by Jamesscotthenson | Apr 26, 2017 | Blog
“Your blog ruins everything.”
I think that has to be the best feedback so far.
Let’s continue with ruining things.
And using symbols in the title.
I had to Google that to get it right.
If you are on Instagram or Twitter or Facebook or the
internet or this planet, then you see all the motivation hustles that are out
there. You see all the memes and inspiring pictures about passion. They are
everywhere.
Motivation4Success
Motivation2Succeed
Motivate Your Life
MotivateMemes
Passion4Life
Passion2HaveItAll
I didn’t look those up, but I will bet they are all real
things somewhere. Using 2 and 4 instead of to and for is the modern version of
what using z instead of s was in the 90s.
Here’s the problem though.
Motivation is overrated and will abandon you at some point.
Passion is fleeting and falls to pieces at the first dirty look. They will fail
you.
Probably at some point very soon.
Like this morning because you are tired from staying up and
watching TV for no good reason whatsoever.
Or when you have tried something over and over without
success.
Or when things just aren’t fun anymore.
Or you aren’t feeling well.
Motivation will fail you, discipline will not. Passion
disappears, perseverance lasts.
Motivation and passion are fun and uplifting, and disappear
in the lightest breeze.
Discipline and perseverance are firm and grounded and are
strongest when we need them most.
They aren’t as much fun to post about, but they never bail
on you.
Invest in what lasts.
by Jamesscotthenson | Apr 25, 2017 | Blog
Think of everything you have.
Think of how awesome these things would seem to be if you
did not have them.
Notice how the mind automatically tries to switch back to
looking at the things you do not have.
This isn’t the mind being difficult or ungrateful, it is
doing it’s job. Our minds are supposed to make sure we are getting the best of
everything, that we are well taken care of.
Looking at what we already have doesn’t really help with
this, so our default is to always look at what we don’t have, what we could
have.
We can re-train this tendency though.
We can be actively and gratefully aware of everything we do
have.
We can learn to be conscious of the difference between
actual needs and the things we are programmed by society and culture to think
are needs.
We can learn to appreciate the perfection of every moment,
to recognize that things are as they are, and that our stories about them are
not only unhelpful, they are not real.
What you do have is right here, right now.
The comparisons are imaginary.
by Jamesscotthenson | Apr 24, 2017 | Blog
So we’ll stick with compassion for a few days.
Reiterating: yes, I think everyone deserves kindness and
compassion.
Everyone means everyone.
It is tragic that a young man killed another human being and
made the decision to end his life in a jail cell. Being in a place where taking
your own life becomes the best, most rational decision in your mind is deeply
tragic. It doesn’t matter how you got there. There is a place for compassion
for anyone in that situation.
It is tragic to see anyone become so oppressed by an
ideology or belief system that they are willing to harm others because of it.
We only get one chance at this life, for it to be spent in darkness and
delusion is an unspeakable tragedy. A one-time window into an amazing
universe wasted. There is a place for compassion for those living in
violence and hatred.
Yes, it is much easier to have compassion for the victims of
Aaron Hernandez and ISIS, and the victims certainly deserve our compassion, but
withholding it from the perpetrators helps no one and only adds to the sum
total of hatred in the world.
We like to think that hating those that hate others balances
the scale on some cosmic level, or that we are accomplishing something by
shutting off our kindness and compassion, but we are not. This only affects us,
and never in a positive way.
Those who are suffering create more suffering in the world.
We don’t have to add to that.
None of this means we become victims or walk around
wide-eyed and stupid, but we can protect ourselves and those we love without
anger or hatred. We can offer kindness and compassion without putting ourselves
in dangerous or foolish positions.
Anger and hatred trick us into thinking they offer positions
of power when they are really just expressions of fear and refusal to engage
with reality as it is.
The gray area of compassion for those who bring harm and
pain to ourselves and others may be uncomfortable, but it is much more real,
and real is always better.
by Jamesscotthenson | Apr 23, 2017 | Blog
“Do you really think we can always respond with kindness?”
Yes.
This could have been a really short post.
It still might be.
This is an ugly, ugly world sometimes.
I contributed to the ugliness for a lot of my life.
Maybe not in any significant way, but in ways that were
probably significant to the people who were affected by my ugliness.
The way we treat and mistreat people affects them, and
mistreating people affects us. Everything that we do adds to the sum total of
everything that is floating around in the world in some way, no matter how
small.
I want my contribution to always be one of kindness and
compassion.
I don’t want to add to the ugliness in the world.
I fail at this all the time.
But I keep trying. I am not sure what else to do.
Thanks for reading.
by Jamesscotthenson | Apr 22, 2017 | Blog
Everything that goes on in our head is just imagination.
All of it.
Some of it is easily recognized as imagination.
Fantasies about having a super power or saving the day when
tragedy strikes.
Some of it is more realistic but still easily recognized.
Imagining trips you might take one day or picturing what it
would have been like if you married someone else.
The real issue are the things that trick us into thinking
they are more than imagination, the things that have just enough reality to
seem truthful.
Thoughts about what our partner is thinking or their real
motives for doing what they did.
Ideas about how our day is going to go.
Playing out conversations in our head.
These seem realistic, but it’s just the difference between a
movie about a manned flight to Mars and a movie about a cop who know Kung Fu
going back in time to kill Hitler. One seems more realistic, but it is still a
movie.
Just because something could happen doesn’t make it
real.
This is true of anything that is not going on right in front
of us. It’s just imagination.
To further complicate things, even when things are happening
right in front of us they pass through a few layers if imagination before we
“see” them.
Layers of concepts, memories, opinions, emotions and other
things all distort what we see as reality. The more we can be aware of this,
the more we can deal with reality instead of imagination.
Have a great day.
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