An Elephant Tightroping

"The only way to do great work, is to love what you do."

-Steve Jobs

     You honestly can never anticipate what life has in store for you. Just like I never could have guessed I'd find an elephant balancing on a tightrope when I type passion in Google images. Even if you have a plan for what is going to happen in your life, it will not happen the way in which you thought it would. A planned life will go as follows... If it can go wrong, it will go wrong. I wish I would've known this before I graduated high school, but I probably would have considered this to be a pessimistic point of view. Now however, I know it's neither optimistic or pessimistic, IT JUST IS. 

     Have you ever woke up one morning and wondered how you got to where you are? Well, that's exactly where I was this morning. I woke up, rolled out of my hammock and out loud asked myself "How did I get here?" The reason I asked that is because it was then I realized that nothing that I've done in the past year was part of the plan I conceived a year ago. In fact where I am now, wasn't even on the map. Where I found myself was disappointing. I never thought that I'd be in a place in my life where I'd feel completely and utterly passionless. In fact, it was just in this past week that I'd finally admitted to myself that I wasn't actually happy. I could smile and put on a good show, but it was just a show. How did this happen? How did I get here?

I added this photo from Trolls, because this is what happens
when doubt wins. Passion is diminished and you're left with
a pale, hollow reflection of how you once were.

     After I'd asked this question to myself, I reflected on all the aspects of my life, and why I was not happy with them. In all areas of my life, I found that I felt passionless for, but why? I have had passion in all of them once before, but what changed? Why is the passion not there? Then I started thinking back in time and found my answer. At one point or another, there was a seed of doubt planted in all of them. Whether it was music, my relationships, or my spirituality I found doubt planted in all of them. It was only now that I realized that I'd been nurturing doubt and not passion, and doubt diminishes passion. 

     Passion doesn't all of a sudden just leave you. It goes away slowly. For me, little disappointments happened, people leaving happened, projects falling through happened, heartbreak happened. It seemed that a lot of opportunities and people that I had planned on being here now had left me behind. So what? Those things and people did happen. That doesn't mean it gives me the right to blame them for where I am, because the only person who decides what you do about those things is you. Just own it! The blame game never gets you anywhere except alone. But how can you regain your passion? If only I knew the answer to that! I don't think there's one answer to that question. I just know that doing what makes you happy, being grateful for it and sharing it with others makes life much better. So maybe that would help regain passion. If not, at least you're doing what makes you happy.

     Regaining passion is a difficult task. Especially when the past seems so full of darkness and doubt. But we need to realize that we didn't lose our passion overnight, so we can't expect to regain our passion overnight. It's a process. All life is a process only to be completed over time. Just remember to LIVE NOW and enjoy the process, and maybe just maybe you'll find yourself passionate and not passionless!

     

     

Conceal Don't Feel

"until you get comfortable with being alone, you'll never know if you're choosing someone out of Love or loneliness."

-Mandy Hale

     Going through any degree of a break up is just hard. Trying to be happy during this break up process and the recovery after is even more difficult. The reason I say that is because for a certain amount of time, that person was a key ingredient in you being happy. Now that that person isn't there anymore, it's like making chocolate chip cookies without the chocolate chips. The sweetness has been diminished. Now you're just looking for anything to take the place of your chocolate chips in your cookie dough, to regain that sweetness that once was there. The only problem is that a lot of the times after a break up people try and fill that empty space with a rebound relationship. Most often these rebound relationships don't end well, and you might end up walking away from it in worse shape than you were before. That's not what a relationship should be about. A relationship isn't something to fill a hole or a void, it's something to augment and enhance. So what do you do?

     This is sort of the point where I'm at right now. I want to regain that sweetness that I had in my life but there's a catch. I don't feel like it's for the right reasons. I feel as if the reason behind me returning to dating would be because I feel lonely. This being said, makes me think that whatever I find in dating would just be a rebound relationship. Now I know that's not necessarily true, but my mind jumps places.  So before I return to the serious dating world I need to find comfort and happiness in solitude. This doesn't mean that I shouldn't go on dates, it just means that I need to make sure that the purpose for me going on this date is to go have fun and meet new people.

     With life in general it's common for people to try and fill themselves with superficial and temporary things to Band-Aid the real issues going on under the surface. Making them feel OK temporarily, but Band-Aids don't fix bullet holes. They just conceal them. What really helps heal a broken heart is exposing those insecurities and weaknesses that you have, and to face them head on. This will allow you to come back stronger and more emotionally fit for the next relationship. 

     Always remember to live now in the moment and to know the greatness that lies inside of you. Thanks, and will talk soon!

     

The Strength of Kindness

     "Strength is a skill"

     -Kenny Kane

     The other day I was watching an episode from the podcast BarbellShrugged with Mike Bledsoe and Doug Larson and they were talking to Kenny Kane about self mastery. Of course I found this intriguing because I'm constantly looking for ways to master myself, but there was one phrase that was said in the interview that I can recall strongly today. That phrase is "strength is a skill". What is strength though and what is skill?

     Strength is defined as "a good or beneficial quality or attribute of a person or thing". A skill is defined as "the ability to do something well". Now when you put them together it comes out as being able to be good at being good. When I look at it that way this phrase is applicable to just about everything. Whether is working out, eating healthy, being kind, being productive and being helpful.

     Being as strength is a skill, that means we can learn strength. If we could just know that learning to be good at something no matter what it is, is within our grasp, we could learn to do anything, but more importantly be anything. 

      The reason I say learning to be anything is more important, is because if we can learn to be kind, it would make all the other things we desire to be good at more attainable. Allowing for ourselves to give and receive kindness opens the doors of opportunity to new skills and a new environment to live in. Not just for ourselves but for everyone around us.

     If we will try to make kindness our main skill, we will have everything we need to LIVE NOW! Thanks for reading and I hope you try and make kindness your skill!

Form Over Reps

"Form over reps."

-Some really wise dude or dudet 

     As I read a segment from Becoming a Supple Leopard by Kelly Starrett with Glen Cordoza I couldn't help but feel like this principle is neglected not just in athletic training and performance and life in general. This principle is called task-priority blindness. To show you the context that I was first learning about this, I'll share a little excerpt from the book where Kelly explains this principle with quite whimsical humor! 

"The third and most notable problem with our current thinking is that it continues to be based on A model that prioritizes task completion above everything else. It's sort of one or zero, task done or not, weight lifted or not, distance swim or not mentality. This is like saying, "I dead lifted 500 pounds, but I herniated a disc," or, "I finished a marathon, but I wore a hole in my knee." Imagine this sort of ethic spilling over into the other aspects of your life: "Hey, I made you some toast! But I burned down the house." (Kelly Starrett, Becoming A Supple Leopard, page 21, paragraph 5)

     The basic premise of the concept is quality over quantity. In the end of the excerpt he kind of hinted at the consequences of this concept leaking into other parts of our lives. As I look at my own life I realize that it is already happened. Not just in my athletic training but in other aspects of my life. 

     For example, running volume. Me personally, I have a tendency of over training. As I've been training for my Spartan Races that I will be doing later this year, I've noticed that when i've tried to raise my running volume that the stiffness and tension in my legs have gotten worse, as well as in my lower back. These are obvious latent signs that the quality of my running is not where it should be, if I'm going to have the running volume that I want.

     Another example of task-priority blindness in my life is studying for college classes. I also have a tendency to over studying for exams. I know that I am over studying for an exam when my eyes are glazed over, and I'm just reading the words and not absorbing the information that I need. I noticed that I retain information better if I have small study sessions spread out over a long period of time. These kind of small study sessions are of higher quality than my cram study sessions.

     I notice that these quality over quantity issues are more widespread than we like to admit. Especially in the United States, I see a lot of people worried about hitting the numbers they've projected for themselves instead of doing something the right way. It's probably because doing a proper squat 5 times is not nearly as sexy as doing 50 squats. People are also this way with people. If you have 10,000 friends on facetagram you are better than a person with only 10 friends on facetagram. We are so focused on the quantity of our social group and not the quality of our social group. Being as we are the sum of our five closest friends, I think quality should take priority over quantity. This will help enrich our lives with the quality we need to LIVE NOW and find that fulfillment we're looking for! Thanks for reading, and I hope you fill your lives with the people, places, things and activities of the highest quality! Talk soon!

     

Thanks For The Heartbreak

"Never hold back love"

-Tony Robbins

     As I sit here staring into the day dreams of "what if", I think about the topic on most people's minds today... Valentines Day. We all have our own reasons for our excitement or the lack there of. As a person that hasn't been looking forward to Valentine's Day, let me explain firstly why some of us are not, but also why we should look at it as a learning experience.

     To get straight to my reason for the lack of enthusiasm for this heart shaped holiday, I've recently been heartbroken. I've found that as this holiday has neared, my feelings have been up and down and all around, but mostly on the ground. It's difficult to have excitement for a holiday that celebrates romantic love when the person you would have celebrated it with no longer feels the same way. Should that justify me being bitter though? The answer is no. Just because I've been heartbroken, doesn't give me a good reason to be bitter about being "alone" for the holiday. If anything, I feel grateful. Not for being heartbroken, but why I am heartbroken. 

     I am heartbroken because I expressed my love and the truth of my feelings and truth of myself, but in the end it wasn't enough. Initially that was devestating to know that my max effort wasn't enough. But now, I look back on it, and I see how much growth this heartbrake has caused me to experience. It has made me stronger both physically, mentally, and emotionally. I have began to live my life more actively. It has made me realize how much abundance I really have in my life.  It has also made me more aware of my own self worth. So as I look at Valentine's Day coming tomorrow I look at it as a day to reflect on the growth and progress that I have had happen to myself.

     If you're a person that has been dreading the day of heart-shaped everything's take a step back and look at your life again. Looking at your progress, sometimes makes the pain you went through to get where you are feel worth it. So if you are going through heartbreak this Valentine's Day, look at you progress and growth. Try and see what you've gained in this process. There is always something you have gained through your pain. This can also give you an idea of what else in your life you want to grow and progress in. Who do you want to progress to be by next Valentine's Day? What new "romantic" skills do you want to acquire? This is a way I'm finding to be happy about my heartbreaking circumstances. 

     This experience has taught me that in relationships as well as in life that everything that can go wrong will go wrong, but it has also taught me that growth is happiness. Don't just focus on your pain and depression that you feel this Valentine's Day. Look and see your gain through your pain, and then see what more you want to make of yourself. This will allow you to build yourself up and promote LIVING NOW this Valentine's Day. Thank you for reading, and we'll talk soon!

Your Focus Is Your Reality

"Seek and ye shall find."

-scriptural reference

     So I know I said that I was going to do a post everyday last week about my journey to a minimalistic lifestyle, but there was more to this de-cluttering aspect of minimalism than I thought. The one thing that I didn't plan on, was the new awareness that comes with it. It took me much longer to complete this task than I anticipated. As I went through my bedroom, the awareness I gained was of how many unnecessary things I had decorating my closet... my shelves... my walls... and ultimately my floor. As I went through the things I had in my room, I was overwhelmed by how many totally useless items I had. The only question I was asking myself the whole time, was "why haven't gotten rid of this already?" The answer to this question is selective attention.

My Wardrobe Before Downsizing

     Basically, our brain has a filter that sifts through all the stimuli that we are experiencing at any given moment and prioritizes them as relevant or irrelevant. Then the relevant stimuli are brought to our attention so we can deal with them accordingly. So with the clutter in my bedroom. I was unaware of how much clutter I actually had because it didn't score very high in the relevance category in my brain. But now that I was actually looking for clutter, all that stuff went from irrelevant to relevant at the flick of a switch. After that switch was flipped, I saw so much more.
     I didn't just de-clutter, I also downsized. The one example that I took a picture of was my wardrobe. I won't say that I had ton of clothes, but I had too much to where I didn't wear all of it. So I laid it all out and picked and chose my favorites out of what I had. That way I would always being wearing my favorite clothes. That's what I did.
     Now some may argue that I still have too much, but I feel that if you use all of it, then you have the right amount for you. It's all dependent on what you want. I could downsize even more if I wanted, but I'm comfortable handling what I've got. Plus, it has made it extremely simple to do laundry and clean my room. So I have to say that so far, minimalistic living might be for me. The reason behind that, is because I have more time to do what makes me LIVE NOW and what I love to do. The last thing that I will say about selective attention, is that it can be used to make your life more vibrant and exciting. You see what you want to see in life. Who doesn't want more time to do what they want, and to make their lives more rich and exciting? Thanks for reading, and we'll talk soon! Next stop... Declaring a clutter free zone!
     

My Wardrobe After Downsizing... Tadaah!

7 Days To Minimalism-Day 1-Why?

"I make myself rich by making my wants few."

-Henry David Thoreau

     

     Is having less really more? Minimalists certainly claim so. I watched this documentary on Netflix last night that I found most intriguing. As of lately I've noticed quite a bit of stress on my mind and in my body. I honestly wouldn't think that having things would contribute to the stress, after all don't the things I have help with my stress? At this point I don't know for sure with me right now, but I'm thinking of trying it out and seeing if the three principles I picked out of the documentary is true for myself. The principles that I picked out were that living as a minimalist makes you focus on the quality of the things you have not the quantity. The second principle that I picked out was that living as a minimalist allows you to live intentionally. I had to look up what exactly that meant. The definition that I found most desired for me was that living intentionally means to "live a life that is meaningful and fulfilling to you." (www.liveandlovework.com/2013/03/15/be-intentional-in-all-you-do/) 

 Who doesn't want that? The third principle that I picked out of this documentary is that having less gives you more. Now this last principle mathematically doesn't make sense, but I kind of link it to the first principle that I found. Which when you add those two together makes more sense. Having less quantity makes you have more quality. I'm willing to see if this works!  So first things first how do I become a minimalist?

     So there are close to 13 million results on google when you search how to become a minimalist, so there is variation in methodology. The simple step by step system that I came across that I could understand conveyed it in 7 steps;

1)Write it down.

2)Discard Duplicates.

3)Declare A Clutter-free zone.

4)Travel Lightly.

5)Dress With Less.

6)Simplify Meals.

7)Save $1000.

    If you want more of an explanation to each step you can go to this link... (http://bemorewithless.com/begin/)... By the way, I like that it is a short URL, they really do make it simple! Haha! But since I'll be starting at the beginning, I need to do step 1, which is write it down. Why do I want live more simply as a minimalist?

    The main reason I want to live more simply with a minimalist lifestyle is so that I can eliminate unnecessary stress from my life. Who needs that? Nobody, that's who! The second reason I want to live more simply is because I'm a big believer in quality over quantity. That doesn't mean I've applied that belief to all aspects of my life though. I've done it with food and exercise, but not with material items. So this will be an interesting journey. If living simply can add intention, fulfillment and more quality to my life, I'm more than willing to try it! That's basically my reason why I'm embarking on this journey to minimalism.

     Step 1 is complete! I'll be doing one step everyday this week to move myself towards a minimalist state of living. I'll be keeping this journey updated everyday this week to show my results. I love new opportunities to learn new ways to LIVE NOW, it makes for an adventurous life! Thanks for reading and we'll talk tomorrow, about step two!