You Do You
10/24/2014
Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson I consider the fostering of interpersonal connections (aka friendships) to be an exercise in mindfulness, and a pretty important one. It's usually about logging out of the digital distraction world to be with someone in the real world or about having someone who will be there with you when times get rough. Scanning my blog I found the friendship theme all over the place: in the ups and downs of life, the inadequacies of our "social" media, and the scourge of depression and suicide. But a number of my friends have recently (and rightly) pointed out that this type of solution doesn't work for everyone. Many people don't have close friends they feel comfortable running to. Many have experienced shunning and even ridicule from friends when they do. I have some great friends who I love dearly and have been there for me in all sorts of situations. As I found those friends I also found out a lot about myself. But despite all of that, I have to keep reminding myself of one important fact: my well-being isn't up to my friends, it's up to me. Fostering good relationships can help you be more mindful, but overreliance on them to solve all your problems is not. They will never be the solution. The solution is you. It's you making a choice to react to the outside world in a constructive way. It's you building up your capacity to handle life's inevitable drama. It's you spending time to better yourself instead of procrastinating with useless distractions. My advice still stands; there's an enormous benefit to building strong relationships, especially in this day and age where technology simultaneously brings us together and pulls us apart. Just don't get all codependent about it. Take some me time. Be alone--at home, out in nature, on a run, during yoga, on a long drive, part of a meditation, wherever--be present with your thoughts. Write to yourself. Listen to yourself. Learn from yourself. When all is said and done, you're all you got. And that's actually kind of awesome. We've all been there.
It's that day, that moment, when everything suddenly feels overwhelming. It's like that inbox you've been neglecting. The notifications are piling up for weeks, months. So many that it's almost too much to handle. You don't even want to handle. You literally can't even handle. It's the inbox of real life, and the messages have been piling up for some time: the to do list has gotten way too long; the little inadequacies you see in yourself keep interrupting; the friends you want to be there for you don't seem to be around. Every slight, every hesitation, every agitation piling up until one day, one moment, it boils over. We've all been there. I've been there, quite recently. Clichédly speaking, life is full of ups and downs. Sometimes the ups are higher than you can ever imagine, sometimes the downs really fucking suck. Knowing this will happen to you once in a while--knowing we've all been there--that doesn't make it any easier, especially when you're in the thick of it. When you're feeling overwhelmed, pissed off, shitty, I say just feel it. Wallow in it. Don't put on a fake smile. Don't push yourself to pretend everything is fine. Just cry, scream, be angry. This is all days, if not weeks, of pent-up negative energy you've been putting off, ignoring, pushing to the side. When you allow yourself to feel it, when you're present in your emotions, that's when you can begin to process it. Write down how you feel. Verbal diarrhea all over the keyboard. Say it all. Say the things you've been meaning to say to yourself for years. Say the things you'd never ever tell another soul in your life. Get it out there, for yourself. Reread it. Marinate in it. Talk to the people you love, because we've all been there. Send an text, make a call, go out to dinner. Maybe you think they won't understand. Maybe they actually won't understand. Who cares? If they love you they will care. That doesn't mean they'll react the way you want them to or have the advice you're looking for. In fact, they might only have horribly naive advice to give. But at least they're sitting there across from you, listening, wishing you the best. Having someone to talk to, even if they have nothing to say back, it's cathartic. The truth is, once you allow yourself to wallow, marinate, process, and express your emotions, you feel... relief. Not that the problems themselves have gone away. Nope, they're all still there. But what you get from directly facing them is perspective. The fog clears, just a bit, and you begin to see a path forward. You see the potential. You get the energy to do something about it. We've all been there and we'll all be there again. I can't tell you whether it will be easier or harder the next time around. But we can learn from this bout in the ring. We can learn to tackle our problems head on instead of letting them fester. We can learn how to be better people in the process. It seems many have been clamoring for an alternative to the ubiquitous Facebook monster lately. It's not just the gay/drag community getting up in arms about the Facebook "real name" policy, or even the start-up social network Ello that became alternative du jour this week, receiving praise and rage in the process. Those are just recent flare-ups in a fire that's been smoldering for some time. The real malaise comes from a sense of unease social media seems to create. It's providing bits of personal information, in the form of "likes," that are used to sell advertisements. It's visiting a website that can foster both good and evil, and feeling like evil wins out way too often. It's all the moments of social disruption it spawns--the FOMO, the distraction, the arguments, the jealousy, the anxiety. Jumping to an alternative social network won't solve all of those problems though. No well-meaning manifesto claiming to make it all better will ever, actually, make it all better. Ello might very well be a better alternative, but it can also very easily become yet another digital distraction. Social media encourages people to sit behind a computer and watch the world go by. At first it makes you feel connected because it makes it easy to keep in touch with friends, both near and far. But it also makes it way too easy to be passive in your social life. In that laziness, in watching the world go by without you, you end up feeling more alone. I can't tell you which social network is the best at making you feel more connected and less of a commodity. That's up to you. But I can tell you how to break from the malaise that will eventually come from every social network: go engage in the real world. Don't sit at your computer and bemoan the fact that everyone is having fun but you. Go make a plan. Go to dinner with someone. Go join a group. Go out to a public event. Don't sit on an app and complain that the information you meant to share with friends is being turned into an ad. Go out and share that information directly with them in the form of an actual conversation. The strength of your friendships is up to you, whether any of them follow you on a social network or not. So don't blame Facebook for your malaise. Be proactive, get out there, and change it. A wise woman once shared a mantra with me. It's one of happiness and love. There are different versions of this to be found on the internet, but here it is as I learned it. You start by blessing those you love: May they be safe. May they be strong. May they be happy. Next you bless everyone, whether you love them or not: May we be safe. May we be strong. May we be happy. Then you finish by pointing this back to yourself: May I be safe. May I be strong. May I be happy. The only person you can control is you. The only Facebook rant reaction you can change is your own. The only comment board opinion you have power over yours.
You're in charge of your mood. You're in charge of the path you take. The energy you send out into the world is up to you. I believe that when you do good, when you hand out smiles instead of scowls, peace signs instead of birds, hugs instead of hatred, that those acts are addictive. Others pick up on them and return the favor or pass it along. This mantra doesn't necessarily change the safety, strength, or happiness of others. Just as you're in charge or your reaction, everyone else is in charge of theirs. This mantra simply reminds you to change your viewpoint. Start putting happiness out into the world and then maybe, just maybe, that happiness will point back at you. Every Friday at 5pm, for the past 4 or so years, a calendar alert reminds me of this little mantra. I repeat it a few times to remind myself to spread happiness. To do so even when I'm stressed, even when I'm angry at someone, even when I don't want to smile. Happiness inspires happiness. All the peace I wish for the world and for myself can found right here within me, as long as I'm willing to put it out there. Take a moment out of your day, your week, your month, to wish the world some happiness. Do it in a prayer, a mantra, or simply a kind thought. I doubt we'll create world peace, but hell, it's a start. Be the Light
8/12/2014
As a child the concepts of happiness and sadness seem so basic. Then you grow up and learn a thousand different words to describe your feelings - you realize just how complicated it all is.
It's hard enough sometimes to understand your own emotions, let alone understand those of the people you love. You'll never truly know the feelings of someone else because they aren't your feelings. The best you can do is guess based on the bits and pieces they choose to show you. This is why it's always so shocking to hear about the suicide of someone who you and everyone else assumed was happy. I was shocked when I heard Robin Williams died yesterday. We all wrestle with demons, but few broadcast it. When you're depressed the last thing you want to do is pull back the curtain and expose yourself. Doing so could open you up to more hurt. So we find safety in solitude. We lie in the trough of our mind, wallowing in our own sadness. What can we each individually do about this sadness - our own and that of others? For me, it all boils down to one guiding principle: be present. When you're feeling down, be present with yourself and your emotion, accept it, observe it. Don't fight it by pretending it doesn't exist. When you acknowledge your feelings you begin to understand them. After you first acknowledge it to yourself, go and acknowledge it with someone you love and trust. This can be tricky, but I believe one of the most important things in life is fostering the types of relationships that give you the freedom to be your true and honest self. That relationship - that truth and acknowledgement - goes both ways. You might not ever be able to truly know what is in the heart of your friend, but you can be present with them. Ask them how they're doing and be there for them when they reach out. When you're with them, be with them. Your attention, your ear, your shoulder might be just what they need right now. When you are present you can be the light that guides the way towards a better, more loving, world. We are in control over how we react to punches life throws at us. We have that power. We are in control over how we react to those we love. We have that power. With great power comes great responsibility. Use that power to create as much light as possible. No FOMO
8/7/2014
There's an episode of 'I Love Lucy' where Ricky wants to show his friends a slide-projector show of their recent vacation, but much to his dismay they all keep falling asleep. I know they were dozing off for comedic effect, but I suppose they also weren't interested in hearing about the fun time the Ricardo's had on the trip because at that point, weeks later, it was old news.
These were the pre-FOMO days. People have always been jealous of one another, Lucy and Ricky's fictional friends included, but these days the diversions of our friends are much more in-your-face than they were in the past. In the digital world of instant sharing, everyone can be immediately aware of what you're up to and then can be immediately jealous that they weren't a part of it. Most people stick to sharing positive moments on Facebook, so you end up hearing a lot about the good times. That encourages you to compare your life to there's, and whether you're doing your own exciting things or not, some of us fall into "the grass is always greener" trap. So what do you do when a friend posts that they just had the best day ever? You have two options, and the choice is entirely up to you. You can choose to: (1) be jealous / angry that you missed out on the fun, OR (2) be happy that your friend is happy. When you've got that FOMO-feeling, it means you're not present -- instead you're worried about what you missed, regretting that you decided not to join, doubting the strength of your friendship. But just because they had a fun time doesn't mean you can't have a fun time too. And just because they bonded with other friends doesn't make your friendship with them any less significant. If you truly love your friend, and I hope you do, seeing them have a fabulous day should give you joy, whether you were a part of that best day ever or not. There is room in this world for more than one laugh, more than one friendship, more than one epic weekend. Enjoy your life where it is, right now, and then go make your own plans for the next best day ever. #nofomo Don't Take It Personal
7/25/2014
People have a tendency to take things personally.
It makes sense -- we view the world through our own eyes and process information through our own brains. Thoughts are like waves, each made up of a million drops of observations, that crash in and wash through the filter of you. But here's a shocker, 9 times out of 10 what someone else says has absolutely nothing to do with you. It's not about anyone in particular, it's about everyone as a whole. This happens whenever we hear a voice, whether that voice is a private conversation between you and a friend or me publishing this very blog post. In the last month, some have asked me whether a particular theme in one of my posts is about them or a mutual friend. They saw a connection to their own real life situation. The short answer is no, none of these posts are about anyone in particular. I would never share anything said to me in private. That feeling belongs to you and our conversation belongs to us. But I also have my own personal filter. On this blog I write about the way I process and make sense of the world, and that can only ever be the world as I see it. It's a combination of every observation I've ever made -- every conversation, every friend, every person I pass on the street, every Facebook update, every selfie, every text message. You might feel a personal connection when you read this, and I hope you do, but that's not because I'm writing about you -- it's because even though we each have our own individual collection of observations, somewhere along the line you had the same thought as me. The reason you think a particular theme is about you is because it's an experience or feeling we all share. We go about our lives individually, but we're all on the same hunt for happiness. When you start to take something personally, consider it a reminder that you're never alone. There's someone out there who gets it and who hopefully wants to make it better. There's someone out there just like you. Boyhood
7/22/2014
You know how everyone's always saying seize the moment? I don't know, I'm kind of thinking it's the other way around, you know, like the moment seizes us." ~Boyhood It's a tough business growing up. Life starts out simple and seemingly preordained. But at a certain point you have to forge your own path–the path of who you are, what you do, and the people with which you associate. Sometimes I'm wistful for my boyhood, which at least on the surface felt so uncomplicated. A time when your friends were everything and you didn't have to compete with bills, careers, or lovers for attention. When the stress and drama of adulthood rears it's ugly head, I tend to look back at a time of bicycles and popsicles and wish I could hop in a Delorean and go back to 1985. I'm fairly certain I'm not alone in this. Then there's Richard Linklater's brilliant movie Boyhood. Beyond it's unique filming style–it was shot over the course of 12 years as the actors aged in real life–it's also one of the best cinematic explorations of nostalgia and mindfulness I've seen in quite some time. Boyhood reminded me of my own wistful tendencies... and it reminded me why those tendencies are completely foolish. To be clear, my own boyhood didn't follow the exact same path as the boy we follow in the movie. But then again, no path is ever the same. Despite our differences and our similarities, the questions I had then, the questions I have now, and the questions about life the movie explores all are on a very similar wavelength. I guess that's what draws us towards any movie really–it's something we enjoy, something that makes us think, something that sticks with us, or at least something we find entertaining. Both boyhood and adulthood are like a labyrinth. Looking back at our path can provide us with lessons for the future, but pining after the past doesn't help us move forward. The only way to decode the puzzle of life is to live in the moment and let those moments live through you. In both boyhood and adulthood life is complicated. Very few of us had a perfect life growing up. In the movie, our main character grows up as a child of divorce, with alcoholic step-fathers, school yard bullies, and a slew of questions about life's path. As adults these days we live surrounded by break ups, alcoholic loved ones, work and online bullies, and a continuing onslaught of life questions. In both boyhood and adulthood friendships take a lot of work. Very few of us are still friends, or at least close friends, with those childhood besties. In the movie, our main character has friends who are central to his life, but when he has to move or simply loses touch, he is forced to let them go. As adults, friendships are more stable because they're made out of choice and experience, but they are still fraught with complex emotions, and once in a while we are still forced to let them go. The more things change, the more they stay the same. As we get older our minds grow. We learn through experience and slowly figure out some of the answers to life's questions. But the more you grow and the more questions you answer, the more questions you create. We grow, because of and despite of our age. Boyhood raises questions about each of our individual paths in life, about the wistful emotions our experience stirs, and those questions are just are relevant to me today as they were to me when I was a boy. But if you really stop and think about it, life now is no more complicated than life then. Melancholy, looking backwards, regretting decisions, or longing for the relative simplicity of boyhood, those feelings aren't going to get you anywhere in life. The big question posed in Boyhood, at least to me, is how do we use our experiences in life to grow up? How does that growth move us along our path? What is that path and where will it lead? That answer to those questions are not found on some preordained paved road to success and happiness. What you do as a kid, what you enjoy in high school, and what you study in college are just small parts of the large puzzle. Every moment is stepping stone taking us to new uncharted territories in life. They may be completely unrelated to one another, but they are still ours, and they've all led us to now. It's up to us if we live in the present moment or to constantly look back at what is finished or forward at what is unknown. It's up to us if we keep trying to seize each moment as the be all/end all, or if we just let the moment seize us and see where it leads. Remember the good times of the past–in fact, never forget them–but then take the lessons you've learned and look forward. Appreciate your present life, complications and all. When you're searching for it, you may never quite figure out exactly what you want to be and where you want to go. But you can always figure out the right now, and that's the only thing in life that actually matters. No worries, Man
7/15/2014
"No worry, no guilt, no doubt, no regret." ~Phyllis Herman I like to call worry, guilt, doubt and regret my "no-no's." They're all the ways we let the world around us take us out of the present.
Worry is an especially bad violator, as I know all too well from personal experience. It's a trap even those with the best of intentions fall into. There are two ways to quickly and easily distract yourself from being mindful:
In both cases your mind is living in another time zone, away from the reality of now, away from the potential joys of today. I am a worrier. My mother tells me that when I was very young I would stand at the bottom of the slide at the playground, debating whether it was all worth it - was the fun of coming down the slide worth the risk of possibly falling off that tall ladder? My worry of (potential) danger stopped me from getting on the slide. Later in life, I started to encounter regrets from these decisions. Was I missing out on all the fun? That regret, or rather the worry of future regret, eventually caused me to start facing my fears. A little later in life when I was too old for slides, I remember climbing up the ladder to the terrifyingly high high-dive at the high school pool, plugging my nose, and taking the plunge. Way back then I recognized the folly of worry, because as much as I can think through all sorts of horrible scenarios, I also love to create opportunities for happiness. Worry would prevent me from being happy, so I had to fight to be mindful, stop worrying, and take the plunge. At its basic level, worry is the fear of the unknown. It's something we all think about on some level: Is it safe for me to go on that carnival ride? What do I want to be when I grow up? Now that I'm a grown up, why can't I figure out what I want to be? What if I sleep too late and miss my flight? What is my spouse doing when I'm not around? What will people think of me if I post this on Facebook? Worrying is putting your focus on what might happen, not what is happening. It causes you to lose focus, to forget your trust in others, to forget your hope that the world really is a good place and justice will prevail, to forget how to live in the present and be mindful. It's a slippery slope that leads to doubt, anxiety, frustration, distraction, procrastination, and eventually regret that you wasted so much time worrying about something that may never happen. Sometimes it's OK to worry - it's OK to be skeptical of dangerous things, to a point. Wen you care about someone, it also makes sense to have some concern for their well-being. Observe that worry as a sign that of love for yourself and others, give friendly advice and lead by example, but don't let that concern consume you. They have to figure out their life on their own, just like you. Worrying is a fool’s errand because the only thing you can control is what's happening right now. The better you are at being mindful and taking care of yourself in the present, the better your chances of avoiding the very things you're worrying about for the future. So ya know, like no worries, man. The "Survival of the Fittest" Myth
7/9/2014
The term "survival of the fittest" was coined by Herbert Spencer in 1864 as a new way of describing Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection. From then on, it's been used to explain everything from capitalism to sports champions. In our modern world it boils down to this: the weak die and the strong survive.
But that definition tells us we have to be a bully in order to be our best. That definition is a myth. In the real world, you don't survive because you're extremely aggressive; you survive because you can to change to meet the needs of your environment - to adapt. We're taught that the dominant wolf is the pack leader. The aggressive stock trader, the persuasive sibling, the domineering boss - they all lead by strength and manipulation, forcing others to adapt to them. In our dog-eat-dog world this self-assured attitude is wrongly revered. Despite having a strong pack leader social system, the species Canis lupus (aka the wolf) is endangered. The North American gray wolf once roamed most of the continental United States, but is now confined to the northern reaches of Alaska and Canada. The pack leader of the wolves may seem strong, but his aggressive nature is leading his pack off a cliff. On the other hand, their close relatives Canis lupus familiaris (aka the dog) are doing pretty well for themselves. After many generations, these former wolves learned how to play a clever game of submission that convinced humans to give them food and shelter, and as such they thrive. Their only real threat, other than a few cruel owners, is euthanization, but that's a problem of overpopulation and a product of their success as a species. Dogs found their true strength by being submissive. In their battle for survival, the fittest of the Canine lupus species isn't the aggressive wolf pack leader; it's the wolf that is willing to set that aggression aside. The same goes for all species. As humans, the most important method of survival is the ability to observe, learn, and adapt to your surroundings (aka mindfulness). You survive by teamwork, relationships, and yes sometimes by being submissive, so your group - your species, your family, your friends - can all survive and thrive together. That does not mean you give up all responsibility. It means you still speak your mind when it's something you know is right and just. It means you speak your mind, but it also means you listen. Sometimes it means sitting back to allow the bluster of others play itself out. A self-assured, aggressive pack leader may be right once in a while, but if they're stuck on their own opinion, not willing to mindfully observe or learn from the changes around them, then they'll be wrong most of the time. The next time someone's being an asshole just remember that their kind will fight alone and eventually become extinct while your kind... well we'll need your kind to keep adapting and evolving. Your kind is the fittest that will help our species survive. |
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blog searchauthorMy name is Jason Wise. Life's all about the journey, man. Find me on Instagram and Facebook. archives
May 2020
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