Playing to Lose

Imagine for a moment that you are pushing rocks down a hill.  What happens if you start with a small stone?  It probably won’t get very far.  There are a million things that can stop a small rock from rolling downhill.  Trees.  Grass.  Other small rocks.  But what happens if you push a boulder?  Do you think a boulder has any regard or respect for trees, grass, or small rocks?  Of course not.  So why can’t the boulder be stopped when the stone obviously can?

Simple physics and common sense.

Every object in the physical universe is subject to certain immutable laws of physics, not the least of which is inertia.  Objects in motion tend to stay in motion.  Objects at rest tend to stay at rest.  And the amount of effort that it takes to move something is the same amount of effort that it takes to stop it.

So what does all this have to do with achieving your dreams?

More than you think.

As part of the physical universe, you and I are just as susceptible to inertia as everything else.  So are our minds.

Now let’s re-visit the rock-rolling scenario…but this time, let’s look at it as a metaphor for achieving our goals.  Many of us keep our goals small…the reasoning being that since they’re smaller, they’ll require less effort to achieve.  What many of us tend to forget in our haste is the fact that small goals have no real power.  They may seem easy to start in the short run.   But they’re also incredibly easy to stop.  Once you encounter your first obstacle, the amount of motivation that pushes you forward will drop drastically.  And that’s the hidden danger of small goals.  As Niccholo Machiavelli once said,

Make no small plans, for they have no power to stir the soul.

So how are we to remedy this situation?  Easy.

Find yourself a big-ass rock.

Think back to any movie or book where an invading army is trying to break through a castle’s walls.  Did the catapults throw pebbles?  No.  They hurled boulders.  Do you know why?  Because pebbles don’t put much of a dent in life’s obstacles.

Instead of wasting all of your time and energy trying to push a bunch of tiny dreams to fruition, I’d recommend you create a meta-goal, a giant power goal that you can fit some of your smaller goals into.

Let’s say, for example, that you’ve decided to lose weight…and you start small by setting a goal to begin every day with a bowl of oatmeal.  But setting a goal to eat a bowl of oatmeal every morning isn’t exactly the most inspiring goal in the world.  So you start finding excuses to skip making oatmeal, and eventually give up on the oatmeal altogether.  Why?  Because it’s a very small goal.  Which makes it a very boring goal.

Now, imagine what would happen if you funneled that goal into something larger and more meaningful.

Instead of focusing on just eating the oatmeal, think about creating a leaner, more muscular version of yourself, loving how incredible your life is and how much attention you get with your new body.  Or take it a step further and imagine yourself winning a marathon or a bodybuilding competition.

They’re your dreams, build them as big as you want!  But remember that the ultimate point is to create something that you can really get excited about.  The bigger your power goal is, the more excited you can get about it.  The more excited you get about it, the more energy you’ll invest into setting it into motion.  And the more energy you invest, the more unstoppable it(and you) becomes.

Thank you for reading, friends.  I hope that this article makes you a little “boulder” in approaching your dreams…and I hope I may someday be forgiven for that pun…:P.  Please go forth, share, and enjoy your day!

As much as I might love it, the life of a freelancer isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be.  There’s a trade-off that happens when you leave the traditional workforce, the same trade-off that occurs anytime we leave a place of perceived security in pursuit of more freedom.

The price of freedom is that nobody can hold your hand anymore.  When you work for a company, your employer handles all your pertinent government expenses.  But when you work for yourself,  you automatically owe about 30% of your income to the government: 15% for income tax and 15% for self-employment tax(the independent equivalent of social security.)  And that doesn’t even begin to touch on the money that needs to be put aside for retirement or emergencies, which could take anywhere from another 5% to 25%.

For someone who’d been occupationally spoon-fed his entire life, managing my own income was an incredibly daunting task at first.

In looking back, though, I’m glad that nobody warned me.  If I had known about it, I might have hesitated and ended up being far less happy than I am now.

Once I found out what being an independent contractor was all about, I was determined to make the lifestyle work for me.  I had to.  I couldn’t go back to the daily grind, not after I’d had my first sweet taste of freedom.  I was making my stand: liberty or death.  But I had overlooked a couple of crucial weaknesses: my organizational system was crap and I had given carte blanche to my buying impulses.

I had no retirement fund.  I had no emergency fund.  I was constantly coming home with new gadgets or video games that I didn’t need.  And many of these were still laying around my room unopened, because I was so busy making the money to buy them that I wasn’t making the time to play with them.

I was floundering.  Bad.  I had to find a way to stop the impulse buys and put my finances in order.

Then, one fateful day, while I was getting this blog up and running, my girlfriend leaned over my shoulder and said, “I’m pregnant.”  I almost choked on my water and passed out.  It turns out she was kidding.  She just wanted to point out that if she were serious – knock on wood – we’d be up a creek without a paddle.  “What would you do if you found out I was pregnant?” she said.  So that was the day I picked up a copy of David Allen’s Getting Things Done and came up with the idea for the F.B.E.(Fictional Baby Experiment.)

The main idea behind the FBE was that I would pretend that there was a child on the way, a child that I needed to be ready for.  I would implement the experiment for 9 months – partly because it was funny, and partly because there were about 9 months left in the fiscal year.  So I set aside 55-60% of all my income(I based it on the average percentage of child support taken out of paychecks), and established that as an “untouchable” account, because it was “for the baby.”

That fund was then further split into three accounts: “baby food”(tax account), “the college fund”(retirement account), and “diapers”(emergency account…in case any crap were to show up.)  Anything else I had, had to be stretched out and made to last.  This was particularly difficult in the early months, considering how scarce paying gigs were at the time, but it ended up being completely worth it.

I ended up selling all of my unopened games and toys(with many a whimper, I assure you), both to help generate income and to un-clutter some space that I would need “for the baby.”  As a result, I was incredibly prepared when tax time came around and I ended up with a far better benefits program than any of my previous employers had ever offered(yes, even the government of Guam.) After the booming success of the first trial run, my girlfriend and I have decided to have another “baby”, and it’s already in its second trimester, keeping me honest and my spending under control.

So if you’ve got an active imagination, you don’t like overly formal systems,  and you’re finding yourself at odds with your personal finances…maybe you should give this experiment a try.  You might be pleasantly surprised at the results.

Thanks for reading, everyone.  I hope that you continue to grow, learn, and share with each other.  I’ll be back in a couple of days.  Have a great weekend!…:)

Edit – 10/9/10: This article has recently been mentioned in an article by Brad Tuttle over at Time Magazine’s money blog.  I highly suggest you check it out, for further money-saving ideas and inspiration.

Some of you might be aware that I’ve spent quite a bit of time practicing the art of Parkour.  I also occasionally spend my time practicing classical gymnastics and trail running.  And in all my time spent practicing these activities, I’ve learned one very important lesson that’s carried over into almost all aspects of my life:

The head leads the body.

Anyone who’s studied the Alexander Technique has heard this before.  For those who haven’t…it just means that wherever the head turns, the body will naturally try to turn itself to follow the head.  In gymnastics, this is particularly important, because the movement of the head is what keeps most flips and spins going.  If you want to keep spinning left, keep looking left.  If you want to keep flipping forward, keep your head tilted forward.  And so on.  Keeping the head in a static position halfway through a maneuver is one of the worst things you can do, because it kills all of your momentum.  You must commit to the move, spot your target, and see it through to the end, or it won’t work.

So why is this important?

Well, many of us don’t realize it, but this simple physical phenomenon is a microcosm of how our minds work.  Physically, our bodies are constantly trying to align to whatever we are facing…or, more appropriately, whatever we are focusing on.  Who’s to say that our minds aren’t constantly trying to do the exact same thing?

The Dangers of Distraction

I very rarely share this, because I’m used to telling people about personal successes, but this is a story about one of my failures.  When I was learning how to front tuck a year or two ago, I wanted it more than anything else in the world.  I had wanted to learn how to front tuck ever since I was a child.  I dreamed about the technique.  I mentally rehearsed it before I went to sleep.  I knew it from start to finish.  But when the time came to perform, I jumped high off the trampoline…began the rotation…and froze upside-down four feet in the air.

Up until that moment, I had known I could do it.  I was sure I could do it.  But in that moment, my mind decided to start voicing all of my doubts and that got me thinking about the consequences of failure.  So I froze up.  I stopped tilting my head forward.  And my entire body(210 pounds at the time) came crashing down on the back of my neck.  I suffered severe neck trauma, and for several weeks, I couldn’t turn my head without pain shooting down my spine.  But it could’ve been worse.  Much worse.  My hesitation could’ve caused me to break my neck.

Maintaining Focus

I eventually got back on the horse with some minor rehabilitation, and I achieved my front tuck.   A lot of my friends thought I was crazy.  Maybe they figured I’d be in a constant state of fear, now that I’d seen what a mistake could do.  They thought that my chances of failure were even higher.  But even though that single moment of doubt…that small millisecond of hesitation…could have paralyzed me in pursuit of my dream, I was more convinced than ever that I could succeed.  Do you know why?  Because I wasn’t focused on what could go wrong.  I was focused on what could go right.  I wanted that front tuck too bad to think about anything else.  I knew what I had done wrong, and I was dead-set on not doing it again.  So as soon as I launched into the air on that first successful front tuck attempt, I knew I was going to kill it.  And kill it I did.

The head leads the body.  But attention leads the mind.  The things that you pay the most attention to are the things that your mind gravitates toward.  When you focus on the positive aspects of any situation, you are directing your mind toward those things.  And when you focus towards the negative aspects, your mind  is directed towards those things.  So why focus on the negative?

Thanks for reading, friends.  Stay focused, share, and have a great day!

Hello again, all!

I apologize for the long break since my last article, but I’ve recently been hit with a heavy case of the flu, so I’ve been bed-ridden for the past few days.

Sometime during my hiatus, though, I found myself feeling a bit sad that I couldn’t focus enough to get any of my copywriting or blogging done.  And I soon found myself laughing at that thought.  Because I’ve never been sad to get away from work in my life.  Never.

And then, I realized that I was feeling something I’ve rarely felt in regards to working.  I felt grateful.  And so I took the time to jot down a few things about my work and lifestyle that I’m grateful for.

- I’m grateful that I can make my own hours.

I am grateful that this is sometimes my office.

- I’m grateful that I can work on things that I genuinely care about, rather than what my boss dictates.

- I’m grateful that I can take a three-day weekend whenever I feel like it.

- I’m grateful that I can make my own decisions.

- I’m grateful that I can work in my pajamas.

- I’m grateful that my writing has a far-reaching and positive effect on people.

- I’m grateful to be blessed with so many intelligent and passionate readers that enjoy contributing to the conversation.

And after writing it all down, I began understanding the importance of allowing yourself to appreciate things.  Without being grateful…without reflection…without appreciation, it can be very easy to lose our motivation.  And it’s not just something that applies to work.    It’s always important to accentuate the positive in our lives, and eliminate the negative.  Because that’s what keeps us productive and gives us the drive to go on.

Now, in honor of this revelation, I’d like to ask you to take the time to create your own list.  Take inventory of your accomplishments.  Write down the things about your life that make you happy.  Write down what you appreciate about your spouse.  Write down what you appreciate about your family.  Write down what you appreciate about your life in general.  When we can see all the things that we have to be thankful for, laid out before us in black and white, it infuses us with a joy and sense of accomplishment that can fortify us against the low moments and keep us kicking ass when we need to.

And we can also be grateful for that.

Thank you for reading, friends.  May your appreciation grow perpetually…:).

Lesson #96: Always take a moment to reflect.

Hello again, all!  After a long, productive weekend, I’m finally back with the final installment of the series.  I hope that all your weekends have gone well, and I’m glad that you’re back to enjoy my work…:).  Moving on to lesson 5!

5. “Get out of the ****ing fire!”

This is a mantra that has been become notorious among large WoW groups, especially when fighting a particularly difficult in-game boss.  It comes from the tendency of most WoW bosses(and real-life bosses) to pause mid-fight and start dropping circles of fire, or waves of fire, or, in some horrifying instances, tornadoes of fire.  But, believe it or not, the real problem isn’t the fire.  Everyone knows that the fire is coming.  Everyone knows what to expect.  The problem is that players sometimes focus so much on trying to maximize their performance that they get tunnel vision.  They forget the danger and they start focusing on only their attack rotations* or their spell rotations, because they want to out-perform everyone else.

*Note: Attack rotations and spell rotations refer to the sequences of keys pressed while fighting in World of Warcraft.  Each press corresponds to a different attack or spell, and when they are pressed in the correct sequence, they can increase your overall damage substantially.

When you’re busy trying to master a rotation, it can be pretty easy to forget that there’s a swirling circle of death right below your feet.  Until that circle drains all of your life away and you can no longer do anything.

Surprisingly, this is how many of us approach our work.  We establish routines that we feel will give us the greatest boost in performance…and then we follow them.  We attempt to master them.  But then one day, a little circle of fire pops up beneath our feet, telling us that circumstances have changed.  It tells us that we need to stop for a while and change it up.  Maybe you just had a baby.  Maybe you just got married.  Maybe your job responsibilities have changed.  And these are all things that require us to be fluid.  They require us to take a few steps away mentally.  But we don’t.  We get so caught up in our routines that we forget the big picture.  And so we keep grinding away…until that little circle of fire drains us completely, and we soon find that we have no life left.

Being the best is great.  Maximizing your performance is fantastic.  But don’t let it come at the expense of the rest of your life.

If we don’t want to burn out…every once in a while, we need to get out of the ****ing fire.

6. Success is a numbers game.

On its face, WoW is a game of beautiful graphics and enjoyable gameplay, but at its heart, it is a numbers game, pure and simple. And just as in life, nothing is guaranteed.

You can increase the chances that your strikes will land.  You can research until you know every strategy and dungeon layout ever conceived.  You can fine-tune your abilities to the point where you are almost unstoppable alone.  But you are never assured victory.

No matter how well-equipped you are, no matter how well you play, there are always factors that can work against you.  Sometimes your groupmates will be incompetent.  Sometimes the monster you’re fighting will glitch and become immortal by accident(yes, it has happened).  Sometimes you’ll spend hours in a dungeon only to discover that the one random item you came in for didn’t drop.  It happens.  So what are you going to do about it?

When it happens in WoW, people willingly throw themselves into the same dungeons over and over again until they’ve gotten it right and gotten everything they want.  It might take days.  It might take weeks.  For some, it might take months.  But still, they do it.

Out in the real world, these same people will try something once…and then when it doesn’t work out for them, they give up.  They say they’re no good at it.  They say it’s a waste of time.  But what they don’t realize is that real life and WoW really aren’t all that different.  It’s not that they’re doing it wrong.  It’s just that they don’t understand that things work the same way out here as they do in WoW.  No matter how good your gear…no matter how prepared you are…no matter how talented…you will fall many times.  Maybe you didn’t get a job.  Maybe you got shot down for a date.  Maybe you lost the big game.  But the big question is, are you going to give up?

…Or are you going to run that dungeon again?

Thanks so much for reading, my friends!  That concludes “5 Productivity Lessons I Learned from World of Warcraft”, but if you’re sad that it’s over, don’t worry!  I thought of quite a few more lessons while I was putting this last installment together…and if all goes well, there may be some future installments in the works!   Thanks again for reading and enjoying, and please share!

Hey, all, great news.  I’ve recently been asked to submit an article over at PickTheBrain.com!

It’s a great site, with all sorts of helpful information to improving your life and making yourself more productive.  So please, go check out my article, and browse around a bit.  Thanks very much for all your kind words and support…:).  Now go check it out!

Would you believe me if I told you that there is very little separating you from the likes of creative geniuses like Leonardo da Vinci and Albert Einstein?  Probably not.  But it’s true.  And it’s not even an intellectual difference.

Every human being holds within themselves the spark of divine genius.

The thing that keeps most of us from becoming great creators and scientists like da Vinci and Einstein is not a vast difference in intellectual ability.  No, the limitation that separates us from great creators like these is the fact that we are constantly striving to become something that resembles our idea of a “grown-up.”  And in doing so, we have come to abuse and mis-use our imaginations.

If you get the chance, observe a young child at play for a little while and consider why you don’t think that way anymore.  I don’t know about you, but as children, my friends and I visualized amazing, fantastic things.  We imagined that we were kings…warriors….pirates…astronauts…doctors.  We created entire worlds unto ourselves, and we made changes to those worlds as we saw fit.  And that’s what creative geniuses like da Vinci and Einstein do.  They see the world through a completely different lens, and they decide that they will change it.  And sometimes their visions are so strong that they completely revolutionize the way that the rest of us see things.

Why can’t the rest of us do that?

When we grow up, we begin to become aware that the world has some sort of expectations of us…and we begin to become self-conscious.  We begin to fear being excluded from society, and we slowly stop using our imaginations to create.  We stop trying to be different.  We stop trying to change the world.  We stop living our lives for ourselves.  And what do we start using our poor imaginations for?

Worrying.

We start to worry about what people will think.  We start to worry about what will happen to us in the future.  We start to worry about fitting in.  And the creative potential within our vast imaginations is channelled almost exclusively into worrying and forging worst-case scenarios.  So when can we find the time to create solutions?  We can’t.  Because we’re attempting to change the world by trying to be grown-ups. And this simply cannot work.  The pursuit of adulthood creates stress.  Stress creates worrying.  And worrying does not create solutions.  Only problems.

As someone that spent a long time trying to cope unsuccessfully with the transition from boy to man, I beseech you…please stop worrying about that elusive ideal of adulthood.  It does not exist.  All of us are still children, playing “house” and “dress-up.”  It’s just that somewhere along the way, the games became our lives.  But the good news is that if our games can become our lives…then our lives can also become our games…:).  If you truly want to get back in touch with your potential for genius, you should start by casting off the world’s expectations of you…and committing to rediscovering that boy or girl that once built castles in the sky.

I’d like to leave you all with a quote from G.M. Trevelyan:

“Never tell a young person that anything cannot be done. God may have been waiting centuries for someone ignorant enough of the impossible to do that very thing.”

Thank you for reading, my friends.  May you all think of at least six impossible things before breakfast!  And kudos to whoever can tell me where I got that last sentence from…;).

To a lot of people, this idea will seem counter-intuitive.  Motivation is the most powerful thing you can have, right?  Doesn’t it make sense that having more motivation will always equal better performance?  Well, yes and no.

There’s a systematic cycle that many people exercise when it comes to work.  First, you plan out a strategy to achieve a desired result.  Then you execute it.  Then you assess your results.  If the results aren’t satisfactory, you tweak your strategy and execute it again.  And then repeat the cycle ad infinitum, with your results gradually getting better a little bit at a time.

This is how many people live their lives, because they’re laboring under this false pretense that hard work equals a better life.

But what you don’t realize as you’re going through this cycle over and over again is that you’re slowly grinding yourself down, because you’re not stepping away from the cycle long enough to recuperate your energy.  You’re just going through the motions and making small tweaks over and over again, slowly approaching your goal.

Try to pretend that your mind is a car, and your motivation is speed.  The more motivated you are, the more you push that pedal to the floor.  Your brain starts firing on all four cylinders and you start working much faster.  But guess what?

You also burn fuel much faster.

For a short-term goal, that’s fine, because your mind usually has the reserves to manage that journey.  But most major goals aren’t short-term.  They take place over the course of a career…or a lifetime.  Do you really think that your mind contains enough fuel to maintain that level of motivation for a lifetime?

Of course not.

Your mind needs fuel.

It needs you to stop once in a while and refill it with whatever it is that makes you motivated.  Do you love your family?  Spend time with them!  Do you have a favorite hobby?  Go do it.  Do you meditate to clear your mind?  Set time aside for it.  Your mind needs a break.

And this is the big piece of the puzzle that most people fail to see.  If you’re like most people, you’ve bought into the great industrial ideal that people who work harder are the people who end up on top.  But in order to continue working towards a great goal, you must stop once in a while to play.  To enjoy your life.  Don’t get so engrossed in your work that you forget the reason that you work in the first place.

Work Smarter, Not Harder

When you rest more often, and you give your brain a break, you don’t just allow yourself to recuperate.  You also make yourself more effective when it counts.  Think about a group soldiers in enemy territory, taking turns keeping watch at night.  Does one soldier keep watch for the entire night?  No, because that soldier will gradually fatigue.  And their attention will decline.  And the enemy’s chance of invading the camp will increase.

But if the soldiers take turns, not only will the soldier on watch be more alert, but every soldier will be able to give 100% if a battle ensues.  That is how you must treat your mind.  There are some people that are working all the time in their heads, even when they’re home with their families.  These people are extremely motivated, but they’re also slowly wearing themselves down and losing their edge.  And they usually aren’t able to come through in a clutch situation.

If you want to stay sharp, harness your motivation.  Know when to work and when to play, and give equal time to each.  Even gods must rest from time to time.

Thank you for reading, my friends.  I hope that your motivation always keeps you hungry…but I also hope you remember to eat from time to time…;).

Imagine a steel beam bridging a 50-foot gap between two buildings.  It’s suspended 100 feet in the air.  You’re standing at one end.  And someone has just offered you $100,000 to run across to the other end without stopping.  Would you do it?

Most people would say no.  Hell, most people wouldn’t even think about it.

But what if you got that exact same offer and the beam was safely down on the ground?  Would you do it, then?  Of course you would.

So what’s the difference?

The difference isn’t just the presence of danger in the first scenario.  It’s what that danger does to your conscious mind.

When you’re on the ground, and danger is minimal or nonexistent, there’s no reason to stop and think about the consequences.  You simply trust your body to do what needs to be done, and your body complies.  And if you’re not abnormally clumsy, you can run across that beam without any trouble at all.  It’s a breeze.

But when you’re 100 feet above the ground and one wrong step could mean serious injury or death, you hesitate.  A lot.  Why?  Because the risk is significantly greater, and this causes your conscious mind to turn into the world’s worst backseat driver.  Imagine trying to drive a car with a passenger that is randomly screaming at possible dangers.  When you were driving alone, you were absolutely fine…but now there’s this person constantly screaming and trying to grab the wheel.  Now your chances of crashing are beginning to ramp up exponentially.

These situations are a metaphor for our lives.  We want to follow our dreams.  We want to start our own businesses.  We want to ask someone out.  But our conscious minds tell us that these are high-risk situations, and it doesn’t matter whether the risk is real or perceived.  Our conscious mind will begin over-thinking and screaming at us, trying to control us and make corrections that don’t need to be made.

So what do we do?

Many of us panic when faced with these situations.  Or hesitate.  Or give up entirely.  But, strangely enough, we never stop to realize that the entire situation is still within our control if we decide to handle it.

Instead of yourself, try imagining a hungry cat on the beam(a much smaller one, of course)100 feet in the air, with a delicious meal at the other end.  Do you think it would hesitate?  Not for a second.  The cat isn’t going to stop and rationalize all the possibilities of what could and couldn’t happen along the path of that beam.  The cat sees only two things:  the goal and the path.  And so should you.

So how do you do it?  Focus on the things that you can control, and try to accept the things that you can’t.  Whether you’re standing on that beam or preparing for a huge presentation, your goal is simple: get to the other side.

Shouldn’t I have some sort of plan first?

Of course you have to prepare.  Understand the steps that you’re going to take.   Take whatever precautions that you can.  But also realize that a plan is really just a list of things that can go wrong.

When you’re facing a moment of truth where important things hang in the balance…your huge presentation, your wedding day, your surgery…there’s never enough time to second-guess or hesitate. All you can do is close your eyes,  take a deep breath, and remember your preparation.  Control what you can.  And accept what you can’t.

So whatever your beam is, stay true to your path.  Forget the height.  Forget the risk.  Forget about getting to the other side altogether.  Just focus on what you can control…and start putting one foot in front of the other.  You’ll be there before you know it.

Thank you for reading, friends!  May you always put one foot in front of another(metaphorically, for those of you who are physically unable to do so)and I’ll see you on the other side…:).

There’s a scene in the movie “Hitch” where Kevin James and Will Smith are discussing James’ new shoes.

James says, “…I don’t think they’re really me.”

And Smith responds by saying, “‘You’ is a very fluid concept right now.  You bought the shoes.  You look great in the shoes.  That’s the you I’m talking about.”

There’s a myth in modern society that each of us has a fixed, concrete personality that determines how we react to things every day.

There couldn’t be anything further from the truth.

You have no personality.  Neither do I.  Neither does anyone else.

The things that we call ‘personalities’ are really just a nebulous cloud of beliefs, memories, and influences.  And this cloud is constantly changing, all the time.  Every single action, reaction, and interaction that we experience shifts the position of everything in that cloud.  This basically means that trying to maintain a constant personality for your entire life is about as feasible as stepping the same river twice.  It simply can’t be done.

Now, some people want to hold on to their personalities.  They find comfort in believing that they are in a constant frame of mind that dictates what they will and won’t do.  But why would you want to?

Imagine that you love your house just the way that it is right now.  You love the way your house is constructed.  You love the way your furniture is aligned.  You love how organized and uncluttered everything is.  It’s perfect.  Now imagine trying to keep your house that way for your entire life.  Maybe you’ll get married, maybe you’ll have children.  If you keep everything exactly the way it is, how will you make room for these new things in your life?  You can’t make room for your spouse.  You can’t make room for your children.  That would involve rearranging furniture or adding to the house!  Adding these new things to your life is nearly impossible if you can’t make room for them in your life…and trying to integrate them into your life and keeping things exactly the way they are will only cause you unnecessary stress.

This is what a lot of people do with their personalities.  They try to hold on to a preconceived idea of “who they are”, and they don’t make room in their minds for any new ideas, even if the ideas could greatly enrich their lives.

As a result, they stress.  They stress because they think that there is some concrete ideal that they are supposed to be.  But our minds are not solid things.  They are fluid.  They are meant to ebb and flow, to accommodate and absorb new ideas.

So if you’re reading this and you’re carrying around a “personality” that you think you’re supposed to fit in to…a role that you feel you must play…unnecessary pressures that weigh you down…just put it down for a moment.  It’s a suit of armor that you don’t need to be wearing.  And if you think that putting your personality aside doesn’t feel like you…well…”you” is a very fluid concept right now…;).

Thanks for reading, my friends…please share this with others and have a fantastic day!