Month: April 2023

We can’t run from our problems forever. At some point, we must turn and face them. You can, however, decide how you will stand.

A mistake people often make about mental health professionals, gurus, coaches, and spiritual leaders is that you can’t pay them to solve your problems like you would a plumber.

Plumbing problems are defined and set at a market rate to complete a job. The pipe was broken and now it is fixed. This is vastly different when talking to someone about what direction you want to move your life, whether or not you should quit a job or how to resolve trauma from the past. You are often paying for something different–clarity. To help make sense of what has happened and where you want to go.

In the end, you still need to have the guts to make a decision about what you want to do with your life (even if you found someone you trust enough to give you an answer). It is still up to you.

To hate is to maintain a point of view.

Meaning that your storyline must be reinforced to survive long-term.

You have to believe in it in order to preserve it.

In 1964, the Civil Rights Act was passed that outlawed the segregation of drinking fountains. Think about that for a minute. That was only 59 years ago!

If you talk to someone who is old enough to remember when this was passed, particularly Women or Black people or Indigegousness people, even despite setbacks many will say that society is moving in the right direction than it was just one generation ago. We are still far from the mark of equality today–no doubt there is way too big of a gap between the rich and the poor and too many toxic phobias remain in our culture. Basic human rights such as healthcare are still not met. And the voiceless are only finally getting a chance to speak up for the first time. There are still so many challenges. Yet, the ones who I often hear complain about the “degradation of our society” are not looking at life through a historical lens but through a system of caste. These are people that remember a world where they had power, they had status, and controlled resources and feel a sort of loss of the way things used to be. They feel the ground shrinking beneath their feet. As a result, continue to blame others for these problems instead of looking in the mirror.

For a moment, imagine living in the South during slavery, the Reconstruction era, or under Jim Crowe Laws. What would it be like to not have the right to vote because of your sex or skin color and to let other people decide your fate? What was it like for Indigenous people after settlers came to the New World? Many of these problems are still not resolved today. These are thought exercises but important to point out that the road has been violent to get here. Yet, statistically speaking, we are in a period of relative peace, we have had economic prosperity, welfare and child insecurity are in overall decline, and people have more access to more information and comforts than ever before. So if the data says that the arrow of society, despite the challenges ahead, is pointing up–What are people with this worldview talking about?

“If you white folks want to be treated the way blacks are in this society–stand! Nobody is standing here. That says very plainly that you know what’s happening. You know you don’t want it for you. I want to know why you are so willing to accept it or to allow it to happen for others.” – Jane Elliot

/rant

One of the most unique skills of human beings is our ability to mentally travel through time. We can visualize our experiences from the past and use that knowledge to create a future that is in our favor. For example, we can see that food is in short supply and so we plant a seed to avoid starvation. But this is a double edge sword. The source of so much of our anxiety is worrying about a future that doesn’t even exist yet. The key then is to strike a balance between delaying instant gratification long enough to not sacrifice our future (for many who don’t even exist yet).

Another thought: How much of our daily decisions do we make that are focused on our future? Retirement, legacy, dynasty, inheritance, after-life…makes you think.

When we become binary in our thinking, we are left with seeing things as good/bad or success/failure. In this mindset, our outcomes become trapped. They must fit in the box we have put a label on.

Outcomes are rarely this clean. Instead, when we are open to learning, we are more receptive to other parts of the outcome. Meaning, you are learning something new.

We become so invested in the outcome when we give maximum effort. In fact, we feel entitled. When we are learning, every step on the journey then becomes part of the process, regardless of the outcome.

It was Albert Einstein’s professor, Hermann Minkowski, who once said that Einstein was a “lazy dog”.

I have no idea what Einstein did or said to that professor to lead to such a bad take. I will say:

Past performance is not indicative of future results.

To heal. So many steps in the healing process. Up, down, sideways, backwards, and eventually forward.

Move. Now you are moving forward, you can begin a new life. We confuse this one life with the idea that we actually have many. Oftentimes, you have to start all over and redo your whole self again.

Let go. Not to confuse with forgetting. Actually, this step is living in the present instead of the past. The last part is the longest part.

Human beings have a pressing need for closure. It is why it is so hard to put down the phone while doom scrolling, we want to see how things will end. And it is why we check Twitter first thing in the morning, we want to be sure the world didn’t break while we were asleep. We crave resolution.

This was made famous with Mike Judge’s cult classic, Office Space. A jump to conclusions mat:

The metaphor is powerful. If humans didn’t have a constant need to resolve a problem, we wouldn’t need to jump to conclusions. The alternative is to sit with tension and to be open rather than listening for a way to close this loop and take care of the next.

Humans constantly assign meaning to everything that happens to us. It’s a bad habit. Things just happen. It doesn’t mean we don’t learn from situations, actions or mistakes. And yes, we could avoid so much discomfort if we had a crystal ball, but sadly that isn’t how life works. We conserve energy when we accept things as they are instead of wishing how things ought to be.