by Jamesscotthenson | Jan 6, 2017 | Blog
“On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone
drops to zero.”
Chuck Palahniuk
The idea behind this blog is nothing new, I’m just not sure
it is something everyone wants to look at every day. Just about every religion
out there wants to prepare you for death, and there are dozens and dozens of
movies and songs and books about death and what it means.
As with anything we do, this is as much for me as anyone
else. I want to keep the finiteness of life front and center for myself, to let
it dictate what I say and do and think. I want it to determine what I say yes
and no to, how I treat people, how I spend my time, everything.
There are moments where I wonder if writing about this daily
is healthy or not, especially when it begins to feel like death is around every
corner.
That’s the thing though: death is around every corner.
It’s not around the corner in the ways the media tells you
it is, but it’s always out there waiting on you, and it sneaks up. The odds
that you will die in a mass shooting, a terrorist attack, at the hands of the
police or in a plane crash are negligible to nonexistent. Those things just get
high ratings and a lot of clicks.
On the other hand, the odds that you will develop heart
disease or die in a car wreck or from some random household accident, are much
higher. The parking lots at hospitals are always packed and the emergency room
is rarely slow. We see car wrecks on the road and ambulances and fire trucks at
houses in our neighborhoods with what would be uncomfortable regularity if we
weren’t so desensitized to it.
Oh man, that really sucks for them, it’s a good thing
it won’t ever happen to me.
I’d be willing to bet the people in the hospital getting the
terrible diagnosis and the people in the car wreck and the person in the house
with all the flashing lights around it thought the same thing too.
They were, like you, invincible and free from the grinding
wheel of fate until it ran them over.
So it’s going to happen, you are going to die. Maybe not
today or tomorrow, but eventually. No one really escapes this, even the people
who might be lucky enough to enjoy ammortality (not immortality) by the year
2050 or so. They won’t be immortal, but they will survive so long as they avoid
anything catastrophic.
They will not avoid catastrophic injury forever, they will
die too.
This doesn’t have to be morbid or nihilistic though.
It is a reality of life, part of this existence.
It is not good or bad, it is just the way things are. It can
be something that we dread and worry and cry about, or it can inform our
choices on a weekly and daily and hourly basis.
How much time would you spend binging that television show
if you were truly conscious of the fact that you are going to die one day?
Playing that video game?
How would you speak to your partner or children or friends
or the random person on the street if you were truly conscious of the fact that
you are going to die someday?
Some people say they would waste more time and treat people
however they want because it ultimately doesn’t matter since they are going to
die someday.
If this made people happy this wouldn’t be an issue, but how
we spend our time and how we treat others matters for our own internal
wellbeing. When we waste our time and treat others poorly, we are not happy.
You are going to die. Whether today or tomorrow or in a
thousand years is irrelevant, because you don’t know when.
What if it’s today?
What would you do differently?
Go do that.
by Jamesscotthenson | Jan 5, 2017 | Blog
We cannot have a truly mindful lifestyle without examining
the role dishonesty, for whatever reason, plays in our day to day existence.
For some people, dishonesty is as easy and common as
breathing, for others less so, but I find that all of us engage in dishonesty
to one degree or another.
Maybe it is when we are asked if an outfit makes someone
look fat or if we are free later to finally come see their slam poetry at
the coffee shop.
Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter, we all have our ways of
being dishonest.
Much of the time, saying nothing would be honest and acceptable,
but we say something anyway.
Much of the time, we could be honest and still be kind, but
we choose to say the expected (and dishonest) thing. We have all these social
niceties that we follow blindly, and they don’t just lead us to dishonesty, but
we enable and feed other people’s poor behavior through them.
Notice what lies you are drawn toward telling today, whether
they are big or small.
Make note of your motivations for lying.
Why are you doing it in the first place?
Are there other ways to meet that need?
Is there a way out of the situation without being dishonest?
Are you just kicking the can down the road by lying?
Could you simply say nothing at all instead?
I find that much of the time, a situation does not need our
comment or opinion in the first place, but we are compelled to offer one, and
to offer a dishonest one at that.
It is odd that we would rather engage in a small dishonesty
than remain silent.
The situations in which we can justify lying – really
justify it – are very few, and very unlikely. I doubt anyone will be coming to
your door looking for the Jewish family you are hiding in your attic anytime
soon, since this seems to be the go to example for this question.
Most of the time, we lie to protect ourselves from a minor
inconvenience, no matter what we tell ourselves about our motivations.
Sometimes, we lie to allow ourselves to keep on engaging in
behavior we probably shouldn’t be engaging in in the first place.
It is rare that it would not be better for us to be silent
or honest, but we take the easy way out.
Notice what you lie about today.
Try to be honest about why you are telling this lie.
See if there’s a better way.
by Jamesscotthenson | Jan 4, 2017 | Blog
“And then you told me how bad you had to suffer. Is that
really all you have to offer?
Bad Religion
There is something inside of us that realizes that we need
to struggle and suffer and overcome to be fulfilled in life, yet we are blessed
and cursed with in living in an age where this is almost nonexistent in any
real way. Historically speaking, our lives are pretty cushy, and many of our
worst days take place within such technological luxury that our ancestors would
wonder if we are Gods.
This is pretty cool, but it is also a little debilitating
for us, as it triggers those questions inside of us about what we could really
handle if we had to, where our worth lies and whether or not we are just giant
candy asses.
There seems to be this sort of Struggle Olympics taking
place all the time, both in person and online, as people and groups of people
seek to make the case that their struggle is real and worse than everyone
else’s. There is this entire culture built up around it these days.
Maybe there always has been. It seems to be becoming more and more acute as
people are able to use technology to find little pockets of people just like
them and commiserate in an echo chamber, each feeding everyone else’s
collective sense of oppression. Often, what I see listed and named as struggle
and suffering in these contexts is really a statement of privilege in the sense
that one must really live a pretty privileged life if this is something so
crushing you have to take to Reddit or Tumblr to talk about it.
I don’t have the sense of moral outrage over this that I see
some people manifesting, but I do hate to see people choosing an identity of
struggle and suffering because of how limiting it is. If you identify most
strongly with the idea that you are always being held down or that you are
suffering worse than everyone else, how will you escape these struggles and
sufferings that you are saying make your life so miserable?
What we identify with is everything.
There are people who truly struggle and suffer. The people I
meet who truly struggle, often from disabilities that make our modern world
very difficult to navigate or from truly oppressive systems and environments,
are the least likely to brag about it and do not want to be identified with it.
They want others to realize there is more to them than their limitations, and
that how others treat them is not an indication of who they are or a badge to
be worn on their jackets. They realize that accepting that identity, especially
being proud of it, will keep them in it.
People experiencing true suffering often have no desire for
it to continue.
People experiencing true struggle want it to stop. They want
a way out, and they would gladly trade all the sympathy and solidarity and
internet points they get for it for a fair shot and a chance for something
more. They generally don’t brag or make memes about it.
What do you identify as your struggle or your suffering?
What does identifying with this do for you? What is the
perceived benefit?
Who would you be without this identity?
Who could you be without it?
by Jamesscotthenson | Jan 3, 2017 | Blog
There is this mantra these days about loving yourself no
matter what and accepting yourself exactly as you are. I admit that I invoke it
daily in working with people.
I get where it comes from, and I get the usefulness of what
Carl Rogers called the paradox of being able to change once we accept ourselves
exactly as we are.
It’s pretty basic: until we acknowledge and accept where we
are, we can’t even consider going somewhere else.
But this is where I often see it breakdown as well; the whole
going-somewhere-else part of the process is left off. The
changing-after-accepting-yourself aspect gets ignored, and we wind up accepting
and loving things in ourselves that we shouldn’t.
The very simple fact is that there are some things we should
not accept in ourselves.
We should not tolerate things that are harming us or the
people we care about. We should hunt them down and remove them from our lives.
I have these things in every part of my life. So do you. We
all do. And we all deserve better.
There are physical things that we should not accept. There
are habits associated with eating and drinking and otherwise ingesting things
that will lead to a very restricted life and a very early death.
We should not accept these things in our life.
There are ways of treating others and speaking to them and
acting toward them that will lead us to broken relationships, and will lead
other people to broken hearts and damaged ideas of who they are.
We should not accept these things in ourselves.
There are ways of engaging the world that lead us to
bitterness and resentment and self-pity. This drives us away from ourselves and
drives others away from us.
We should not accept these things in ourselves.
This isn’t to say that we should berate and criticize and
hate ourselves. There is no good in this.
Acknowledge and accept where you are, but don’t let yourself
stay there either.
If we are not moving forward, we are sliding backward.
If we are not evolving, we are dying.
We live in a society that will provide us with ready-made
excuses to stay exactly where we are. People will be quick to jump up and tell
you that you’re fine, not to worry, everyone has their flaws.
This is true, everyone does, but this doesn’t mean we
shouldn’t work on them. Especially if they are harming ourselves or others.
Especially if they are driving us to an early death or a lonely existence.
We all know change is possible, and we all know it is
necessary. But it is also very difficult.
And this is what makes the siren call of the
well-intentioned friend so dangerous. They are calling us back to a very
comfortable mediocrity. A fuzzy happiness that feels like home, but that might
very well be strangling us mentally, physically and emotionally.
Love yourself exactly as you are, but love yourself enough
to change the things that are keeping you from your true potential as well.
You deserve it.
by Jamesscotthenson | Jan 2, 2017 | Blog
This was interesting timing because someone sent me a great
video about the difficult situation Millennials face in in the workplace just a
few hours after I started working on this. I am glad to see more and more
people talking about building constructive relationships with this generation
instead of criticizing them all the time. Here’s the video, it is well worth
the 15 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrT8lJNa9Z8
Writing about Millennials is the gift that keeps on giving.
I still have people bring up the post I wrote defending
them, for good and ill. I got a few messages about it as well, also good and
ill.
Speaking of:
“What advice would you give Millennials from what you have
learned working with them for so long?”
Advice is a dangerous thing, especially when it was not
requested. I can share some of the things I’ve seen from working with this
generation for quite a while, but with a few caveats.
First, these are just things I have gleaned from seeing what
this generation struggles with, and represents only my opinion. Some will
agree, others will disagree. Bear in mind, this is a generation I really care
deeply about, and genuinely want to see succeed.
Second, I kind of feel like these things could apply to any
of the generations currently alive, and I definitely see ways it can all apply
to me. I pulled as much useful stuff for myself from the video about
Millennials in the workplace as I did for any Millennial I work with as a
client. Technology seems to be creating a common set of troubles for us and we
just like to pretend only Millennials are affected.
Anyway. Things I’ve come to believe from working with
Millennials.
You got screwed in a lot of ways, but this is yours to deal
with. Yes, the generations before you might have had better opportunity in many
ways, and it does feel like they pulled the ladder up behind them, but this is
irrelevant. Time spent blaming is costing you, not them.
That being said, you have opportunities unheard of in all of
human history. I once spent 9 years trying to figure out the name of a song and
who sang it. You can have a naked video chat with a stranger in China right now
if you decide to. Find a way to use this for something worthwhile, and you will
eclipse what every generation before you has done by miles and miles.
Being offended doesn’t mean anything at all, and certainly
doesn’t mean that someone needs to change what they believe or say or do. I
don’t say this because I want you to toughen up, but because I hate to see
anyone allow someone else to have power their emotional state. If there is one
thing I fear from your generation, it is the death of free speech in the name
of not hurting people’s feelings.
Put your phone down. I think the most significant way you
got screwed is in the way the internet has shifted your focus to the virtual
world. This is making plenty of people plenty of money, but it is at your
expense. Your generation has unprecedented rates of depression and anxiety, and
this also makes plenty of people plenty of money. Don’t let the doctors and
pharmaceutical companies and *ahem, counselors take your money from you. Turn
toward the real world and tell us all to go to hell.
Don’t confuse being outraged with being right. You are also
having this sold to you. By the same generation that then turns and criticizes
you for being outraged.
Do anything and everything you can for yourself, whenever
possible. You got screwed out of knowing the joy of this by parents who did
everything for you. This also serves to make other people money at your expense
as you pay them to do things for you.
Keep making your life significant and keep believing that
being alive should mean more than going to work every day until you die. Keep
refusing to believe that life is about mortgages and credit scores and how many
members your church has. Keep refusing to believe what the advertisers and
university provosts and car salesmen tell you. It is scaring the hell out of
them, and it is hilarious.
Keep insisting on purpose in what you do, but get
comfortable making that purpose yourself. Nobody else can really give this to
you, and if they do they are profiting off of you. They will also then turn and
criticize you for it.
Let selfie culture die. If it won’t, murder it in its sleep.
So that’s what I would offer Millennials.
This is what I offer them when we work together one on one,
and, contrary to all the depictions of them in the media, I find them receptive
and hard-working. I find them genuinely searching for the way out of a
situation they didn’t create and they are trying to do it in a very messy
world. I find them to be caring, compassionate and tougher than they are given
credit for.
As I’ve said before, I honestly think that they can and will
do great things once they get some traction. It is up to the generations that
came before them, especially the generation that handed out all those
participation trophies they now bitch about ceaselessly, to help them find that
traction.
Now, if you will excuse, I need to get back to making
mistakes with my Generation Z offspring.
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