I missed 5 days, but Here’s a Poem

This week was the first time since July I missed some days of blogging. I was planing on going back and writing a blog for each day I missed, but that’s ridiculous. Better to start fresh. As I like to say, Nunc Coepi—now I begin. Now I begin to blog every day again, until the end of time.

I’ve made a commitment to start “creating” at least once a week. Right now, this means sitting down and free writing. I free wrote this past Tuesday and creating some interesting work. Here’s one of the thoughts (if you can call it that) that I created:

Reality is a broken rocking chair.  It’s uncomfortable and you can’t lean back as far as you’d like, but you sit in it and hope anyways.  Hope is dangerous.  I tell myself to stop hoping every day.  I say, “Don’t hope.  Make it happen.  Think it into existence and existence will follow suit.”  I am a father wearing a banana suit into Walmart.  His kids aren’t around, but he’s rehearsing his act. Uncomfortable resistance, too drastic to be saved for Halloween.  Why do I hate Halloween?

I like the first line and the line about the banana, but the rest doesn’t make too much sense (yet). I like writing and not knowing what it means. It’s the half-known world, the uncertain realm of the universe. Certainty bores me and cannot be trusted. I want to be okay with being uncertain, more like the weather. Less like construction plans.

Here’s to an uncertain life on a rock floating through nothingness.

My Most Patient Self

I’ve been working on being more patient lately. I’m trying to practice patience when I’m driving, interacting with loved ones, and sitting in class. It’s really a whole-systems approach, and I’ve been attacking it by addressing my core wound of always wanting to be in control. I have good days and bad days, but overall I’ve seen improvement.

I went to visit my Grandpa today. He is 88 and living in an assisted living facility. He was a soldier during peacetime in WWII and a math teacher for years in Goshen, New York. Now, he has Parkinson’s. It’s hard for him to get words out sometimes, but he’s still sharp as a tack. I have to give him time to get his words out when he’s talking, and though I still have trouble understanding him from time-to-time, giving him the space to speak helps him out.

This situation forces me to give up control, be patient, and listen instead of talk. Awkward silences are not only the price of admission but welcome, for it is only by silence that Grandpa can get his point across. Camille came with me to visit him today. On the ride home, she told me she’s never seen a more patient version of me than when I’m with my Grandpa. That made me take a step back.

Patience can manifest in many forms, but it’s always here, always accessible, and always beneficial. I want to be My Most Patient Self every day, not just when I visit my Grandpa. This is my patient ideal. What’s yours?

Motherless Brooklyn

Edward Norton — On Creative Process, Creative Struggle, and Motherless Brooklyn (#393)

Leaders are learners.  A good leader is somebody who is open to new ideas and perspectives no matter what discipline they come from.  In terms of current events, I couldn’t think of a more powerful account of vision than Edward Norton’s vision in creating Motherless Brooklyn.  Based off of a 1999 novel by Jonathan Lethem, Motherless Brooklyn follows the story of Lionel Essrog, a New York City detective with Tourette’s.  

Shortly after reading the novel, Edward Norton read it, loved it, and secured the rights to create a film adaptation of it.  Norton worked on the film for over 15 years–he suffered a few writers blocks, a few breaks from acting, and couldn’t rest until he made the perfect film.  He wouldn’t be satisfied until his vision for the film matched the quality of the novel, a task few films ever meet.  This conversation on the Tim Ferriss show delves into Norton’s project of creating this film.  

His dedication to the creative process and final production of this film is truly inspiring for all of us leaders who have dreams that people don’t think we can attain.  Norton proves the opposite.  Apparently this movie is excellent, from the soundtrack to the cinematography. 

My Learning, Creating, and Meditating Schedule

These are three modalities I will use to help discover more about who I am, what I am, and how I am called to serve: by learning, by creating, and by meditating. Here are the rules for each.

Learning Rule: read something I want to read

Creating Rule: write, design, or craft personal art

Meditating Rule: any kind of mindful seated / standing

For the remainder of the semester, I will be Learning on Sunday – Thursday, I will be creating on Tuesday, and I will be Meditating on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday.

I am on a mission to discover myself so I can better myself. This only becomes possible through daily and weekly habits. Nothing meaningful gets accomplished without purposefully crafted and diligently executed habits.

Be Honest

This Thursday was a long day. After lift and practice in the morning, I spent every spare moment studying for an anatomy practical on muscles (just about every muscle in the body). During the 3 hour lab, I took the muscles test. Afterwords, my instructor said we could take the sheep brain practical, too. This entailed naming 40 parts of the sheep brain from memory. I went for it and completed both practicals.

I called Camille after lab. We made plans to hangout, maybe share some food. It would have to be quick because she was hanging out with her friends at 7:00pm. This means I would have to postpone my dinner at home to eat some snacks with Camille. Against my longings, I went to spend time with her.

I should have been honest with myself and what I needed. It wasn’t long before I began an argument—I was in no place to interact with somebody after being tired and having no substantial food in me. We split for the night upset with each other, all because I was too fixated on making others happy as I neglected taking care of myself.

Be honest with yourself and what you need. If you need a night to yourself, take it. Time spent filling your cup will allow you to give 100% to your relationships. Know your triggers (being hungry) and do everything possible to mitigate them so your loved ones don’t get hurt.

Maybe More Isn’t Better

The whiteboard in the library read:

Question of the Week:

If you had to give up all of your possessions but one, what would you keep?

I told the librarian, Martha, she was getting to philosophical on me. This was a question that required more thought than the previous ones. I took the hour before recording my answer—

My journal

I find that the less happy I am, the more I desire things. Conversely, the more happy I am, the less I need. Many sages throughout history have mirrored this sentiment. Many of my influences of late have as well, people like Mike Posner, Tim Ferriss, B.J. Miller, Aubrey Marcus, Thomas Aquinas, and David Goggins. Things don’t make you happy. Being you is joy enough.

So why a journal? Because I can find a computer, a phone, clothes, and my favorite books again, but I can’t recreate my thoughts. I need something to remind me of who I was and who I’ve become, as well as something to sketch out a plan of where to go next. If I lost all my possessions, I believe a journal with a few empty pages would be enough to remember what this life is really about.

My Ideal Authentic Leadership Self

We had a Personal Leadership Development Paper due in Perspectives on Leadership today. In 5-6 pages we were tasked with performing a self-assessment of our strengths and weaknesses, identifying our ideal authentic leadership self, and making a realistic action plan to become this leader in 6-12 months. Easy enough. The way I saw it, there were two ways to approach this assignment: as I approach a boring biology class (and just get by) or or as I approach running track (actually wanting to better myself agains the odds). For a change, I chose the latter.

Over the past week, I created the most genuine self-assessment of my life to date. I identified my strengths and got to the core wounds of my weaknesses, not just how they symptomize in reality. From a deep reflection on my assessment, I came up with my ideal authentic leadership self, which I describe in the following statement:

I want to be an Aware Leader Discovering Myself and How I Serve.

In awareness I aim to improve my weaknesses of being controlling, being impatient, and not listening to others. In Discovering Myself I will maintain my current strengths of being authentic, having a desire to learn, and being a man of commitment. Through Discovering How I Serve, I will reflect in such a way so as to craft a path for my life after college.

My action plan is exciting. I’ll be sharing more about it in the coming weeks. It won’t be easy, but I’ve structured it in a feasible way. In the remainder of this semester and next, I’ll blend meditation and reading with weekly reflections and vision book entries. I will become a better leader by being more aware of my daily actions and habitual trends. I will learn the true value of committing to self betterment by holding myself accountable.

Let’s begin the journey, one step at a time.

Oatmeal & Eggs

Of late, my favorite breakfast currently is steel cut oatmeal with three sunny-side up eggs. Steel cut, sunny-side up. I call it savory oatmeal, but a lot of people call it strange. For one who’s never tried it, combining two breakfast staples like this seems odd, even appalling. I get it—I was one of those people once. But I tried it, and that changed everything.

I’m trying to think back to the first time I dropped the perfectly cooked sunny-side up eggs into a bowl of pain oats and I can’t picture it. It’s astounding how alien it is the first time you perform a ritual. It doesn’t make sense to you or anybody else, but you’ve heard it works. So you go for it, all the way. Oatmeal in eggs. Cold shower. Sandals with jeans. Freedom from fear of judgment, openness to a new way of living.

This is a new way of living: being open to new experiences, having our souls be free to explore this world free from shackles of false beliefs. Today can be the first day for you, the first day of a new ritual or lifestyle. All you need is a will stronger than your desire for permanence.

Don’t forget about Time Management

I just recorded the 4th episode of It’s All Mahalo with my girlfriend, Camille. It’ll be published around Friday. If you want to listen to the first 3 episodes, you can find it wherever you get your podcasts: Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, iHeartRadio.

This week, Camille and I had a conversation about our passions, our futures, and being okay with giving up some control. We culminated the discussion by talking about how we can implement these concepts practically into our daily lives. The answer, as Camille pointed out, has to be Time Management.

The biggest takeaway from this conversation as to focus on timely habits rather than achieving goals within a timeframe. An example: if you want to start reading before bed, make it a priority to read for 20 minutes before bed as opposed to reading 40 pages before bed. This allows you to have some freedom within your schedule and focusses on the process of reading rather than the end goal of completing a book. With emphasis on the habit of reading, we become free to read rather than bound to our commitment of reading a certain amount.

This method can be extrapolated to many things aside from reading. The next time I want to implement something into my daily life, I’m going to focus on the habit over achievement, on the process instead of the goal. After all, life is the process of living, not the goal of having lived.

The Benefits of Intermittent Fasting

I fasted for 21 hours today. From 10pm last night to 7pm today, all I consumed was water, an americano, and the Eucharist. When I started fasting like this, I would get very angry in the middle of the day. My energy was all over, I couldn’t focus, and I said hurtful things to my loved ones. But since building up a tolerance to fasting, hunger is often replaced with greater mental clarity, and discouraging remarks towards family and friends turn into awareness.

I feel as if fasting takes the attention off me and places it on the immediate world around me. Smells become more vivd and colors become brighter. I can see other people for who they are instead of who I want them to be for me. My whole world becomes less self-centered and more focussed in on my environment. All of this because I chose not to eat until dinner.

Being a college athlete with workouts nearly every day, fasting becomes far less possible during the season. But rest days on the weekends are fair game. So long as I can resist the urge to guzzle down waffles and omelettes, I might just have my most productive days of the week. If only…

Here’s to the joys of not eating. Hip, hip.