Freedom isn’t the absence of constraints.
Basketball has a court. And what you do in between the lines can be magic.
A painting has obvious constraints when looking at a canvas.
What we do with these boundaries gives us the opportunity to defy logic.
If your project needs unlimited time and money, you’re not being serious about creating something that will delight us.
Freedom might be breaking these confines. However, it can also be found within a system of parameters. 
Not all effort is noticed. Too often, the boss wants to point to results.
What would the culture be like if we decided to flip this? Focus on the process rather than results.
How would that change the projects we pick? The art we make? The chances we take to do something daring?
9 years of showing up daily to put something out in the world to help change people’s minds.
No, this isn’t a popular blog. But it is essential in clarifying my point of view. Making assumptions and seeing what works and what doesn’t. Even if no one reads it, I would do it anyway because…why not?
I’m a writer—an artist. An artist needs a space. And mine is WordPress and a laptop. This is a place to practice. Here is to 3,000+ blogs and to another 3,000.
Chop wood. Carry water. Onward.
Boredom is thought of today as a lack of entertainment. But we are not seeing what the gift it can be.
Initially, the Romans described boredom as “taedium vitae” (weariness of life) and “horror loci” (dread of place). As the years progressed, boredom became shaped by the change of work patterns in the industrial era. Renting our time to an assembly line for money fundamentally changed how we view our time. Because so much of it is leased out to someone else (again, we are not on our time; we are on the bosses), we stress how our time is managed off the clock.
The problem we are having is that we think time should be used efficiently like a scarce market resource, causing more and more stress. Boredom can now be seen as a negative thing when, for thousands of years, having discretionary time was abundant.
Humans don’t have off-and-on switches. As a result, we struggle with the relationship of being on the clock or off it. Sitting around, we can’t help but pick up a phone to fill time; it seems like a better option than nothing. But we are missing an opportunity to discover if we can never sit with our thoughts.
When we leave the room, we eventually fill it with imagination, ideas, conversation, insight, and connection. We can resist the need to fill the space, so much can open up.
Two monks—one bodhisattva and one young bhikkhu—come up to a raging river. As they prepare to cross, they look over and see a young, beautiful woman who needs help. The bodhisattva carries the woman across, sets her down, and continues on his way. The young bhikkhu is stunned. They have both taken a vow never to touch any women. After a couple of hours, the young bhikkhu finally blurts out, “How could you break your vow like that?” The elder bodhisattva turns and says, “I sat her down at the edge of the river; why are you still carrying her?”
We carry baggage with us everywhere we go. We hold on so tightly to our ideals that we ignore the opportunities to contribute right before us.
You can put down a backpack. Feelings, on the other hand, can be carried with us everywhere we go. They are not so easy to move past or move on.
The brain is a funny thing. When I say don’t think of an elephant, we can’t help but think of an elephant. The next step, then, is to treat your feelings as irrelevant. Do things. And see what happens then.
What a cruel upbringing teaches us is to appreciate the small things. Security and abundance can cause us to be complacent and lead us to believe that we are better than the rest.
A wizard could waive a magic wand and solve our problems. Ultimately, it will lead to more problems when we don’t learn the skills to solve problems.
Its hard to be honest if we are not honest with ourselves.
It’s easy to donate money if you have an abundance of it. However, it’s much more difficult to live a life of generosity if you see the world through dollars and cents.
One generous act can fuel us to do more, but it can also seduce us into believing we have done enough. Perhaps the intention was to fulfill a need for identity—to point and say, “I am a nice person.” Is this really generous, then?
The better approach is to do things—not for an internal narrative but to change our internal narrative. Not for a key to the city. Not to soothe ourselves. But to do.
It’s much harder to live a life that does not harm than to live a life that does good things.
It is challenging to look up to heroes because once you learn about them you’ll find flaws. But if the person behind the mask has to be perfect to contribute, you’ll never make room for heroes.
Heroes, perhaps, are overrated. While heroics make an exciting story for the front page of the Daily Bugle, we overlook all the incredible work that goes unsung.
Maybe a hero is just someone with good publicity who got lucky, went viral and had attention. Last I checked, attention isn’t a prerequisite for good work.
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