America is Still Beautiful
11/16/2016
Cross-posted at: medium.com/the-mindful-journeyman/america-is-still-beautiful My profession has always been political advocacy, but in the last few years my heart has been in mindfulness. So you can imagine how this past week was quite an emotional tug of war.
As a matter of personal philosophy, I believe in kindness and human decency. So I was shocked, extremely shocked, last Tuesday when a man with a complete lack of human decency became president-elect Donald Trump. My flash reaction was to lose hope in the goodness of man, like I’d been punched in the gut by the bully of a truly harsh reality. A troublingly large amount of people turned out to be selfish and vulgar, or if not, they were OK enough with selfish vulgarity to vote for someone who is, which is almost as bad. This goes way beyond political ideology. We can debate and respectfully disagree on the issues 'til the cows come, I’m fine with that. But even beyond Trump's particularly extremist positions--on women, minorities, religious freedom, LGBT rights, immigration, the economy, trade, taxes, the environment, and I could go on--there was little to no respect displayed by him during this campaign. The unprecedented reaction of despair and protest you’re seeing around the country right now is a direct result of that. It was an emotionally chaotic couple of days. I couldn't sleep. I ate way too much. I distracted myself with entertainment and booze. I often felt despondent. Was I wrong all this time to believe in the goodness of humanity? But the days passed and eventually, here and there, the fog lifted to expose the sun again. The warm glow shined a light on the truth: America is still beautiful. It is. America is still kind and decent and loving. America is still good. I saw it in all the diverse and hopeful faces at the peaceful protest last weekend. I saw it in every passionate advocate at my local Sierra Club political action committee meeting. I saw it in my mother, who is now a fierce advocate for my rights, the rights of others, and the return of decency. I saw it in the avalanche of donations to social service charitable organizations that piled up over the last week. I saw it in the empathy and love that my man and all our friends shared with each other as we struggled to fathom this act of aggression toward our communities and common dignity. I see kindness and charity and compassion and yes, beauty, all around me. Sure, I see the fear and division and violence that's going on as well. It started from top with Donald Trump and then trickled down. It's devastating for my soul to bear witness to such an open display of hatred. But still I believe, no I know, that we are better than that. Love is stronger than hate. It always has been and it always will be. And in the end, love will win. So I will not give up. I will fight for justice and equality and decency because we need it now more than ever. And if you stand against those things, or support the guy who does, then I will debate with you respectfully until you understand why those things are so important. The beauty of America still shines together as one light, radiating into the darkness, a beacon of hope in a troubled nation. I'm outraged. And I'm totally allowed to be... for now.
This election feels like a sucker punch to everything that is right and good in the world. The shock of it is numbing. We're told we need to come together as a nation, but I'm not sure how I can do that around a person who ran entire campaign based on tearing us apart. Very few of the values of fairness and equality I hold dear are represented in our new government. I feel hopeless. In this post-outrage world our first instinct might be to give in and give up. But that’s a corrupt mindset that only perpetuates the problem. When we feel hopeless, the first thing we need to do is go out and create hope. And we do that with mindfulness. Now more than ever before, we need mindfulness. We need the quiet, introspective kind of mindfulness, where we work to find peace and purpose in our daily lives. Ignoring the hatred and division that has gripped our nation, in favor of hope and light. Remembering to breathe. Remembering to meditate, do yoga, and get out in nature as much as you can. Remembering to not get caught up in the what ifs and holy shits. Remembering that no matter how many times life knocks us on our ass, we stand back up, we move forward. We also need the loud, righteous, advocate kind of mindfulness, where we work to create more peace and purpose in the world around us. Using the hatred and division as our motivation to make them a thing of the past. Becoming activists. Becoming champions for our earth, our nation, and our fellow man, no matter what their race, faith, gender, or who they love. This type of mindfulness isn’t going to just magically appear in your life either. This is the mindfulness you create. Start spreading love to those around you who feel hurt by this election. Start spreading understanding to those who celebrate it, because that’s the only way they will understand why you are hurt. If you don’t like the direction this country is going in, then start taking the country the in right direction yourself. Volunteer for the causes you support. Educate yourself on the causes you don’t fully understand. Educate everyone else in a respectfully until the lesson takes root. Encourage, no demand, that your elected leaders do the right thing. And when they don’t, organize to vote them out of office the next chance you get. Make a decision everyday to be a part of the solution by being kind to one another, by respecting all people, by protecting the environment, by becoming a fierce advocate for fairness and equality at every level of society. It feels a little hopeless right now--we’re not used to seeing the bad guys win. But this is only the middle of the movie. It’s the dramatic part where things go south for our hero. But that tension and conflict is exactly what the good guys need to find redemption. This hopeless moment teaches us how to fix our problems, do better, and win in the end. So lick your wounds. Be sad. Be outraged. You’re allowed to feel that way for now. But tomorrow morning it’s time for post-outrage. It’s time to wake up and make this world a better place. It’s time to create mindfulness, and fairness, and kindness from the ground up. And it all starts with you. How To Survive An Election - 10 Easy Steps!
10/21/2016
The Politics of Love and Fear
7/28/2016
Unless you’ve been living alone in the woods for the last few months, you’re well aware that it’s peak political season in the United States.
An election at it’s basic level is a decision, and this idea about the power of our individual, everyday decisions courses through the entire premise of mindfulness. Every day we have a decision to either live in the present or dwell on the past, to learn and grow or stifle our evolution, to get up every morning and conquer the day or roll over and let it pass us by. A political election requires a decision too, a far less intimate but just as important decision. At the root of all these decisions is love and fear. It seems simplistic at the face of it, but in reality it’s a complicated struggle between our two most extreme emotions. Too much love and our decisions rely on sentiment instead of reason. Too much fear and our decisions are rooted in distrust and anger. Too much of either makes us unmindful---when we lean too far in any direction we eventually fall over. A decision based in love or fear is complicated, but usually, hopefully, the result ends up somewhere in the middle---in compromise. I like to think of these two sides as the classic angel-and-devil-on-the-shoulders meme. These two little shoulder emotions battle in our hearts and minds all the time. Love tells us to live in the present and accept the beauty of right now, while fears holds us back to worry if we'll ever live up to our past triumphs or live down our past mistakes. Love opens up our mind to accept new ideas, while fear shuts us down to pine after an imagined ideal. Love pushes us to use each day to its full potential, while fear triggers the warm safety of procrastination. In politics, love and fear fuel another set of decisions. Love leads us to engage and educate our friends, while fear makes us to lash out and insult. Love encourages us to care for our fellow man no matter what their race, religion, or orientation, while fear demands we entrench ourselves, draw deeper into our ideological bubble, and refuse to give an inch. Love requires us to protect our earth for generations to come, while fear whispers lies of doubt around climate change science and encourages a business-first attitude. When we sit down to decide which candidate to support, we yet again look to love and fear for assistance. Love tells us to vote for who we’re most enthusiastic about and most aligns with our ideals, while fear tells us to vote against the candidate we find troublesome, or even dangerous. Now before you say it, I know, that was just a long list of overly simplistic, cut and dry, black and white decisions. In real life we don’t just listen to either the angel or the devil, we hear both. We make good decisions, we make mistakes, we figure things out, and then ultimately we find the best path lies somewhere else. I often call it balance or compromise. Buddhists call it "the middle way" These when the two competing emotions come together. We can live in the present while also using the past to inform it. The middle. We can hold on to our values and ideals while staying open to life’s ongoing lessons. The middle. We can have a productive day and also take some “me time” once in a while. The middle. In an election, we can make a voting decision based on both love for a candidate that moves us forward with progress, as well as fear over the dangerous regress the alternative will usher. The middle. On the issues, love can focus us on our commonalities instead of conflicts, while fear reminds us to speak out loudly against dangerous demagogues. The middle. Love can rightly attract us to peace, equality, and fairness, while fear demands we fight directly against racism, xenophobia, and homophobia. The middle. Love can urge us to protect and rebuild our environment, while fear reminds us that political leaders who deny the existence of climate change are steering us toward catastrophe and must be stopped at all costs. The middle. My love for every interconnected living thing on this earth and my desire to make it a better place, leads me to vote for Hillary Clinton. My fear of the destruction, treacherousness, hatred, and bluster that has and will undoubtedly continue to rise from her chief opponent, leads me to the same conclusion. Both love and fear, meeting in the middle, for progress in America. Progress Goes in Ebbs and Flows
7/22/2016
As someone taking the time to read the blog, I'm making a few assumptions about you. #1, I assume you’re ravishingly attractive. No seriously, the inner beauty you craft through mindfulness almost always exudes an outer beauty of cool self-confidence. #2, getting to the real point of this piece though, I assume you're interested in improving yourself, being more present in the world around you, and making that world a better place. Basically, you believe in progress. Individual, social, political progress. But progress isn't an easy topic to define. Coming from their own individual starting point, everyone undoubtedly develops their own idea of what progress means. Those differences make the path of progress a challenging and uncertain one to follow. But in the end we will always move forward. In my own mindful world, progress fluctuates. One day I’ll do a hike, spend a few hours writing, maybe actually publish an article, check off a bunch of to-do list items, cook a healthy dinner, and get to bed at a reasonable hour. Then the next morning I’ll oversleep and waste the day on Facebook. My own progress ebbs and flows. I won’t pretend to know what's happening day-to-day in your world, but I’m just going to go ahead and make another assumption, that you experience days very similar to mine. Otherwise, why would you be reading up on ways to find more mindfulness in your life on this blog? Everybody’s individual progress ebbs and flows too. Interpersonal progress follows the same pattern as well. All relationships come and go, grow or wither over time. The more time we spend getting to know different people, the more we change, the more they change, and the more the relationship between the two changes. Sometimes it changes in a way that draws you closer. Sometimes, you drift apart. The progress of interpersonal connection also ebbs and flows. You’ll find the same order in the world of political progress. Empire’s come and go. Sometimes the Republicans are in charge, and sometimes it’s the Democrats. Laws are passed and laws are repealed. The politics of power and the issues of the day are constantly in flux I’ll use a recent example: a few short years ago marriage equality for the LGBTQ community was a divisive issue for most Americans, and a hot potato issue for most politicians. These days a decent majority of Americans support it, and for anyone in the liberal-to-moderate realm, it’s the expectation. You even have the current Republican presidential candidate name-dropping “LGBTQ” in his nomination acceptance speech. That's progress too, but at the same time his party’s platform calls for roll back of all LGBTQ protective laws, marriage equality included. You can bet that if the tide of power shifts in their direction the rights we now take for granted will quickly evaporate. The progress of politics ebbs and flows. Despite all this---the constant change, the victories and failures, from an individual to a national scale---we eventually move forward. “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Dr. King was speaking about the politics of civil rights in the United States, which itself saw various ebbs and flows over time. From kings and queens of their continent, to slaves in a far off land; breaking the chains of slavery, to persecution by segregation; obtaining voting rights, to literacy tests and poll taxes that block those rights; the Civil Rights Act banning discrimination, even while racism continued (and continues). The progress of civil rights, like all politics, like our individual and interpersonal growth, ebbs and flows.
But in the end it flows forward. There is marked improvement of conditions, of equality, of fairness, of liberty over time. Maybe progress doesn't always move as fast as some of us would like, but it still moves. The arc of the moral universe bends toward justice, eventually. We're all somewhere on that arc of progress. I have a lot of work left to do on myself, but I’m slowly getting there. I hope you are all in the same boat---advancing, improving, or at least making an effort. Each relationship moves forward, sometimes into calm waters and sometimes more treacherous, but always evolving. And in politics, even when conditions seem hopelessly unjust, off in the distance there's a glimmer of hope... progress. Knowing and accepting that life won’t be perfect, that everything won’t go our way, that we will run into both fast lanes and road blocks---that knowledge is power. This is the way progress goes, sometimes it ebbs and sometimes it flows, but always it grows. Fear of Death & the Death of Fear
7/6/2016
The way I see it, you have two options for your existence: live your life, or live your life in fear.
There’s a valid evolutionary reason we feel fear and anxiety. In our caveman days we developed these emotions as a form of protection. The fear of death, injury, or pain triggered our defenses, thus lowering the chance of death, injury, or pain. But it’s easy for us to take that healthy reaction of caution to an extreme, especially in this age of digital information over-saturation, especially given the news media’s tendency to focus on calamity as a ratings booster, and most especially when we’re hit with a personal tragedy. 12 years ago today my younger brother, plagued with blood clots, laid down to catch his breath and never got back up again. 5 years before that my father, plagued with high cholesterol, went out for a run one afternoon and never ran home. In my years before all that, I was always a bit of a worry-wort, lying awake in my central California home fretting over the possibility of the "big one" casting us off into the Pacific, or of an inescapable house fire, or of an alien invasion (seriously). All of this, especially the untimely death of two of my closest family members, could have lead me to a very fearful life, becoming increasingly risk averse so as to avoid all of the many real and imaginary dangers of the world. While I do carry a decent amount of this worry with me to this day---and believe a little fear-induced caution can lead to wiser choices---I make a concerted effort to let go. Because really, what is the point of living if you spend your whole life holed up in a mental bunker of fear? There are truly dangerous people and things out there. My community, LGBTQ folks, are often the target of violence. I go hiking a lot by myself and so every time my mother learns of a bear attack she sends me an email of concern. Even with that, my risk of danger is low compared to the many places in the world held hostage by terrorists or the underprivileged communities held hostage to an overreactive police force and straight up bigotry. But in spite of all that, when the moment comes that I lie down and never get back up, I’d like to at least know I lived life to the fullest while I was standing. I want to know that I wrote down every word, that I helped every friend, that I loved, that I cried, that I followed my dreams, that I lived while I was alive. On this anniversary of my little brother's death, the lesson is to live with passion, joy, and love, just as he did in his time on earth. On the occasion of a seemingly neverending parade of deaths around the world, the lesson is to live mindfully in the present, because who knows what might happen tomorrow. The lesson is that life is too short to waste it constantly worried about death. The lesson of death... is life. According to Google, "journeyman" isn't an entirely popular word these days. It probably conjures up ideas of a union electrician apprentice---that is, if it conjures up anything for you at all. The word more or less means “someone who is educated on a topic, but isn't quite an expert. An amateur.” You can see how this might have negative connotations.
And yet, here I am using that word in various blog posts and on my Instagram/Facebook/Twitter. I use the term liberally to describe myself, and I also use it to describe everybody else as part of a larger world view. Not long ago a friend questioned me on this practice. Was I cutting myself short? Was I cutting the world short? But I don't use the word "journeyman" in any traditional sense, I use it as a mindfulness shortcut. It's a metaphor for the journey of life, the journey we are all on. The more on-the-nose way I use journeyman is to denote travel. I dubbed my month-long trip across multiple western national parks my “Journeyman Trek”. I use #Journeyman👣 on social media to denote whenever I go camping, climb a mountain, or use my passport to cross a border. That’s a play on the word, and I like being mildly clever that way. But the primary way I use the journeyman is much more of a philosophy. It's a figurative journey, a mental and spiritual journey, not a literal journey. It boils down to this: life isn’t static. No one, not a single individual human being, stays in one place their whole lives. Everyone is constantly experiencing, learning, and growing. For those of us who keep an open mind, this isn't some abstract concept. We expect to take in new ideas and experiences and allow them to mold our understanding of the diverse world around us. Even those who appear rigid in their beliefs will change, simply due to the passage of time, in small but still meaningful ways. Time leads to experience leads to knowledge. Even those who seem stuck, in a job, relationship, or any other circumstance, are only as stuck as they believe themselves to be. In all but the extreme circumstances, the experience of being stuck teaches you how to become unstuck, and then it's up to you to use that lesson. When you look back on your life, it's almost impossible not to see some way in which you've grown, and that's your evidence that this "personal journey" people talk about isn't theoretical, it's tangible. In the progressively hopeful way I choose to see the world, that is just a given. So if we’re always changing and gaining knowledge, is there really such a thing as an expert? Expertise is only the collection of knowledge you've gathered in a particular subject up until now. There are no know-it-alls, because as soon as they've learned "all" there is to learn on a subject, a new discovery will turn that knowledge on its head. “Expert” doctors once used leeches to cure illness. “Expert” astronomers once believed the entire universe rotated around the earth. Knowledge evolved and those “experts” reverted to journeymen. And that isn't to discount the noble efforts they made in their profession, it's just to readily admit that knowledge is never finite. Today’s “experts” will meet the same fate, because in a few years the next big idea will inevitably turn that knowledge on its head. Each and everyone of us will meet the same fate as well. We think we know all there is to know about a friend, for example, until we learn something new or see a different side that turns our perception of them on its head. Accepting that tomorrow is both an unknown and the product of every experience you've had up through today, that's how you start to live in the present. That is the intersection of mindfulness and the journeyman. Being a journeyman isn’t something negative, it’s our dynamic reality. Or at least it's the dynamic reality I try to accept in my quest for enlightenment through mindfulness. The more we act as the students, the amateurs, the journeymen of life, the more mindful we become. It's something I've wanted to write about in this blog for a while now, but never quite knew how to bring it up. It's also something I've always known, for as far back as I can remember, but something that took me a long time to accept. Usually the easiest way to do this is like pulling off a bandaid, so here goes..
I'm gay. I don't imagine anyone who reads this blog is particularly disrupted by that fact. You're either my friend so you already know, or you're people who seek out mindfulness, and those kind of people are loving, open-minded, and caring. So I wasn’t worried about coming out per se, and I've made casual reference to “my man” and used photos of us together on numerous occasions. But still, I've never been overt. I suppose I didn't want to be “that gay mindfulness guy.” I wanted my ideas to speak for themselves, to be universal. The recent and absurdly tragic events in Orlando though, they made my desire to come out on these pages more urgent. They also got me thinking a lot. I've been trying to wrap my head around what occurred, and then the response from people of all persuasions over the past few days: reactions of anger for good reason, fear of what still might occur, love for the community of support we've created, honoring the past in the form of brave coming out stories, and hope for the future as we trudge forward with marching orders as political advocates in a new arena. I've also seen some truly terrible reactions, those of vitriol and blame that do nothing to solve the myriad problems we all face as a society or to better the plight of LGBT people around the world. I wanted to figure out how and where mindfulness fits into this. As usual, as we all do, we go back to our own bubble of experience to try and make sense of it. Leading a more present life in the world is a long and arduous journey of fear and accomplishment. Coming out of the closet was, and still is for most young people, a long and arduous journey of fear and accomplishment as well. And the more I think about it, the more I realize growing up gay is perhaps one of the biggest drivers of my own attraction to mindfulness. Simply living as an out gay man is an albatross of a journey; constantly looking over your shoulder wondering if someone is judging you, or worse, out to harm you. A life in that sort of existence is far from mindful. How can I live in the moment, love who I want openly, and just be my honest self when a "wrong" move in a wrong situation can lead to derision or even violence? Perhaps I actively search for ways to live free and mindful because I’ve been stripped of the ability to do that in my everyday life, for my whole life, simply because of who I am and the way some in society view me. Certainly not every gay person is an amateur-journeyman-mindfulness-guru like me. But take a place like a gay bar or club; it's a place of safety for my community, a respite from the worry of constant judgement you feel almost everywhere else. It's a place where we can truly, finally, live in the moment. In that sense, perhaps we gays are creatures of the mindfulness, whether we realize it or not. On the same token, many if not most gay men grow up with a heightened sympathy for the other little guys in life---the maligned and the bullied---because we've been there too. I knew I was different from early on, and the other kids in school seemed to know too. So I was picked on, especially in PE class. I endured physical, mental, and verbal abuse, sometimes subtle and sometimes overt, but always painful. Later in high school I became much more confident in myself, or at least able to play confident, and the abuse waned. Maybe I was just lucky, because I continued to watch other outsider kids in my school get bullied. High school can be brutal that way. But because of all of that, I grew up with an extra sensitivity to the plight of others, and it led me to a desire to help make things better. By helping others I thought I could help myself. That led me to nonprofit work in my career, to make the world a slightly better place. It led me to this blog, to make my own life, and maybe yours by proxy, a slightly better place too. I've always thought of mindfulness as a way of helping out the little guy, even if that little guy is me. It's how we escape the pains of the world and learn to be proud of ourselves, in that moment. The LGBT community isn’t some monolith, not everyone is like me nor would I want them to be. But I think we all carry with us a chip on our shoulder from each of our individually difficult experiences of growing up in a society that thinks we shouldn’t exist. Or if we do exist we should only exist in private. Or that we don’t truly exist at all because we can just pray it away. Or we might exist right now, but we shouldn’t anymore, so they’re going to show up at a nightclub and mow us down with automatic weapons of war (that have no business being in the hands of civilians). I know for a fact that mindfulness has helped me wade through the sometimes muddy and sometimes beautifully sparkling waters of being a gay man in this day and age. Mindfulness has definitely helped me deal with my own myriad emotions stemming from the massacre in Orlando. My history and experience, all of it, has led me to here, a place of knowing about my imperfection, but also a place of strength because of it. I know for a fact that the world and everyone in it needs more mindfulness. The society that told me I shouldn’t exist said the same to the shooter in Orlando, who has now been found to have been on gay social media apps himself. Instead of taking that difficult upbringing of hate and turning into love, as so so many of my gay brothers and sisters have done, he turned to hate and violence. I know for a fact that my community, my friends, the loving and open-minded LGBT community, could use a little mindfulness right now too. A moment to look back at where we’ve been, look at the horror that has hit us now, and take all those years of both contempt and compassion, suffering and celebration, pain and pride, and mix up that uniquely amazing recipe to create the next step in our movement. It's a movement that makes the world a better place by telling our stories, with political action around LGBT rights, in working to reverse the tide of homophobia spawned by religious extremists from too many religions, and now using our collective might to combat our nations' longstanding pillars of shame: guns and violence. With all that we've been through and all that we've already done, I'm more hopeful now than ever about what we'll accomplish in the future. I couldn't be more proud. Once in awhile, more and more lately, I find myself reading the comments.
I know, rookie move, especially if you’re someone making a brave attempt to find peace in today’s convoluted digital world. We are all aware that the comments, the trolls that populate them, and the attempts at righteous persuasion that unwittingly feed those trolls, are the landfills of the Internet. It’s where good ideas get flogged to death and bad ideas spread like the zika virus. So why do I keep getting drawn into that mess? It's all due to that quadrennial tradition known as the American presidential election. In this digital age, the traditional ruthlessness of politics has gotten worse, and it's too bad, because the decision we're debating is more important than ever. My quest: give a damn about politics because I know the consequences are major, but stay mindful in the process. It’s a tall order, I know. My friends, welcome to the Great Election Hurricane of 2016. The river of opinions has swelled for months now. What started as trickle of ideas and endorsements has become an incessant downpour of rants, a cascade of comment wars, and a deluge of slant pieces and snark memes. The rising tide of anger and frustration inevitably breaks the levee--again--impassioning friends to turn on one another, to toss out vicious insults, and level infantile cries of ignorance toward anyone who dares to challenge their preconceived notions. I'm no noob, I know the game of politics is complex and messy. Possibly little known fact to many readers of this blog, but I hold a master's degree in public policy and I worked in political advocacy for years. Other than mindfulness and nature, politicking is my bread and butter. So I've watched and studied this sport for decades, observing the stick-to-the-issues idealists, the nothing-but-smear-campaign demagogues, and every candidate in between. I'm also acutely aware of just how important all this is. It's a vital part of democracy that we have different ideas and debate them heartily. More than that, it's absolutely necessary that all of us actively participate in our political process, because the decisions our leaders make are often the difference between life and death. But as much as I want to engage this critical pursuit, I also don’t want to engage myself into insanity. To me, this year feels starkly different than elections of the past. The age of social media and the lack of mindfulness it provokes has made for a perfect storm of political aggravation. This digital tempest of competition inevitably leads to a slew of unmindful behavior. So how do we calm the storm? How do we stay mindful within the whirlwind election season? In this new election age, we must strive to become mindful advocates. Someone who listens to different opinions. Someone who stays true to themselves without becoming self-righteous. Someone who leads by example instead of prescription. Someone who stays respectful in the face of disagreement. Someone who doesn't always have to be right. Someone who turns the other cheek instead of responding with a taunt. And none of that is easy, trust me I know. Go to the Facebook page of any presidential candidate and (just for research) read the comments. There's a flood of rage out there overwhelming the dam of rational sanity--opinions stated as facts, opinions becoming insults, opinions inciting outrage. When I see this, I start to get outraged myself. Sometimes my own opinion has lead me to waste a good hour formulating a comment that I don't actually end up posting. Sometimes I see friends who agree on the need for progress toward a fair and just world, belittle each other over a slight disagreement on how we achieve that progress. Sometimes I see caring Americans who agree that we want to better our nation, level vile insults at each other because they disagree on the definition of “better.” Usually at the end of a day I’m left dispirited by it all, exhausted by all the time I’ve wasted watching and/or participating in it, saddened by the savagery I’ve seen it foster. But being a mindful advocate means we still participate---we don’t give up our identity or passion, we don't stop advocating for our candidate, and we always speak up to injustice. We just do all that with civility and respect. And we do so because we are at a crucial time in our civilization. Historically, the debate of ideas in politics has never been simple or easy. Neither the ancient Greeks nor our founding fathers pulled any punches. The liberal and the conservative side of our democracy, today’s Democrats and Republicans, have always been at odds. At one point this conflict even led us to civil war. But most of the time, when push came to shove, our leaders compromised and worked together for the good of the country. Today the decisions we make as voters, and by proxy the leaders we choose, go even further and have the potential to affect the good and bad of the entire world, be it poverty, war, or environmental calamity. It behooves us to look toward our deep commonalities and to nobly convince others of our ideas for change rather than resort to attacks, lies, and conspiracy theories. When we treat our fellow man with respect not just to have a better shot at changing minds, but to have a better shot at saving our planet from uncertain doom. So I pledge to be a mindful advocate and an activist for good. To trumpet my beliefs without tearing others' down. To debate at the appropriate time, but do so with respect. To speak to those I encounter as if they were real people instead faceless digital avatars. To accept that we can differ on the policy but still agree on the end goal. To inspire rather than incite. To love rather than lash out. To show by my example that, in this day and age, such civility is even possible. This is how we make America great again. This is how we save the world. This is how you convince people to vote for your candidate. This is the way of the mindful advocate. I get By With a Little Help
3/25/2016
It's OK to let others help you. And it's way better than the alternative.
Your own knowledge is limited. By dealing with every issue alone you'll only ever be able see the things that exist within your limited personal prism. By yourself you ride the merry-go-round of your own experience, circling around the same options, the same objectives, the same obsessions. But no matter where you're at in life, you're never alone. A million people have already gone through the same thing, or at least something somewhat similar. Use their lesson, learn from their experience, accept their help, take their advice. It may not be exactly what you need, but it can be a start. It can help you think differently, enough to send you down a new unexpected path, a path toward a better you. Good Vibes Only
3/17/2016
Good vibes only, the time is now.
Digress from stress, disconnect, and allow. No accommodating worry or entertaining regret. No wasting time obsessively upset. Stop the self-doubt, and no more complaints. Enough with all the self-righteous debates. No more consequences, only life lessons. This is how you learn what the best is. No listening to people who always say “no.” Give up the grudges, it's time to let go. No more no’s. Period. You know. Yes to joy, and smiles, and laughter. Yes to bear hugs and happily ever after. Yes to presence, mindfulness, and peace. Yes to love, it's all you actually need. Say yes even when you're down. You'll be surprised how quickly it turns you around. Yes to giving more than you take. Yes to some selfishness, for your sanity’s sake. Good vibes only, not because it's forced. Good vibes only, and then pass the torch. A Think Piece on Think Pieces
2/23/2016
These days, it seems like everything that happens in our modern society--be it pop culture or politics--requires an opinionated think piece. You’ve read them, those articles that supposedly break down the "issues" so they're easier to "process."
Now, I certainly approve of thinking--exploring multiple sides of an issue to create an informed and thoughtful society is righteous. But at what point do we start to overthink? At what point do we start to dive so deep into an issue that we’ve lost perspective of the big picture? At what point does all this opinion become just another tool to distract and divide and anger? The digital age and social media are the perpetrators of this burgeoning problem. Back in the day articles and editorials were vetted by editors and managers, requiring a skilled level of research and verification of sources. All the rest of us had an opinion, but aside from setting up a soapbox and wielding a bullhorn on a street corner, our audience was our friends, family, and co-workers--people we typically respect or would at least treat with respect when talking about a difficult issue face-to-face. These days anyone can scribe whatever unedited, unauthenticated, scathing idea they want, and then post it on any number of digital soapboxes, from Facebook to Twitter to blogs (oh hi me!). Just as before, all of us have an opinion, but now we have a much louder and unmonitored bullhorn from which to scream it. And we get to do so with relative anonymity, opening the door to the types of tactless and inconsiderate responses you'd never repeat to someone in person. An infinite number of opinions are available and easily culled from a Google search as well, allowing us to find a tailor-made think piece to confirm our viewpoint. And then we rebroadcast it from our flamboyantly loud digital soapbox, inflating the power of that opinion, no matter how inaccurate, erroneous, or untrue. Back in the day, not everything was perfect either. We had a limited number of sources for our information--dependent on local school and library funding, accessibility of TV broadcast news, and your proximity to a newsstand. And not everyone in the mainstream media has a perfect track record of providing accurate and unbiased information either. But beyond that, there were always good and decent writers and journalist trying to provide authentic information and well-reasoned opinions. A friend of mine recently stated that "no one ever convinces anyone of anything on the internet," and I tend to agree. No matter how impassioned your plea, very few people read a mini think piece on social media and think to themselves, “you know what, they're right and I'm wrong.” It’s trite, but true. Instead of providing a new perspective to shift our thinking for the better, an opine typically only elicits either adulation or anger--and that anger typically isn't very polite. I can’t tell you how many times over the last few months that a think piece, or a Facebook regurgitation of a think piece, has taken me away from mindfulness. Running through any number of potential responses in my mind, instead of enjoying my morning walk with my dog. Typing out any number of potential responses, instead of writing a new article for Elephant Journal. Just generally consuming and distracting my mind when there are so many more fruitful and beneficial things I could be focusing on. I have to balance my thoughts on this. Certainly I’m not going to advocate everyone just shut up and keep their ideas and opinions to themselves. To claim I'm some kind of expert at knowing when to let go of an argument would be entirely hypocritical. But that doesn't mean we can't all try and be a little better... consider your source, be smart and respectful about what you say, stay away from opinionated rhetoric that only seeks to antagonize, pause and take a deep breath before you comment with vehemence, and make a reasonable effort to do some research before you claim something is ”fact.” This broad network of information we have at our fingertips can be used for kindness or cruelty. The tack we take is up to each one of us. So, let's all be kind. New Years Reflection and Expectation
12/30/2015
It's New Years, which means it's that time when everyone comes up with their year-end reviews, top ten lists, and judgements on their personal successes and failures of the past year. There's both good and bad in that. Reflecting back on your life can be a healthy exercise, but it can also be a precarious game that will easily drag you away from mindfulness. Like most opportunities in life, it really depends on how you use it. When you're looking back on the past year as an exercise in renewal, you have two options: Option #1: reflect on both the ups and downs of the past year, take from them the life lessons they extol, and use this new found inspiration to make the next year a better one. or Option #2: reflect mostly on the downs of the past year, regret them, curse them, use them as an example of why the past year was terrible, and then believe that engaging in this exasperated act of faux reflection will somehow make the next year a better one. I would say the choice is pretty obvious, but that’s just me. Maybe I'm just perpetually hopeful, but I've never been disappointed in a year. Sure I’ve had intensely difficult times in my life making certain years seem better than others, but even in those bad years there has always been love. There has always been light to be found somewhere in the darkness. Things always eventually get better, so I always expect them to. I also believe that reflection is something we could be doing every day of our lives, no matter what the date. Waiting for a certain day in a calendar to learn from life can lead you to neglect your well-being on all the other days. But I know there's something about New Years that gives it that extra weight, and there's nothing wrong with using that weight to your benefit. That's the key: New Years has the power to make us pause and reflect, so we should use that power to improve our lives. for this and all the coming years. Next year isn't going to be better just because it's different. We can beat ourselves up all we'd like over the failures of the last year, but that won't changing anything in the future unless we decide to learn from our mistakes and grow from the tragedies. Instead lamenting the past and then hoping for the new year will make it all better, take whatever made the past year suck and use it to inspire a better future. Instead of resting your hope in the New Year, rest your hope in yourself. Light
12/21/2015
Today is the darkest day of the year, astronomically speaking.
Most people eschew the physical darkness, that's why we invented torches, lamps, and flashing strings of Christmas lights. Most people eschew emotional darkness too, that's why we invented self-help books, Zoloft, and maybe even this blog. But I'm here to tell you that the darkest day isn't so bad. Whether it's physical or emotional, the darkness is the best way to make room for the light. Darkness strikes fear in the hearts of most. The dark of night makes it difficult to see what lies on the road ahead, eliciting the dread of uncertainty. The dark of night is the hour of the nefarious, spurring the worry of danger. The darkness of emotions are some of our most depressing moments, reminding us of the worst that life has to offer. And according to science, the dark of the Winter Solstice creates a negative physical reaction in our body leading to SAD -- seasonal affective disorder -- which unironically makes you feel actual sadness. But there’s always a glimmer of hope. Despite the well documented problems associated with darkness, I’m a glass-half-full kind of guy. I think the best way to get out of any dark period is to look for the light of the silver lining -- and there’s almost always a silver lining. As the adage goes, it’s "darkest before the dawn.” That’s true in both the real world of the sun and the metaphorical world of our heart. The impending dawn is the silver lining. So if today is the darkest day, that means it can’t possibly get any darker. If today is the darkest day that means it will only get brighter from here on out [silver lining]. You could see your darkest moment as the saddest time of your life, or you could see it as the moment things changed for the better [silver lining]. It’s all about your perspective. The darkness also teaches us a lesson in appreciation. Imagine you live in a world that is bright and sunny all the time. In this world you have no concept of darkness because you never get to see or feel it. Imagine how difficult it would be to truly enjoy the cozy warmth of the sun when you’ve never felt a bone-chillingly cold night. Darkness makes us grateful for the light. Sadness makes us grateful for joy. And once you realize this you start to appreciate any kind of darkness for the perspective it awards you [another silver lining]. Nothing, not our personal world or the big picture, exists in a vacuum. What each of us knows is made up of our experiences and our perception of the great big universe swirling around us -- the sun and the moon, engagements and breakups, friendship and fights, birthdays and funerals, ups and downs, light and darkness. How you react to any part of life is up to you. You get to decide if you let the darkness get you down or use it to make the light that much more powerful. Choose to bask in the light, even on the darkest day of the year... especially on the darkest day of the year. Beauty Will Always Win
12/2/2015
I'm never in a great mood after mass shooting, but when it happens in such a large scale as it did in San Bernardino, and so near to where I live, it makes things particularly difficult. Silly old emotional me also had a powerful yoga session this morning, so to come out of it to find that terrible people were actively shooting up developmentally disabled facility nearby, it was a little rough.
But I soldiered through. I went about my day. Took over a table at Starbucks. Got some writing done -- powerful yoga sessions tend to inspire that. When I was leaving, still feeling melancholic from the day, I discovered a monarch butterfly garden. Now I walk through this area almost weekly and have never noticed it, but it was today that I finally paid attention. Today was the day I was meant to notice it. Today as the day I needed to notice it. The monarch story is a sad one as well -- too many Monsanto insecticides and not enough milkweed is leading to their demise in California. But right there off the sidewalk, a good person planted the vital milkweed they need to survive. Low and behold, a small family of them moved in. I watched as the regal butterflies danced in the autumn afternoon sun, and silly old emotional me teared up yet again, but this time it wasn't for sadness, it was for happiness. And hope. And love. No matter what, no matter how much shit bubbles up in the world, there is always beauty. And beauty will always win. |
Access Octomono Masonry Settings
blog searchauthorMy name is Jason Wise. Life's all about the journey, man. Find me on Instagram and Facebook. archives
May 2020
categories
All
subscribe |