It’s difficult to be generous when you are tired, hungry, or angry.
Perhaps then, the most generous act we can make is to take care of ourselves first.
But, of course, if we are waiting around until we are in the mood then we miss so many opportunities to make a positive impact.
With art, we are always in a state of almost done. The reason? Because the art is never finished. Only the artist can decide when they are done. There’s always another sentence that can be tweaked, another iteration of code, another brush stroke. The trick is deciding when you are done so you can move on to the next thing.
Life is not industrialism. We need to make that clear. One of the main problems in our culture today is that we can trick ourselves into believing that if we just ran our lives like a factory, then we could be happy. For example, work out and eat to create a body as efficient as an assembly line, run your budget like a factory, consume media that gives you competitive advantage, even sleep has turned into the daily recommended maintenance.
When we make our lives like a factory, what we lose is our humanity. The goal isn’t more efficiency The goal is something else.
They say that the fall isn’t what kills you but the landing. As a result, we are hesitant to take a leap, worrying if we crash, it will all be over. We play it safe. Except the risks that we end up taking are not that dangerous anymore. These are emotional risks like innovating a system, proposing a new project, raising your hand to speak up, or standing out from a crowd. These risks are not life or death. They just feel like it. Not actual danger. So, we need to decide what kind of risks we are going to take.
When we learn to let go, we also simultaneously make room to let other things come into our lives.
Not just grief and suffering. But also relationships and products.
When you talk to an activist in the ’60s, they would say they thought the world was going to end. That same feeling exists today for many. The thing is, we always have been faced with danger. The difference is today, we have weapons that could end everything. Climate change continues to be an existential threat.
Every day, we inch toward that line of destruction. But what we have going for us is the knowledge we are accumulating to solve the problems at hand and the problems we don’t even see coming yet. As we gain more knowledge, we are also gaining more solutions.
I believe there are three levels.
The lowest level is the lizard brain.
The middle is the mammal brain.
The final brain is the human.
The three parts of our brain are in constant pull from each other.
The first two are there to take care of us. To help us survive.
The human brain, however, is there to get us to take risks to find meaning.
All the problems we face, if we are lucky, are there to get us to solve the first two parts of our brain and to confront the human brain.
Human problems are indeed the challenge of the times we face.
The ones who hate the most are the ones who struggle to find the love people see in them.
We often hate what we find ugly in ourselves.
We confuse dead ends with the end of the road. Life has more to offer. When we feel it’s the end, it may be just the beginning.
It’s okay to feel sorry for ourselves. Then, we must make room for the next emotion.
Josh Allred's Blog 