Month: February 2020

I try and spend time being grateful for the things in my life.  I have spent a lot of time writing about gratitude.  The things I am grateful for are varied.  Sometimes the things I am grateful for are things I don’t have.  I don’t have cancer, I am grateful for that.  One thing that I am grateful that I longer have are expectations.  I am grateful I at least try to have no expectations of others.

For the most part I no long have expectations of people.  Outside of my parents and brother, I don’t have many people I expect much out of.  I used to have expectations of people.  I no longer see any point to that.  

In my mind having expectations of people are nothing but trouble.  When we expect things of our friends, or even strangers we are putting so much of our bias and our attitudes onto them.  This is not fair.   We know very little of what their journey is like, they do not deserve the burden of our expectations.  I simply realize people will behave as they will behave, and it has nothing to do with me.  An expectation of a person sets my brain up for things, things I don’t need.

An expectation is an opportunity for disappointment.  I expect nothing out of our political leaders in this country.  They never disappoint me.  Without expectation there cannot be disappointment.  I just see no point in it.  Having expectation allows for disappointment, but at the same time does it offer any benefit?  I can’t think of much benefit to expectation.  Our actions and responses to the actions of others need not be colored by expectation.  I view this as a more peaceful simpler path of thinking.

I say all this without any negativity towards anyone else.  It has not really changed how I interact with people much.  I simply realize they will act as they will act and it has little to do with whatever narrative is in my head.  I think expectations are partially about narrative.  They narrative we tell ourselves really colors things.  I try and treat things as they are and not as I would like them to be.  I think that is sane.  I don’t think it’s a commentary on another person.  I don’t view other people in a negative light, I just don’t see it to be wise to expect anything of other people.

Thinking we know how people will behave and expecting something is a trap.  We don’t know what is going on their heads.  We know very little about other people’s lives, even people we see every day.  We must also remember that our place in other people’s lives may be far larger or far smaller than we realize.  They might not fulfill an expectation because we are not even on their radar.  Without knowing much about these people and their values, we really can’t create a valid narrative of expectation if we tried.

So much of life is about narrative.  The narrative in our head guides us.  I try and control that.  Part of that is not expecting things and just reacting to what is.  It makes sense to me, and helps give me peace.  I am just grateful I am doing my best to give up the burden of expectations.

Today I have awoken to a beautiful day.  There is peace and tranquility in the land of Indiana.  Last night the forces of good combatted the forces of evil and good won yet again.  The Mighty Purdue Boilermakers have defeated the Evil Indiana Hoosiers in a game of…. BASKETBALL!!!!!!!!  I watched this game before a large big screen tv, bowl of popcorn in lap with yells of jubilation.  Tonight was a good night, and it will make today a good day.  I am grateful that the Purdue Boilermakers have defeated the Indiana Hoosiers.

Gratefulness might not be the right word for Purdue defeating Indiana in a basketball game.  I am glad Purdue won the game, I am a Purdue fan after all.  I am grateful that sports let us be a little tribal and silly.  I think sports wakes up some primal stuff that is stored in our souls.  I think this is a good thing.  Primal things let us feel alive.

Sports are full of surprise and pushing the human limits.  These are both important to me.  It’s good to push ourselves and see others push themselves.  Few of us push ourselves enough.  Surprises are also just so much fun, and sports offer us so many of those.  This is some base human level stuff here, and sports brings it out. 

In a world of digital and pretend, sports are still real.  One team or person squares off against another person or team, then something real happens.  We need a lot more real in this world.  I’m grateful spots gets a little bit of that, along with a lot of fun.

I remember sitting down to watch tv not long ago.  I checked the listings and did not find much that was interesting to me.  For whatever reason I decided I would watch a few minutes of the movie Aladdin.  I had watched the movie as a child.  As I watched I got sucked in by Robin Williams and I watched the whole movie.  The jokes were landing a lot different this time around.  I ended the night thinking I was glad I had revisited this movie.  Revisiting allows the old to become new again.  I am grateful for all the things we can revisit in our lives.

There are so many things in our lives to revisit.  Good movies, tv shows, songs, and restaurants all beg to be revisited.  Sometimes continuing to revisit things makes us like them more.  The more I watch Star Wars movies the more I like them.  I think we should always try and repeat and revisit the good things in life. 

Revisiting anything that teaches us a lesson is useful.  The thing about revisiting thing from our past is that we get to look on those things with new eyes.  This lets us learn new things from the old things.  We can also end up relearning the old lessons we forgot.  I’m just glad we get to go back to so many things.

My life has been interesting in a host of ways.  Nothing much has gone as I would have planned.  This goes for both good and bad things.  I can offer no commentary on whether this is good or bad, but I cannot make heads or tails of my life presently.  I have no idea where this thing called life is heading, but I think it is headed somewhere.  I believe God has some sort of plan for me.  I am grateful that God has a plan for me, and that I don’t have to know what it is.

I believe that God is steering things in my life.  Time after time God has pushed me into different places.  I always come back from those places a lot wiser.  So far this hasn’t added up to much as far as results.  I think it will at some point.  The places I go and things I experience makes me different.  I am becoming different and I think that is something I can use.

As I become more different than your average person I can see things in a different way.  That might be a gift.  To have a different perspective I suspect you must have a different kind of life.  I am living that for sure.  I think more and more all the time about how to use this different perspective.

I think I must take action.  I don’t know the action, but some sort of action is important, otherwise experiences are just stories in my head.   I have been more focused and bold with my writing, I think that is action.  There are likely other actions I must find to follow my path.  I don’t know the path, but God does, and I can accept that until he reveals it to me.

When I was 15 if a child’s movie was on TV I would have been vehemently against watching it.  At 35 years old, I’m cool with whatever.  I could watch Frozen and get a good laugh out of it.  At age 15 I would have told you that Frozen was for small children.   I’ve reached an age where I can just be open to doing whatever in so many ways.  I can go with the flow when it comes to childish things or things I’m not interested in.  I am grateful I have become more open to whatever.

If my cousin’s children want to do something with me, well I’m game to play some Candyland.  I don’t really care, but it makes them happy, so let’s go play some Candyland.  I don’t know if every idiot 15 year old turns into a 35 year old that has this mindset, but this idiot became a lot more open. 

I guess being open in this way for me just means valuing doing stuff with people I care about.  I think togetherness matters a lot more than what we do.  I can’t remember half the stuff I did with my grandparents at this point.  I remember the feelings, and that we were together.  So more and more whatever someone wants to do, I’m game to do it.   

Some people can’t be open like this.  That would be a much less wonderful way to go about life.  I’m glad I can go with the flow, in the future I’m sure I’ll look back and be glad I did.

Being able to perform well on command is a hard skill to learn.  It can be hard for athletes.  Musicians take years to learn this skill as well.  One of the differences between an average performer and a top performer is that top performers always show up.  I have not discovered the path to doing this in very many areas of my life.  I am grateful I have harnessed this power that when it comes to the gym, all I must do is to walk in the gym, and a good workout is bound to happen.

After 20 years of hitting the weights I have trained myself to have good workouts happen automatically.  This is not to say that there are no bad workouts, or that all workouts are good workouts.  Off days still happen, but the good days happen on their own.  I have wired my brain to have good workouts, so as long as I get to the gym I tend to perform.

For 20 years I have pushed myself in the gym and demanded good workouts out of myself.  I have built up so many habits and so much psychology I believe that my mind and body are quiet literally wired to have good workouts.  I can show up unfocused and tired, but soon as I am in the gym, the lifter inside me starts to take over and good workouts happen.   This is a super power I took 20 years to build, but I built it, and it works.

For 20 years I built this super power of having good workouts.  I chose a path that is a little different.  I chose to lift weights and lift them well.  I chose to do this over doing other things.  I purged excuses from my mind.  I didn’t accept that a good workout wasn’t possible.  I squatted hours after my grandfather’s funeral.  I worked out with hangovers.  I trained with injuries.  I came back from injuries.  I learned how to command performance from myself in the gym. 

I am so thankful I chose this path.  It has taught me the recipe for performance in all things.  If I can do something in the gym, I can do the same thing in real life.  I am grateful I unlocked this super power in one area of my life.  I hope to unlock it in other areas.  I think that is an even bigger superpower, the ability to move skills from one competency to another.  This means if we can be great at one thing, we can be great at many things.  When we unlock that, we become something more than normal.

I can be such a giant nerd.  I like learning about all sorts of things.   I definitely have a touch of curiosity about the world around me.  I can get drawn into learning about things I don’t even really care about.  When I get drawn into something I care about though, I want to binge and become a glutton of information.  Because of how easy it is to binge on, I am grateful for the current rise of the long format podcase content.

I grew up in a world where television was the place to go for documentaries.  We were stuck with 30 minute and 60 minute shows.  This let us get a little info about a lot of things.  There were no real shows to go deep on anything though.  We would learn a little, and get all curious, then it was time for another show.  I watched so much of the History Channel growing up, it was the best we had for this kind of informative show.  There were other things and I enjoyed them too.  I am glad we as a society have moved past that to the podcast though.

Podcasts are the place for nerds like me.  Podcasts have so few restrictions and that’s what makes them awesome.  Podcasts can go as long as the producer wants them to.  That means the content is what dictates length, not the timeslot allotted by a network.  This means we can go deep.  I am currently listening to a 3 hour podcast about sleep science.  This kind of thing was never going to happen on television. 

These long podcasts lets me be myself and be the nerd that I am.  Anything that facilitates this is awesome.  The deeper and weirder I can go, the happy I will be.

My casual observation about society is that a lot of people like using a lot of drugs.  If you include alcohol and tobacco as drugs, then this world is full of a bump of people that like to get high.  People will claim a lot of reasons why they want to consume these substances.  Part of the reason is that people like to escape reality and alter their state of consciousness for a while.  There are a lot of ways to get this done though without touching a drug.  I am grateful for all the ways we can alter our state of consciousness safely and sanely. 

Altering our state can lead to many perceived benefits.  How real they may be doesn’t matter so as long as they are believed in.  Altered states give our minds a break.  Altered states can make us more creative.  An altered state can also remove our minds of mental clutter.  I am starting to learn more and more how to alter my states.

Finding a flow state alters consciousness a lot.  Getting into flow on a project creates great satisfaction.  This is so easy to do once we find the kind of work we like to do.  There is really no tools needed for this, we just push our focus and it happens.

I spend time meditating and for me this is nothing but altered consciousness.  I use the Calm app and drift off and come back to reality.  I think it really helps me manage my thoughts a lot. 

Flow and meditation alter my state of consciousness a lot, they put me into a calm place.  I also go the other direction when I’m in the gym.  When in the gym an intense aggression comes out.  This is definitely an altered state.  I go to a different place when lifting weights, I always feel really good coming back from this more primal place.  This is not an out of control place, just a place that is more aggressive.  You can’t workout hard without a touch of aggression, and that is really what I am inducing. 

Altering state seems to be just another tool in our box for navigating this world.  I don’t know if there is a lot of science behind some of these things, or if we even understand the science.  I think this might be filed under “if it works for you then do it.”  I am so happy I have found a few things that work for me, and continue to find more.

Everyone likes a good show.  There are so many good shows to pick from.  There are plays, concerts, movies, tv shows, YouTube, and the list goes on.  Everyone seems to like something a bit different.  Some shows pretty much everyone likes though.  Fireworks seem to be one of those things.  I am grateful that no matter who you are, where you are, and what you’re doing, you’re allowed to enjoy the fireworks.

Fireworks command our attention.  If fireworks are going off, then we are watching.  It is hard to turn away from fireworks.  Even bad fireworks are cool.  They are just such a cool show.

This kind of show lets you be a child again.  Even as an adult I get a little does of my childhood back when I watch fireworks.  For a few minutes the rest of the world can melt away.  What a wonderful thing this is. 

Without fireworks the party stops early on the Fourth of July.  Without fireworks kids don’t have as many excuses to stay up late.  Without fireworks, things are a little more dull.

Many of us are not who we seem to be.  We put on alter egos as powerful as Batman.  We pretend to be things we are not for a host of reasons.  We pretend for fun, for positive reasons, for negative reasons, and sometimes because we feel we have to.  I’m grateful we can pretend to be different people.

I am not grateful we can pretend and be fake or inauthentic.  That is using this power of pretend for evil.  Most powers can be used for good or evil.  I feel like when we talk about people pretending to be something that we think of it negatively.  I do think it is a skill that we can use for good, and I think there are a lot of times when we should.

The power of pretend allows us to be something we are not.  There are so many times in life when we need to be something we are not.  We may need to brave.  We may need to be a leader.  We may need to be disciplined.  We might need to be these things, but we can pretend to be these things.  By pretending I don’t think we are lying, we are reinventing in a way. 

When we pretend we can take on the actions and habits of the thing we need to be.  By taking on actions and habits and wearing them as a disguise we start to become those things.  You may not be a brave person, but you can do brave things.  If you can do brave things, then it doesn’t matter if you’re a “brave person” you get the same result.  In time you might even become brave.  This holds true for many things.  We must walk the line between pretend and bullshit, but that is a line we can walk.

Pretending is not some lie, and its not about boasting.  If we use the bravery example before it might take bravery for you to talk in front of a large group of people.  If you act brave and pretend to be brave and get up and do the talk, did you really lie.  You used this pretending to do something.  You didn’t brag to anyone about it.  I think that is how we must pretend. 

The power of pretend is wonderful.  Children are very good at it.  Their entire days can be full of it.  It is likely we adults still hold these powers inside us.  We only need exercise this skill to unlock its potential.  Even if we can’t pretend, we can probably pretend to pretend until we are able to pretend.  For these things I am thankful.