A Printer with No Ink

It’s happened to all of us. Just when you need it most, the printer runs out of ink. Let’s assume it’s your printer (not your roommate’s). That means it’s up to you to fill it with ink and paper.

But you don’t.

Days go by. Weeks go by. Weeks become months and before you know it that expensive printer has become an expensive paperweight for the better part of a year. You’re going green anyways—it’s better off out of commission. You get free prints at the library anyways.

You end up telling yourself anything and everything that takes you off the hook. Though ordering ink takes 30 seconds, the impetus to action isn’t greater than your crippling passion for taking it easy on yourself. After a year without a functioning printer, you decide to throw it away. Selling it on eBay requires too much learning.

We all have printers without ink in our lives—things that require attention but we’ve been ignoring for no acceptable reason. Maybe instead of trying to change the world with protests and Facebook dissertations we can take responsibility for refilling the ink, accomplishing those menial but necessary tasks.

This week, I will begin taking ownership for the printers in my life.

Will you?

Yin or Yang?

I heard a podcast today. This guy said success is only attainable if you push forward against the odds and do difficult things. Makes sense. I typically default to this way of thinking. It’s how I’ve gotten to where I am in life: hard work.

Last week I listened to another podcast where Joe Dispenza talked about quantum energy fields. He says you can enter into these fields in deep meditations and, with a clear intention and an elevated emotion, you can attract what you want towards you. And it comes. I’ve done some of his meditations and can feel what he’s talking about.

So which is it? Should I chase my dreams or attract them towards me?

On the golf course, I always told golfers to stop trying so hard. Sounds funny, but the harder you try to have a good score the worse your score will be. At track practice, my coach often reminds us to run fast, not hard. And then there’s the Daoist principle of Wu Wui, also called Trying not to Try.

But what about David Goggins, Bedros Keullian, and Ed Mylett? What about Gary Vee? Don’t I have to put the work in to get what I desire? How likely is it that it will just come to me and I will be complete?

Yeah. So probably both.

The 3 Foot Giant

Sean Stephenson has transitioned from this life to the next. He was born to rid the world of insecurities. He may not have achieved his goal, but he helped millions of people rid themselves of their insecurities and learn to love themselves again. The world will miss his big smile and enormous heart.

Here is his most famous youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaRO5-V1uK0

Lesson 1: Never believe a prediction that doesn’t empower you.

Lesson 2: You are not your condition

Lesson 3: The real prison is in your mind; freedom is within yourself

Wisdom beyond stature. Love beyond all odds.

Rest in peace, Sean. I love you, too.

How to Walk Slowly

Unless you’re an intergalactic voyager on The Axiom (the spacecraft in Pixar’s WALL-E), you probably have to do some walking on your typical day of work or school. Generally speaking, there are three ways to walk: slowly, normally, or quickly.

To walk normally is to walk like the average person, at an average speed. To walk quickly is to walk fast enough to break a sweat on a cool fall morning. This usually means you’re running late. Something went awry or you didn’t plan your day precisely enough. You are now uncomfortable and on the defensive. You don’t notice anything spectacular during your walk.

To walk slowly is to stroll, to be so aware of your surroundings that the space around you becomes a temple; the ground beneath your feet becomes hollowed ground. Everything looks different, from the dance of ginkgo leaves to the wave from your neighbor. What regularly are happenstance encounters become meaningful moments, important enough to change the course of your week. As the dragonflies make love in front of your eyes you’re reminded of your place in the universe, what this all is really about.

In order to walk slowly you cannot be late or on time. You must be early. To be early, you must plan ahead. And though scheduling your day seems contrary to allowing the spontaneous forces of nature into your day, it turns out to be the only way that anything random can happen.

Plan extra time to walk, whether it be 20 minutes to campus or 3 minutes from your car to the office. This extra time may be the catalyst for a breakthrough idea or important relationship.

Lake Bath

I’m staying in Lake George this weekend with my extended family. We all love each other. They live right on the lake, and today I chose to take a bath in the water instead of taking a shower. I washed my body with Trader Joe’s honey-oatmeal soap and I washed off my spirit with the waters of Lake George, thousands of years old and rich in history.

How many people have cleaned themselves in these waters? Who were they and who did they love? Why do I still believe that I’m more important than they were?

We are the keepers and writers of history. Our days become stories too rich to recite again. We choose what we remember and always forget the uncomfortable.

How can we make ours a story worth remembering?

Paved Over Graves

My grandmother died on May 1st. Sometimes I really miss her. Other times days go by and I don’t think of her once. I’ve found this to be a common trend in America—we are too busy to properly honor those who died and too preoccupied to do the inner work to deal with loss. Instead, we accept death but never assimilate it. We bandage wounds already festered.

I took a course called Death and Afterlife in Chinese Traditions last fall. Fresh out of graduate school, Dr. Aaron Reich was one of the best professors I ever had. I learned about Chinese burial customs and how nearly everybody in the Chinese tradition honored their ancestors. With plaques inside homes and names engraved in community ancestral halls, deceased loved ones weren’t forgotten like they are here. They came back—no, were brought back—to life every day.

Maybe our history as a nation has woven this death-denying, quick-to-forget subconscious. America used to belong to native peoples. Then we massacred them. A generation later and they were forgotten. We paved over their graves and desecrated their sacred lands. Now we are taught genocide only happened during World War II. It’s easier to forget our forebears who killed millions of native people than to honor them; that would be too painful.

Instead we drive over bones and dried blood, never remembering where we came from. And so it will be for us … unless we own our ugliness and begin to honor those who made us.

Beyond Contemplation

The best moments in my life are beyond contemplation.

Today I decided against running immediately after waking up, as I usually do. I chose to run around 11:00 am instead. After thinking about it all morning, 11 o’clock came and I tried to reason myself out of it, listing all the reasons another rest day would benefit me in the long run. Luckily, I told myself to shut up, laced up my shoes, and crushed a run even though I was feeling lousy. It was my fastest run so far summer.

After I lifted around 1:00 pm, it was time to take a shower. I’ve pushed myself to take more cold showers this summer because of their health benefits. I also feel fantastic every time I step out of one. However, my brain isn’t hardwired to endure momentary suffering for delayed results. My mind always tries to get me too take a comfortable, warm shower instead. Today, I didn’t let it. I turned the faucet right and jumped in. I did not give in.

While showering, I had a few ideas about my soon-to-be post graduate life that never crossed my mind before. These ideas might change the course of my life forever. Or the might not. I never would’ve known had I not moved beyond overthinking and into action.

Don’t spend your life in contemplation. Be a doer. Be somebody who doesn’t hesitate to do what they know they ought to do. Move in the direction of your fears and face them head on. You can always course correct later.

Hoka Hey!

Paul has a dog and his name is Cola. Cola usually wears an electric collar that shocks him if he goes beyond the property line. Today Paul and I wanted to take Cola for a walk, so we took off his collar and strapped up his harness and leash.

As we approached the boundary, Cola froze. This is where he usually gets hurt. I saw a doubt and uncertainty quell up inside him as he feared for his protection. Why would his owner want him to get hurt? But this is a normal reaction when we face the unknown, the seemingly impenetrable. It’s up to us to choose how we are going to respond.

After a moment’s hesitation, Cola chose to run full-on towards the once killer force.

If he could speak human, I believe he would’ve said, “Hoka Hey!”

Made famous by Crazy Horse, the Lakota war leader, Hoka Hey is a native American battle cry. “Hoka Hey!” Crazy Horse would yell as he led his troops into battle, followed by, “Today is a good day to die!” Or so the legend goes.

But I’ve heard Hoka Hey doesn’t translate to Today is a good day to die. Rather, it better translates to “advance without fear.” That is a pretty revolutionary way to live.

Advance without fear. Recognize today may be the last. Give it everything you have.

Hoka Hey.

Put on the New Self

I heard a reading at mass today from Saint Paul. It read: “Stop lying to one another, since you have taken off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed, for knowledge, in the image of its creator.” (Colossians 3:9-10)

This speaks to what it means to be a human being, that is, constantly changing who you are. You aren’t the same person you were last year, let alone last night. Friends and family members often treat us as stagnant beings, thinking we haven’t changed since their last encounter with us.

But think about it biologically. Every time you move your bowels you lose tens of millions of microorganisms from your microbiome that have lived in you for days. The argument could be made that those organisms are a part of you because without them you couldn’t survive—they digest, metabolize, and assimilate your food. You are, quite literally, a different person after your morning dump. And you’ll never be the same again.

Maybe instead of wishing we could hold onto who we were we could better accept and embrace the New Self who is inevitably on the way. The only constant in our world is that everything changes, including you and I. I reckon we would be happier people if we treated others as New.

If we allow ourselves to be renewed with knowledge of what is rather than what we would like to be, that would be a pretty good start.

I am a Phoenix

I feel myself changing, like I’m entering a new chapter of my life.  My undergraduate career is nearly complete and so is my time spent working for somebody else.  This blog you’re reading is hosted on flowtrainingfit.com, the business Paul and I created from nothing.  We just released our first training program, Bodyweight Training: Reimagined.  We work for ourselves now. This changes everything.

I am being born again, regenerated after my long life lived as someone else.  I express gratitude for what has brought me here but also sadness—a part of me is dying and I have to watch him pass.  I liked that old version of myself, but this next one will be more free, more creative, and have more time to do the thing he loves.

I am a Phoenix, and it won’t be long before I die again.