The approval trap

Becoming the person you want to be requires awareness. It’s helpful to know where you get your strength and what motivates you, but exposing your shadows is necessary. One of my shadows is seeking other people’s approval. I call it the approval trap.

I have these heroes I look up to, people like Gary Vaynerchuck and Aubrey Marcus and Seth Godin and Paul Chek and Elliott Hulse and Nahko and In-Q. Recently I’ve found myself reaching out to these people, seeking their approval for my life. Their approval feels like oxygen, like they’re what’s keeping my alive when I’m otherwise drowning.

And I’ve been noticed. Aubrey answered one of my questions on a podcast, with a response that took 45 minutes (here’s my post about it). Paul Chek answered my DM. Elliott sent me an autograph and recently responded to my comment. Just this week, Gary shouted out my comment in Tea with Gary Vee.

These moments make me feel excited and noticed. But that’s because I’ve been seeking their approval. I want them to tell me how great I’m doing with their advice and how loyal I am to them. I want their validation because it makes me feel whole. And worthy.

But it’s a trap and I know it. I don’t need their approval to live my best life. Having them notice me may get me through the day, but it’s never enduring satisfaction. It’s not fulfilling.

What’s fulfilling is moving towards my dreams of making a positive change in the world. I feel whole when I share a meal with my family or squeeze my girlfriend’s hand on a walk. Lasting happiness for me is when my will and God’s will are united in a cosmic tango and love is moving through me.

When my head hits the pillow and I know I did my best, that’s what matters. Not what my heroes say or don’t say to me.

The approval trap is alluring but empty. It can play out in many aspects of your life. If you don’t want to get caught, pay attention to the shadow behind your back.

What are you learning?

This question can save you a lot of headaches.

As human beings, we want to have purpose. We want our lives to be meaningful, and we want to do work that matters. We want to be remembered for the great things we did.

When you realize you’re not living up to your potential, you’ll be upset. You may sink into a depressive episode and not recognize yourself. Menial tasks like emptying the dishwasher will feel daunting. You will feel like the things you do don’t matter.

In these circumstances, ask yourself this: what are you learning? Every moment proposes the opportunity to learn, and all tasks can be made meaningful if they have a purpose.

Let learning be that purpose. Learning is what makes us human. There’s always something to learn, always something to make you feel more human. Like you matter.

You definitely matter.

The problem with Earth Day

It’s one day. There have only been 50 Earth Days. On these days trees have been planted and environmental groups have demanded action, all to save this one planet we call home. On April 22 humans come together and honor the land that sustains us, the water that nourishes us.

But we should be doing this every day. Environmentalism should be a way of life.

One day you’ll be in charge of a home and you’ll have to care for that home because it’s the right thing to do. That means power washing the siding, painting the foyer, and trimming those hedges. It’s what we do, period.

But we dump toxic waste in people’s backyards and tell them it’s safe. We crack holes in the earth and pollute clean water. We avoid climate change because it means we can have an expansive economy (and, therefore, nicer things). Our future is ignored while our resources are exploited.

Practicing gratitude is a step towards waking up and treating our Mother like she deserves. Being aware of our habits can have massive impacts on our footprint. And taking responsibility can change things for the better.

Gratitude, awareness, and responsibility. This is how we can make every day Earth Day.

Learning and Execution

To be a human being is to learn. From birth to death, each day presents boundless opportunities to start learning new skills and fresh information.

But being human also means acting. Execution must be born from the learning, or else education is in vain.

The education system fails because it makes kids absorb information they don’t need so they can pass exams. But what if you learned about cooking in chemistry class and growing a garden in biology? How much would the world change if we stopped reading Shakespeare and started writing our own plays?

Learning is a waste of time without execution.

So fall in love with learning, but be diligent about executing. Consuming too much will cause you to overthink. I would rather know because I’ve lived it than wonder because I’ve thought about it.

The second half

Every run has a second half. Today, I set out to run for 9 miles (for some reason I decided to train for a marathon).

I felt pretty horrible at minute 25. I took a moment to walk and collect myself. Then I started up again, but I told myself I wouldn’t take the short way home. I made a commitment to finish the loop I planned, or at least do as much as physically possible.

As much as physically possible.

The second half of the run (minute 26-64) was the best I’ve felt running in a while. I was cooking. I was coasting. People talk about catching a second wind. I’ve caught it before and I caught it today. I finished the run strong, averaging about a 7:15 mile for almost 9 miles.

The second half was better than the first.

A lot of people think they’re ready to call it quits, ready to give up. But life is long (and, on average, much longer if you take care of yourself). If you’re 50 years old, that’s FIFTY, you just starting the second half. If the first half sucked, things can still turn around if you want them to.

Now, imagine if you’re 22 and about to graduate college. Think about how much life you have left to live. You’re probably not close to halfway, so make the second half count.

If you want it to count.

How to change your life

I want to be better than I am right now. You probably do, too. And if you’re like me, every now and then you write down a few lists about how to make life better.

One is a list of attributes you’d like to have in the future. This is your dream.

The next is a list of what you’re doing now that’s preventing your dream from existing. This is your reality check.

The final list is usually all the things you should be doing to become the person on list one. This is your action plan.

Here’s where you mess up, so pay attention. Tomorrow, you’re going to try and be your future self. You’ll rewrite list three and check things off throughout the day. You’ll go to bed feeling accomplished, like you made something of your life.

The day after that, you do it again. Except you don’t check off everything like yesterday. You have to put out a fire, your uncle calls, and you forget you have to cook dinner. Your pillow feels less satisfying, and you start to question the feasibility of your action plan.

You wake up the next day and return to who you were before list one. You don’t write any more lists for a few months.

There’s an easy fix to all of this: start by doing one thing on list three today. Then do it again tomorrow and the next day. Keep doing it until it becomes a habit, then slowly attack something else. Maybe this one takes a month to master but you commit to it anyways. This continues, and in eight months you’re closer to the person described on list one.

So do yourself a favor and slow down. Life is long and you can’t become someone you’re proud of tomorrow. To make real, lasting change you have to extend your ludicrous deadlines.

If you don’t know where to start, ask yourself this: “what can I do today that will make life better?”

Mr. Lemma

For the next two years I’m going to be a science teacher at a Catholic high school in Philly. This was made possible through ACESJU (Alliance for Catholic Education at Saint Joseph’s University). The only thing is, I have no idea how to teach young adults science.

At first I thought this would be a handicap. Then I realized it’s a superpower. Imagine a teacher who learns alongside his students and whose ego isn’t blasted when he isn’t correct. How different would a class be if the teacher encouraged students to ask questions he couldn’t answer?

What if, fresh out of college, this ambitious teacher didn’t teach kids science but taught them how to think and question and solve interesting problems? Imagine a teacher who made high school science what it always could’ve been: a chance to learn about how the world works so it could be changed by informed parties.

What if the focus was on learning instead of education?

Sure, every young teacher things they can change the educational system. I know I can’t. But I can help high schoolers realize what they’re capable of. I can help them change themselves for the better through curiosity and inspiring limitless potential.

We need some radical voices in every institution, working from the bottom up. This is how we can wake people up. This is how I can make a ruckus.

What will remain

Imagine all the books in the world vanished. Audiobooks, too. Old books, new books, unfinished books–all gone for good. Disappeared into the ether.

How would we remember who we are? How would faith traditions endure? How would classes be taught? How would information be found and distributed? How would ideas be spread?

The answer is relatively simple: stories.

Without any fancy texts or comprehensive collections, humans would teach other humans through stories. Parents would recite bedtime stories from memory. Professors would lecture through stories of their lived experience. Businesses would operate based on human connection.

And when the time is right, the best and brightest of humanity would unite. They would share stories with each other and create a new curriculum. Age old information would be made new through this process of shared learning, and only the important, necessary knowledge would remain.

What would be lost? The irreplaceable books of poetry, fiction, and literature of the past. Textbooks could be rewritten, the Bible would surely be reliably pieced together, maybe even Shakespeare would be reassembled from memory. But if nobody memorized an ancient poem, it would be gone forever.

Perhaps we should spend more time on what matters–the stories of our history–than what can be easily replaced by experts. Why reinvent the wheel? Why rewrite a book on human anatomy?

Why not create a new story with your innate and irreplaceable wisdom?

Imposter Syndrome

Apparently it never goes away. From Joe Rogan to Jordan Peterson to Seth Godin, the greatest thinkers of our day declare that imposter syndrome is a part of the game. At least for change makers, feeling like a fraud is an indicator that you’re pushing the boundaries past where they’re set.

By all measures of success and meaning, that’s a good thing.

But how can I be comfortable when I don’t feel like myself? That’s easy: I can never be comfortable with who I am, because always changing. I’m a different person than yesterday. I’m still me, but that me is entirely different. New. Fresh. Unknown.

Consider this from the cellular perspective. Every time I take a bite of food, those molecules are broken down and eventually become my physical body. Or they get used as energy or excreted. Let’s take this further: each time I take a shit my physical body is drastically changed. I am made new by physical release.

You can be made new each day, too. It will just be uncomfortable. You won’t feel like yourself. You might even feel like an imposter.

Embrace it. It means you’re changing, and change is good.

The end of college classes

What I’ll miss most about classes at SJU is carrying my Power Rangers lunchbox around campus.  It doesn’t matter what grade I got on an exam, how I raced the past weekend, or who cut me off in traffic—when I walked around campus with the 6 Rangers in stride, I was happy.

It got a lot of attention. “I love your lunchbox!” and “Are those the Power Rangers?” and “You wouldcarry a lunchbox around” were everyday remarks.  The number of people who asked me if this lunchbox was from my childhood and if I was a big fan of the show is too many to count.  Many also asked who my favorite Ranger was.

My official answer: Yes, this is from my childhood, and the Red One!

My unofficial answer: No, I bought it on Amazon and, unfortunately, I wasn’t ever a big fan.

This lunchbox also gained a lot of attention when I accidently kicked it under my desk…every class (if you’ve had a class with me, you know).  I also regularly got asked if I packed my own lunch.  Yes, every day I wasn’t fasting, I packed my lunch. Salmon salad, chicken legs with carrots, and ground beef with rice were my specialties.  10 minutes each morning for a day full of nourishment was a tradeoff I was willing to make.

So yeah, I’m really gonna miss lugging this metal death trap across campus.  I know you’ll miss seeing it.  I think I’ll walk with it at graduation (because there eventually will be a graduation).  I’ll put my diploma cover in it, and I’ll bring snacks for everybody to share during the ceremony.  Thoughts?

My postgrad plans are still undecided.  But wherever I go, I guarantee I’ll bring my lunchbox.  Maybe this one, maybe a new one.  Only time will tell.

Go, Go, Power Rangers.