me, I am rewarded with immediate gratification each and every day I get up and struggle to fight and inch myself just a little bit closer to achieving them. I have come to realize that my life is only in balance when I am buried deep in the process of pursuing something big.
Immediate gratification is something I feel strongly rewarded with each and everyday that I show up and putt in the effort, because I know deep in my heart that I am staying true to my path. I am rewarded with the emotions of pride and self worth because I am following my internal compass that is passionate about pulling me in the direction of personal growth. This is what I believe it means to be participating in living our lives for the love of it is…We are madly in love with doing the things that we think we hate! But I think we would hate our lives more if we didn’t have the discipline to love ourselves enough to do them. We hate the unexpected challenges that we will face and we hate the failures. But it’s the suffering that makes us find balance, love and happiness in life. This is why we need to be insane, crazy, off the rocker and madly in love with the process that rewards us with the gratification of doing the things that most won’t.
“ Everything is easy if you are crazy. Nothing is easy if your lazy.”
It’s the Yin and the Yang of life. Without this love hate relationship, we will be like most people, out of balance and literally lost, aimlessly living one day like the next and wandering with no compass leading us forward.
It’s the daily rewarding feeling of putting in the time, no matter what the results may or may not produce delayed down the road.
Gratification needs to be felt regularly and consistently so that we feel balance in the process, not pain and suffering. Suffering is as the Buddha says, our minds interpretation of the situation we are in.
But yes, there are always uncomfortable situations and days that suck, but having the gift of still being able to look back with gratification and the confidence of knowing that you have overcome and survived those tough spells is what makes us stronger…
Understanding that immediate gratification is actually a good thing if it is something that is leading you towards a massive goal that is potentially oozing with delayed gratification.
But as you have heard me say many times throughout this book, it’s not the destination. So why not reward yourself with the baby steps and feel gratified for the process of staying true to your goals and true to yourself and your potential. Take on the daily sacrifices and see them not as suffering, but as opportunities to grow stronger on the path of living your life. Do not reward yourself with feeling gratified for achieving results but instead reward yourself with the confidence that today you showed up, and that’s good enough! Because years of showing up day in and day out, in the longterm will take you a lot further in life than you think. It’s the non glorified time spent in the water, that we do for the love of doing it that will give us balance in life. It’s developing the habits of persistent diligent effort that is our success and that will give us immediate gratification with the rewarding feeling of happiness and enjoyment in knowing that we are progressing in life.
In my experience, we are all capable of so much more than we have given ourselves credit for. But in order to unlock that potential in life, you must fall in love with the process of walking the path, one baby step at a time without the overwhelming discouragement of allowing our minds to ruminate over and poison our passion for the process with comparing ourselves to others, and the impatience of not reaching our goals with the often unrealistic timeframes fast enough.
But it’s a practice. Well at least for me it is. Because I need to remind myself of this shit regularly. Because I believe that our minds are like muscles that need to be flooded with positive thoughts and beliefs continually if we are to retain our mental strength. And let’s not kid ourselves here, mental strength is everything in life. The stronger we are, the faster we will bounce back and stay true to our path in life.
In anything we do, if we do it with the enthusiasm and passion necessary to explore what we are truly capable of with it, we need to understand that we need to love and appreciate the whole process involved. The ups and downs, the good the bad and the ugly, and the Yin and the Yang. It’s going to be a love - hate journey that is rich in experiences that will lead to personal growth, but only if we are crazy enough to stick with it long enough to find out where it will lead us.
So find immediate gratification and a love for the process and not just the destination, because life is after all a journey that is meant to be loved and enjoyed.
BOOM
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"I still feel like I am twenty something"
We all age. Birth, Life, Death. It’s the circle of life. Life’s here today and gone tomorrow. Well, at least that's how it often feels for us that are on the latter end of the stick. But when we are young, we don’t get too caught up in thinking/overthinking about aging and death, because let’s face it, it’s so far off down the road that it just feels like we are going to live forever, right? We understand that we will all die eventually because nobody lives forever, except for maybe us… perhaps the gift of our youth is our naivety.
When we are young, we have energy, time, and our health, but no wealth to really go out and experience the things that we want to in life. When we are in our middle ages, we have a little more wealth, our health is mediocre as we endure the stresses of life but no time to really enjoy life. When we retire and are in our golden years, we have wealth, we have time, but we begin to lack energy and spend most of our time dealing with health issues as the aging process starts to send us signs that we aren’t going to live forever. But that’s life… or is it?
In this book, I hope to reframe this way of thinking, because life is much more than having a beginning, a middle, and an end. It’s about maintaining the drive to live each and every day to the best of our present ability, from our first to our last breath. It’s about maintaining our curiosity to learn and grow, because if you are not growing, then you are not living, and if you are not living, then you are dying.
When Clint Eastwood was asked by Toby Keith how he was going to celebrate his 88th birthday, he said, “I am going to go and shoot a movie.” Toby then asked, “what do you do to keep yourself going?” Eastwoods reply. “I try to get up and be productive and don’t let the old man in”.
Well, I am not 88 years old yet, I have only just turned 50. But turning 50 last year was a turning point for me as I too began to realize that I am rounding past third base and entering into the third phase of my life, which leads me closer and closer towards the end. This was a scary moment, because for the first time in my life, I began to feel old. It wasn’t that I was more tired or less motivated, but that I began to realize that I am now closer to death than I was birth. Scary? Heck yes… I am not going to lie, I was a little depressed and shitting myself with this realization. The realization that I am not going to live forever…it’s like what’s the point of fighting when you know the end is near… yes, perhaps a little over melodramatic, or was it? When you feel like what you are fighting for, “your life”, is a losing battle because you know the end is nearing, then what’s the point of participating with the same enthusiasm and passion?
A few months went by with me moping around as I was feeling a little dumbfounded and quite literally sad… but then it dawned on me. I still felt like I am 25, maybe 30 in my heart. I have a few more aches and pains in the morning and when I look in the mirror someone else is looking back at me…but my heart was talking to me and telling me something that contradicts what my mind and the ticking clocks of time were telling me. This made me smile a little. So I began to ask people that were of similar age to me as well as people that were in their 60s 70s and 80s if they could shut off what they know about how old they are and tell me how old they felt they were in their heart? Who did their heart relate best with, their 25-year-old selves, of course with a lot more life experience, or their actual age? They all said that they felt like they were more connected to what their heart was saying and that they still felt like they were 20 something… young at heart!
So now I know that it is not just me that has these crazy thoughts and that perhaps I was on to something, because in all honesty, it is only when we let the old man/woman in that we become old. As long as we are still able to connect to being young at heart then we have a chance. A chance for what? A chance to enjoy life now more than ever. A chance to stay motivated and youthful, happy and young even when the clocks of time tell us differently. This made me realize that there is nothing to feel sad about by aging and that life is lived one day at a time.
Bottom line, there is nothing that can make you feel more alive than living life to its fullest, no matter how old you are!
And if I am being completely honest with myself, I am way more comfortable with who I am now than I was when I was in my twenties. Which means I am willing to explore and answer to my curiosity about what life—my life, is about. I am willing to be vulnerable and open my mind to learning new things… yes, it’s come to my realization now more than ever that those annoying cliches are right… Because life is all about the journey and not the destination. In my opinion, death is the ultimate destination... so as long as we are willing to delve deeper into the curiosity of learning and living, then age is merely a number that should not confine us to stereotypical digits that label who we are at heart!
This is a brief introduction into my latest book, "Aging is a Mindset" which will soon be available for you.
If you liked it and are interested in more then please sign up for Adam's free inspirational blogs. There will be occasional updates and release dates as well as relatable inspirational blog posts that are intended to help you through this wonderful battle called "life" in the best way possible.
Yours truly.
Adam
