Category: Happiness

Momento Mori- Remember That You Must Die

A young man was awakened during the night by the feel of covers slipping off his body and the faint draft of cold air. As he opened his eyes he saw a figure standing over him.

“Let’s go,” the figure whispered.

Frightened the young man scrambled to the corner of the bed. “Who are you?! How did you get in here?”

“I am death. And we are now known to each other.”

Perplexed the young man looked around. He must be dreaming. “A lucid dream,” he thought as he willed his body to wake up.

A cold realization came over the young man as he looked down and saw his body lying peacefully, still wrapped under the covers. This was no dream. He was dead. His time was up.

“Please, one more day,” the young man pleaded. “I have been so worried about what might be that and I just need one day to live freely knowing what is to come.”

Death looked down at the young man with pity. “One more day. I will return. Momento Mori. You can die tomorrow.”

With that, the figure was gone. The young man felt his eyes grow heavy as he felt himself slip back beneath the covers.

How will the young man react when he wakes up?

How would you react if you knew your time was up and at the last second you were given just one more day. Would you wake up sad or glad? A mixture of both?

Imagine being the young man and death not giving you that one extra day. How badly would you want to wake up just one more time? If death said you couldn’t have the whole day but you’d be allowed breakfast how much care would you take in tasting your breakfast? How much joy would you get from the most mundane activity if you knew this was your curtain call?

We are all the young man and we have all been given a pardon until tomorrow.

One of the keys to happiness is remembering you will die. I will die. But we are not dead. Not yet. But, there’s always tomorrow. And that is why we should be happy.

View life from the perspective that it must come to an end and we’re all living on borrowed time. Momento Mori, one day you must die. And that’s what makes life so beautiful.

Each night when you go to bed, think to yourself “That was life. But now it’s over.” And when you wake up the next day be happy that you’ve been given a one-day reprieve. Momento Mori.

If you enjoyed this article please share it with your friends and enemies. We’ll both be dead relatively soon. The least you could do is share my article.

The Beauty of Boredom

How to Lose Every Argument and Come Out a Winner

Manually Overriding Your Emotional Toggle

The Obstacle is the Way- Happy New Year!

Obstacle

 “The mind adapts and converts to its own purposes the obstacle to our acting. The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”- Marcus Aurelius Meditations Book 5.20

Despite Satan’s best effort the year of our Lord 2020 is officially over. As we go into the new year I’m thinking of one of my favorite teachings of Stoicism— the obstacle is the way. Continue reading “The Obstacle is the Way- Happy New Year!”

Make One Thing Stick

stick

There are few bloggers who I consistently read. One of them is David Cain of Raptitude. He doesn’t post on a particular schedule that I’ve noticed but all of his posts are impactful if don’t rush through them. His writing will often sit in my inbox unopened for several days, weeks even. I’ve learned if I read one of his posts before I’m ready it won’t stick. But if I wait until I’m ready I always come away with something to think about.

Continue reading “Make One Thing Stick”

Multitasking is Sometimes Necessary But Usually It’s Just Awful

I’m in a continual battle to be in the present moment. In reflecting on what is and is not working I’ve noticed a pretty stark pattern: Multitasking nearly always takes me out of the present moment and makes my experience less enjoyable. Continue reading “Multitasking is Sometimes Necessary But Usually It’s Just Awful”

The Beauty of Boredom

My grandpa operates on a different level. He’s content in any situation and I’ve never seen him stressed out. Without ever specifically practicing mindfulness he’s a master. There are many life lessons I’ve learned from my time living with my grandpa that I hope to share. Today’s lesson is on boredom.

The Beauty of Boredom

He’s conquered boredom. Not conquered in that he has successfully kept himself busy enough to avoid boredom. I mean he’s conquered boredom itself. It’s not uncommon for me to come upstairs and see him just sitting in his rocking chair. Maybe he’s drinking coffee, or eating a Taquito. Usually, he’s just sitting.

He’s like a relic. A throwback to an era before we became distracted by the modern world and the allure that all the gadgets provide. I’ll ask if he wants me to turn on the TV.

“Nope. I’m alright.”

“Are you bored?” I ask.

“No, I’m just sitting.”

He doesn’t have a smartphone and doesn’t use social media. He doesn’t need to be doing anything in order to fill a void or keep negative thoughts from entering his mind. He’s content to just sit and be.

We live in a society where we’re always trying to do more, see more, live more, connect more. The net effect is we end up feeling frazzled and disconnected.

Watching my grandpa is a daily reminder to slow down and relax.

I think we’d all be happier if we spent a little time becoming friends with boredom. Instead of something to fear, boredom is a chance to unwind. It’s a chance to practice being content with ourselves, no outside stimulus needed.

If you can be content doing nothing, you can be content doing anything.

Who’s up for an experiment?

Ask yourself how you’re feeling right now in order to get a baseline.

Set the timer on your phone for five minutes. Next, set your phone down and just sit. Don’t watch TV, don’t look at your computer, don’t reach for your phone. Take five minutes and become friends with boredom.

I’m guessing most readers will feel they simply don’t have time for this experiment. There’s too much to do to purposefully welcome boredom. So they’ll rush off to their next task, the next article, the next nugget of wisdom.

We’d rather skim five articles than fully internalize one article. Maybe all you need to learn today is how to sit and do nothing. Maybe that feeling of not having time is exactly why this is an important experiment.

After the five minutes have finished ask yourself how you’re feeling. Did the five minutes of boredom help or hurt your overall well-being?

I’ve been doing this for the last several days. It’s become one of my favorite routines. No expectations, nothing that I should be doing instead. My task is to sit quietly and just be.

Ready? Go.

If you enjoyed this article please share it with your friends and enemies.

Manually Overriding Your Emotional Toggle

Check in With Yourself Before You Check in With the World

Start Your New Year’s Resolutions Today

Manually Overriding Your Emotional Toggle

What if you could step back from your emotions and do a manual override? You’d essentially be able to choose to have a better attitude, to experience life through a calmer lens. How would that enhance your life?

I try my best to be mindful. Despite my desires to have more presence and patience I’m often ashamed at how easily I find myself thrown into a negative spiral.

The issue isn’t experiencing momentary feelings of negativity, the issue is remaining there.

Recently I’ve started a new visualization when I notice I’m upset. I imagine stepping back from myself and manually flipping my emotion toggle from negative to positive.

It looks like this…

toggle

toggle

toggle

Cute, huh?

This quick visualization does a couple of things for me. First, it reminds me that I have some control over the way I’m feeling. Our emotions happen on autopilot. But, much like a self-driving car, we can override the computer and take control. I can choose to be happy even if some outside stimulus is threatening to ransack my pleasant emotional state.

The second thing this visualization does for me is it gives me permission to let go and reset. When I try to convince myself to not let something bother me there’s always a voice somewhere in my head saying “But you were WRONGED!” and it’s almost like I’m letting myself down if I don’t remain angry.

When I continue down the path of being upset it negatively colors whatever period of time that feeling is there. If I have a bad interaction with someone on Twitter I can find myself being irritated at completely unrelated things. It’s not until that feeling dissipates that I can go back and analyze what went wrong.

Stepping back from myself and manually flipping the toggle back to positive has been a surprisingly effective shortcut.

When you start to feel yourself experiencing negative emotions try this exercise. Imagine stepping outside of yourself and manually flipping your emotional toggle from negative to positive.

This isn’t meant to convince you to be fake or not acknowledge that bad things are happening. Rather it’s the acknowledgment that bad and good things are continually happening all around us. Where we choose to keep our focus largely determines how we’ll experience the day. Give yourself permission to let go and reset your emotional toggle whenever the need arises.

If you enjoyed this article please share it with your friends and enemies

Start Your New Year’s Resolutions Today

How to Recharge Your Life Battery Through Stoicism

The Good Day/Bad Day Teeter-Totter

Start Your New Year’s Resolutions Today

We’re in the homestretch of 2020. Hallelujah. I’ve been giving a lot of thought to what I want to change next year and what practices I want to keep going. People poo-poo the idea of New Year’s resolutions because “people just give up on them anyway.” I think this is faulty thinking. New Year’s resolutions are a great kick in the pants many of us need to get going.

I love the idea of New Year’s resolutions because it gets people out of their rut, even if only temporarily. The new year brings hope for a better tomorrow, hope that we can be better versions of ourselves. I just have one little twist to the standard New Year’s resolution…start today.

Most people don’t make it past the first month with their resolutions. We have just around a month to go before the new year. Why not have an unofficial pre-season to get yourself in resolution shape? Give yourself the month of December to practice your upcoming New Year’s resolution(s).

This gives you the opportunity to tweak it or discard it and pick a different one before 2021 even starts. And, if you like it, it gives you momentum coming into the new year. You’re not just starting to practice Spanish for the first time in January, you’ve already been doing it for a month. You have a month of writing more under your belt or exercising.

Instead of waiting until January 1st to realize meditating for two hours every day isn’t sustainable, give yourself this month to figure out what is sustainable. Maybe meditating every day just isn’t going to happen but meditating three times per week actually could work. Three times per week is better than zero times per week.

December is a free month where you get to try and fail and tweak and succeed guilt-free.

Spend the month of December figuring out what you want to improve about yourself and then start practicing. If you fall off the wagon, don’t give up. Figure out why you fell off, change that, and try again.

A Few Resolution Tips

Be specific. Don’t just say you want to meditate more. Make a specific plan for how long/often you want to meditate.

Start small. If you want to practice your writing every day don’t give yourself the obligation of writing an entire novel before you count your day as a success. Get in the habit of doing the resolution and worry about the intensity/duration after your habit is solidly in place.

Have daily/weekly actionable steps. Don’t just say, I want to write a novel this year. Have a plan for how much you want to write each day/week so that by sticking to your small attainable goals you’ll reach your larger goal.

Keep going when you fail. If you start the new year off strong but eventually fall off the wagon don’t be afraid to just start again. There is no 100% attendance award for going the entire year faithfully carrying out your resolution. The reward is self-improvement. Even if you stop practicing your resolution for several months it’s okay to simply start again.

If you enjoyed this article please share it with your friends and enemies

Check in With Yourself Before You Check in With the World

Staying Mentally and Physically Fit During Social Isolation

The Daily Struggle for Happiness

 

The Daily Struggle for Happiness

“Happiness comes with a struggle.”-famous thinker

I’m sure that’s a quote from someone important. I think a lot of us are feeling a general sense of melancholy lately. Picking a few areas to purposefully struggle in has really helped me to avoid that feeling of I’m worthless, I didn’t do anything today. Maybe viewing productivity through this structure will help you. Continue reading “The Daily Struggle for Happiness”

How to do Something Hard- The 5-Day Fast

***Daily updates posted at the bottom***
There are a lot of swears in this post but not because I’m mad. I’ve just cutely named future iterations of me catchy things like F*ck-This-Sh*t Me. F*ck-This-Sh*t Me is a key figure since this post is all about fasting and I’m pretty sure I’ll regret the whole thing by Monday afternoon but it’s a fun post. If you don’t want to read any swears the takeaway message is I’m doing a 5-day fast and it’s important to do hard things every once in a while.

Having just finished a delicious meal of pizza and fried-chicken, Late-June Me agreed to partake in a 5-day fast starting the week after July 4th because why not? “Wow, that’s so brave of Late-June You,” you might be thinking. Nope. Late-June Me is just an asshole. Continue reading “How to do Something Hard- The 5-Day Fast”

Choosing Family Over Finances Part VI- Jobs and Poo-Water

It’s been a while since I’ve published an article. These last few months have zapped my creativity. Things, however, have continued to happen so I will trudge through the murky waters of my mind and attempt to scratch out a life update. Here’s what’s going on with our family… Continue reading “Choosing Family Over Finances Part VI- Jobs and Poo-Water”