The hard part about saying no (or, in other words, breaking a habit) is the number of times you must say no. Think about it. Three hundred sixty-five days per year, but add in how many times per day you say no to that dopamine hit.
You have to say no thousands of times, but only give in again once.
I had the privilege of taking a couple of weeks off to hike the John Muir Trail. It’s a magnificent thru-hike.
Here’s what happens when you are disconnected for a couple of weeks:
The problems are still there. And so is the past trauma and responsibilities, the bombardment of emails and notifications.
But at least I got to take a break from them.
The lesson: You can’t run away from your problems. Not ever.
The irony of anger is this:
It has this way of making us destroy what we love most.
Backpacking teaches something:
What you carry on your back determines how far you will go.
The one who fights against inevitably or the one who accepts it?
If we are free from shame, we can freely judge what is right and wrong.
Is that she loves me. And I love her.
That’s how powerful a connection can be. That the distance makes no difference, love truly can transcend certain restraints and boundaries.
If someone goes over and pops a kid’s bubble, you can say, “What? It was going to pop anyway.”
Of course, most would never steal a four-year-old’s joy. And yet, the internet has turned us into bubble poppers. Stealing joy from others who we feel don’t deserve it.
When someone does a bucket list item of yours, what kind of response do you internally have? Worth examining.
The goal should be agency, dignity, power, responsibility, creating, experiencing, etc.
Money isn’t the key to unlocking the real goal. It helps, for sure. But plenty of millionaires spend their time hoarding wealth, fearing losing it, and having little left to experience what life has to offer.
The mind discriminates. Regardless if we want it to or not. We are filled with biases and prejudices and blind spots. But the key difference is deciding which ones we choose to act on. We can’t help what we think but we can certainly feed what we choose.
Josh Allred's Blog 