Eudaimonia
‘Eudaimonia’ is a Greek word meaning the state or condition of a ‘Good Spirit’, otherwise known as the ‘Good life’ in common language.
The age-old question persists, what makes a good life? most of us ponder this question and hopefully make choices each day that inch us forward toward some semblance of what we assume is a good life, and away from suffering. Ancient wisdom has always taught us that the basic purpose of life lies in the simplicity of wholeness and contentedness. And that the basic source of wholeness and contentedness is a sense of kindness and warm-heartiness towards self and others, not things. If this holds true, what makes it so challenging to figure out how to feel whole, content and in turn live a good life? What makes the shiny mirages of wealth, fame and high achievement so seductive? Perhaps because each of them can be measured. We can see how much money we have in our bank account, we can count how many followers we have on social media and achievements often earn us several accolades. All of these are quantifiable and in turn allows us, for ‘better or worse’ to measure or compare ourselves to others. What about the things we can’t measure? Our sense of self isn’t measurable. In fact, if we sit down in meditation to search for the self, we can’t find ourselves. If we look closely, the person we call by our given names can’t really be found anywhere. Our sense of self is merely a construct of our own imagination and the perception of others.
David Loy, a zen teacher wrote about this. He suggests that when we actually try to locate the ‘Self’ that we think exists through time and has existed our whole lives, that person is nowhere to be found. That person changes from moment to moment depending on where you are, who you’re with and what you are doing. David Loy contends that our deepest fear is that there is no fixed separate self that persists through time, and that wealth, fame and badges of achievement help us feel more real. He argues that this sense of self that is constantly changing leaves us with the stack realisation of our fickleness and finitude. To alleviate this fear, we become preoccupied with things that don’t really matter, like fame, status and achievements. Things that are ultimately empty and ephemeral. This is why we pursue power to create a sense of permanence, and to stave off the nagging reality that nothing lasts forever.
Life is unsatisfactory and characterised by ceaseless change, and we are often resistant to change. We may be happy in one moment, and sad in the other. This life of ceaseless change troubles us because we become accustomed to only the good experiences and tend to avoid the not-so-good ones. In the words of another zen teacher Dōgen, "A flower falls, even though we love it; and a weed grows, even though we do not love it”. He meant, things we love don’t last forever and things we don’t want eventually come to us including illness, old age and death. Society has taught of to rely on a set of fantasies about living well. Firstly, the fantasy that we can be happy all the time. Secondly, the fantasy that if we own the right things, we will be happy and that the hard times will no longer come along. And thirdly, the fantasy that some people have life all figured out, and are enlightened, rich or famous enough that life is no longer hard for them. We are tricked into believing that if we can become like the aforementioned people, our lives will be good forever. Rather, if we can truly embrace the reality of ceaseless change, then we are able to comprehend that there is no permanent state of happiness in life. Furthermore, if we are able to rid ourselves of the said fantasies and see through them, then we are well on our way to understanding the truth of how we can live well, and in a state of Eudaimonia.
Remember - “Comparison is the thief of joy.” ―Theodore Roosevelt
Peace, Love & Light.
Happiness vs Joy
Happiness and Joy, two terms we often use interchangeably but are largely disparate. Happiness is an age-old vocabulary that has long plagued society and humanity. We constantly interrogate ourselves and others as to whether we are happy. Even worse, we anchor our happiness to extrinsic factors - objects, people and places. We would often say - when I get my dream job, buy my dream house, meet my soulmate and visit beautiful places, I will be happy. ‘Happiness’ is an emotional response to an outcome. An ‘if-then’, cause-and-effect, quid-pro-quo standard that we are unable to sustain because we immediately raise it every time we attain it.
The very nature of ‘happiness’ is that it demands a certain outcome for it to occur, it is result-reliant. In the words of Matthew McConaughey from his book Greenlights, "If happiness is what you're after then you're going to be let down frequently and you're going to be unhappy much of your time. Joy however is a different feeling. Joy is not a choice. It’s not a response to some result. Joy is always in process, always in constant approach, alive and well in the doing of that which we are fashioned to do and enjoy”.
Joy is an intrinsic feeling that arises inside us from doing that which nature has foreseen for us and that which we love. It is independent of external factors, untethered to that which is material. Joy resides in our hearts, while happiness is only expressed via our outward appearance.
Unlike ‘Happiness’ which is temporary and fleeting, Joy is present in each moment if and when we lend ourselves to experiencing it.
Remember - “Joy is not in things; it is in us.” - Richard Wagner
Peace, Love and Light.
Cognitive Themes
According to the renowned hypnotist and psychotherapist Marisa Peer, there are two fundamental cognitive themes that we are ‘challenged by’ and ‘grapple with’ on a human level. And the degree to which we do not address and overcome these themes, is the degree to which we suffer, mentally, emotionally and physically.
We are either challenged by the feeling of being ‘different’ or ‘not enough’, and in some cases, both. As social creatures, we embody an inherent sense of belonging and as such, we want to belong to a tribe. The feeling of being different might infer that we don’t belong to a tribe, while the feeling of not being enough might signal that we are not valuable to our tribe.
To overcome these cognitive themes, I invite you to embrace your individualism and to know there are other humans out there who share similar idiosyncrasies to yours. You belong to a tribe; you only need to find your tribe. A tribe where you will be accepted and appreciated.
Additionally, I also invite you to believe you are enough, and that you bring value to every relationship by just being the authentic version of yourself.
Addressing and overcoming these two themes can cause a complete shift in how we experience our encounters or relationships with others.
Remember - “You are Unique and You are Enough”
Peace, Love and Light.
Existential Crisis
The search for the meaning of life and our purpose therein has puzzled people for thousands of years. Human beings are the only living creatures whose very existence is also an issue for it. We are the only living species that confront our existence as an ongoing concern, as something that we are always in the process of figuring out - internal questions often come to the front of mind like “Who am I? Why am I here? What is my purpose?”. Other living creatures, plants and animals aren’t saddled with the concern of their existence. Humans are the only creatures that exist in duality. The very word ‘individual’ alludes to the ‘indivisible duality’ of humans in our physical and metaphysical forms. What it means to be human is underpinned by the complexity of living as “the Self”, but also a “higher Self” - a possibility - a way of existing. The Self is never fully formed, instead, it is viewed as a perpetual, ever-developing way to be. We are perpetually seeking an unknown state of who or what we are becoming. Paradoxically, the blessing of being the most advanced of species is also saddled with the burden of an inescapable complex social dimension. The aforementioned burden expresses itself in myriad ways, for example - anxiety, depression, not-enoughness or unfulfillment to mention a few. We all bear the weight of this burden, some more than others.
Knowing who we are is hard. Understanding one’s true identity can be a conundrum, and the first step that truly leads to finding our identity in life is not knowing who we are but knowing who we are ‘not’. Who we are ‘not’ is just as important as who we are. The equation that leads to our identity oftentimes lies in a process of elimination. And defining ourselves by who we are not is the first step that leads us to knowing who we are.
To achieve this, consider not giving your time, energy and essence to people, places and things that do not serve you or the type of person you want to become. By so doing, you inadvertently find yourself spending more time with other people, in more places, doing things that bring you unbridled joy and meaning.
By simply eliminating the who(s), where(s) and the what(s) that stand between you and your identity, you rid yourself of the excesses that rob you of clarity. If you are able to do this successfully, you would have serendipitously, or almost innocently narrowed in on that which is indeed important to you and that which espouses your true identity.
Remember - “Once you know who you really are, being is enough. You feel neither superior to anyone nor inferior to anyone and you have no need for approval because you’ve awakened to your own infinite worth” - Deepak Chopra
Create
We are spiritual beings living a human experience. Despite our religious, spiritual or scientific beliefs, we are all created in the image and likeness of God the creator. If we are offshoots of this Omnipotent force, it infers unequivocally that we are created to create.
The advent of industrialisation and digitisation has insidiously infiltrated the human psyche. Paradoxically, our very progress as a species has also proved to be our hindrance. Our evolution has somewhat repressed our inherent creativity, replacing it with a consumerism culture. A culture that celebrates an insatiable need for the consumption of products, services and information. According to the late Sir. Ken Robinson, even our education systems where success is celebrated and failure stigmatised are counterintuitively designed to educate creativity out of children. As a result, we have evolved to undervalue the importance of creativity to our survival as a species.
Creating is at the very core of the human experience. Everyone has the urge to create, and if we don’t honour this urge, we stifle ourselves and deny others our gift. Whenever we fail to honour our natural disposition to create, we deaden our bodies and our spirit, we renege on the purpose for which we have been summoned. According to the Hungarian researcher János Selye - “what is in us must out. We all have to follow our creative urges in the way nature prepared for us, otherwise, we may explode at the wrong places or become hopelessly hemmed in by frustrations. The great art is to express our vitality through the particular channels and at the particular speed nature foresaw for us.”
Whatever form your creative gift takes, be it painting, pottery or poetry, know that it needs not be perfect or professional, but it needs to be expressed. Provided that it follows some form of flow, and is expressed in its purest form is when you begin to truly live in your divinity and purpose, otherwise, you’re hopelessly hemmed in by frustrations in the words of Selye. The ability to create is in all of us, and the extent to which we repress its expression is the extent to which we suffer.
Remember - “Create before you Consume”.
Peace, Love & Light.
Mental Models
Have you ever considered how as newborns we come into the world as a blank canvas, and whether we become a masterpiece or otherwise is dependent on the brushstrokes of experiences that culminate into the human illustration we in turn portray throughout life? Our language, mannerisms and idiosyncrasies are all a collection of data points and inputs collected over time based on interactions with our environment and the influence of other humans. We are shaped by unconscious motivations. Something the renowned psychologist Sigmund Freud refers to as the collective unconscious.
As described by neuroscientist Karl Friston, “the brain creates a model of the world that it optimises using sensory inputs and acts as an interference machine that actively predicts and explains its sensations”. Put simply our brains creates miniature, internal systems - mental models - using patterns between neurons that capture and project some dynamics of the systems of the world. We create these mental models from information that comes through our senses and in turn gives us a picture of the world, like light into a camera. Research shows that in fact, our brains use fewer sense data than we think. For example, when we walk into a cafe and register that it is a cafe, our brain takes over and fills in most of what we expect to find in a cafe based on our idea (mental model) of what a cafe is. Similarly, if we’ve been raised with a pessimistic view of the world, whenever we experience new encounters (good or otherwise), our brain kicks in and projects our mental model of how we in turn perceive the said encounter pessimistically.
As cognitive scientist Anil Seth puts it: “we don’t just passively perceive the world, we actively generate it. The world we experience comes as much, if not more, from inside-out as from the outside-in”. Seth describes mental models as controlled hallucinations: “We’re all hallucinating all the time, including right now. It is just that when we agree about our hallucinations, we call it a reality”. These said hallucinations are controlled because they are grounded and constrained by sensory impressions as well as other mental models such as our understanding of the laws of nature.
Unlike mental models based on laws of nature e.g ‘sunrise and sunset’ which remain the same despite what we think about it, our other mental models that are experientially sustained can be changed when we change our thinking. Cognitive scientists describe mental models as made-up beliefs, with probabilities attached. However, the word beliefs can be somewhat misleading as we’re not always conscious of a mental model’s elements or able to articulate how they come to be. A mental model is our entire inner representation of something, including explicit beliefs, images, and less articulated emotions and instincts.
Luckily, we can reflect on our models as models, which opens up the possibility of developing new ones. We can be deliberate in our manipulation of mental models, editing, elaborating, and recombining their components to create new models. We can develop multiple alternative models, allowing us to explore a range of endless possibilities. The important thing to remember is that our thoughts unlike the law’s laws, are not permanent and do not equal reality. The mental models we live by today are constructed. They are full of construction materials we’ve collected along the way that can be dismantled, altered and recombined. We as humans possess the unique ability known as the art of “rethinking” that allows us to deconstruct mental models that were created through the collective unconscious and in turn create a life we desire.
Remember - “The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking”- Albert Einstein
Peace, Love & Light.
Imagination
Thoughts become things. Everything you are today was actualised by first imagining it. We humans have the peculiar capacity to mentally explore the ‘not-yet-existent’ which allows us to deliberately create new things and shape the world around us. Unlike other living creatures (animals and plants) that have no self-awareness and are guided by their immediate environment, thereby existing in the realm of “what is”, humans in contrast can explore the realm of “what is not”. Scientifically known as counterfactual thinking, imagination is the ability to create a mental model of something that doesn’t exist yet. The ability to imagine a different or better state of being than the one we currently exist in is such a unique superpower, which begs the question, why don’t we use this ability more to our advantage?
For imagination to occur, it must first be inspired. Something needs to seduce us (se-ducere, to lead away) out of our routine way of perceiving things (factual thinking) into the realm of imagination (counterfactual thinking). As it appears in the general history of religions, inspiration (in spirit) may be defined very broadly as a spiritual influence that occurs spontaneously and renders a person capable of thinking, speaking, or acting in ways that transcend ordinary human capacities. Philosopher John Armstrong suggests that we humans are actually quite slow to notice new pieces of information. Over the course of life, we develop an internal resistance, of which we are unaware, but which has the effect of blocking out things that might potentially inspire us. We become so invested in the model/framework which we currently have and which works for us that our emotional familiarity with our current paradigm is something we are often very reluctant to give up. Despite the plethora of new surprises we encounter all the time, our minds are oftentimes ill-prepared for such surprises to inspire imagination and creativity.
Plenty of new information pass us by regularly, however, to take advantage of such new information, we need to notice them (the cognitive aspect) and we need to care (the emotional aspect) to spark imagination. Research shows that there are three types of surprises that inspire imagination: accidents - events or incidents that may be irrelevant to what we’re trying to achieve; anomalies - part(s) of a situation or story that are out of the ordinary; and analogies - parallels we see between concepts or experiences, which suggest new possibilities. The Bayesian theory of how the brain works hold true that our brains update themselves based on surprising new inputs. However, our brains do not simply register any or all sensory impressions. Neuroscientist Walter Freeman asserts that the pattern generated by the cortex is not a representation of the stimulus but constitutes the significance and value of the stimulus for the animal. Put simply, what impacts us is what matters to us. So whenever you notice patterns that deviate from the norm, care about them enough to let them seduce and inspire you.
When we encounter surprises - accidents, anomalies and analogies and take the time to see, comprehend and interpret such new information, we get inspired, and such inspiration prompts imagination. . Inspiration is the precursor to imagination, imagination is what births creation. Be inspired by the world around you, and let your imagination create the world you aspire for.
Remember - “Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions. Logic may get you from A to B, but imagination will get you everywhere.” - Albert Einstein
Peace, Love & Light.
Time
The concept of ‘time’ is one of God’s most beautiful creations. Simple to discern, yet intricate to understand, it is another of life’s many paradoxes.
Albeit not a statement of fact, one might be forgiven if one describes the passage of time in life’s context as less of a chronological event and more of a psychological experience. The two Greek words for time, Chronos and Kairos best explain this paradoxical distinction. Chronos (Chronological) is sequential, linear time; while Kairos is time revealed in its depth dimension. For example, the day a child is born might seem just another passing day (Chronos) to most people, but to the child’s parents, it is a transcendental event (Kairos) that determines the quality of every subsequent day in that family’s history.
In childhood and adolescence, the idea of time appears infinite. However, on our pathway to adulthood, we imbibe a plethora of cultural or societal lexicon, often from our predecessors, and like most things quantifiable, we quickly learn how to worry about whether we have enough of it or not. We are told, "Don’t waste time", "Time waits for no one", "Time is of the essence", and "Time is money" – hence we become afraid of losing it, running out of it, or being consumed by it. As we grow older, the juxtaposition of an endless to-do list and unfulfilled dreams alongside the beckoning of our inevitable appointment with old age and death creates an increased sense of urgency and sometimes, anxiety. Despite our relentless efforts to keep track of it or control it, ‘chronos’ time continues to pass and evade us.
While chronos is quantitative, kairos on the other hand is the qualitative time of life. Often referred to as an opportune time, kairos is theologically referenced in the New Testament 86 times to denote “the appointed time in the purpose of God”.
Today I’m reminded of the apocryphal tale of Abraham who was 75 years of age when he first received God’s promise of a son, a promise that did not materialise for another 25 years when he had turned 100 years of age and his wife Sarah 90. Despite his many efforts to circumvent or truncate the actualisation of this promise, everything proved futile until God’s appointed time. Perhaps a lesson to learn from biblical stories of this ilk in our journey of life is that; “for us to grasp the concept of kairos, we have to let go of our anxiety and control of chronos”. The longer one continues to view time through the lens of what we’ve been taught or acquired, the more likely we are to conceive or view life only as a chronological succession of moments measured by clocks and calendars. Kairos however renders a depth of perspective, an invitation to let go of our anxiety and instead lean into the belief that for everything there’s an appointed time, a season. This way, we are able to stand in our present circumstances (good or bad) and find the courage to ask, “what is this time for?; what is this season trying to teach me?” And then to take the time to listen and to act. This way, we are better able to enjoy the passage of time meaningfully, rather than trying to control it.
Remember - “For everything, there is a season, a time for every purpose under the heavens - Ecclesiastes 3:1.
Peace, Love & Light.
Individuation: Destiny vs Fate
According to the renowned Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung, the human experience is underpinned by forces that demand that the individual chooses between inner ideologies (constructs of the inner man) or outer ideologies (i.e constructs of family, culture, religion and society etc). Simply referred to as the paradox of ‘Destiny’ and ‘Fate’, both terminologies are ubiquitously referenced in our everyday language albeit vaguely understood by many.
The unsurprising yet fascinating fact about our entry into this world is that we are unable to choose which family, culture or society we’re born into, nor are we able to choose the encounters we have on our journey. It is pure happenstance, otherwise known as fate. Fate is the development of events outside a person’s control, regarded as premeditated by a supernatural power. Destiny on the other hand represents one’s innate potential, inherent possibilities which may or may not come to fruition. The beauty of destiny is that it invites choice. However, ‘destiny’ without choice is only ‘fate’ replicated. Put simply, we are born with innate potential, gifts and talents that allow us the choice of creating the life we want, otherwise, we shall never be more than the sum of what happened to us. While fate may represent events outside our control, we possess the potential, through necessary acts of consciousness, self-awareness and personal responsibility to make destiny possible, hence the idea of individuation.
The author, James Hollis, describes ‘Individuation’ as a developmental imperative for each of us to become ourselves as fully as we are able to, within the limits imposed on us by ‘fate’. That unless we confront our fate, we are tied to it. Meaning we must separate who we are from the experiences we have acquired, what he refers to as our de facto but false sense of self. We must become aware that we are not what happened to us; we are what we choose to become. We must become conscious of this truth, rid ourselves of the myths we’ve acquired or alas we are mere prisoners of our fate.
The paradox of individuation does not infer a detachment from cultural or societal mores, instead, it is built on the premise that we best serve society by becoming sufficiently developed as individuals and thereby being able to contribute to the dialectic necessary for the health and longevity of a society. That we will only become optimally useful to our culture and society when we have something uniquely forged out of our inner self to offer.
Each of us is called to individuate, albeit not all will hear or heed the call. However, if we do not take ownership of our own journey, our own destiny, we risk denying the life forces that led to our incarnation and risk not fulfilling the largeness of purpose to which we have been summoned. In the words of Hollis, we are already on the high seas of the soul anyway, why not be conscious and courageous to know ourselves more fully and know ourselves in the context of the larger mystery in which we exist.
Remember - Your history is not your destiny. You are the master of your fate, the captain of your soul - Alan Cohen; Henry Ford
Peace, Love & Light,
Action
Recently, I attended a careers workshop where the keynote speaker began by asking everyone present to introduce themselves and mention a key ‘strength’ they possess. Most people in the room mentioned some impressive albeit obvious strengths like leadership and problem-solving to name a few. However, one lady, in particular, piqued my interest with her succinct yet potent response. She responded confidently and unequivocally, “I’m a Doer”.
Studies infer broadly that the dichotomy between people that fulfil their potential and those that don’t quite do so can be traced to something as simple as ‘action’. Research by psychologists into the human brain suggests that the average person has approximately 6,200 thoughts in a single day. Of these daily thoughts are some great ideas that could transform our lives if we were to act on them, but regrettably, most people don’t. Fascinatingly, I’ve become increasingly curious as to why some people are able to take initiative and act, while others (myself included) are challenged by underlying inertia.
Richard Branson, a serial and relatively successful entrepreneur by most people’s standards often speaks about how he began Virgin Atlantic. Whilst on a trip to the British Virgin Islands to see his then-girlfriend, he had a stop-over in Miami where his connecting flight was initially delayed and then cancelled. A cancelled flight for many of us inspires frustration and anger, and for Mr Branson, it was no different. Disappointed like everyone else that had had their travel plans obstructed, he pondered on a possible solution to the conundrum. Stranded at an airport, the idea occurred to him like it could have occurred to the other people stuck in the same airport - “How about if I chattered a private plane?”. While most people would often do nothing in such circumstances, Mr Branson made a phone call to inquire about a private chatter - He took initiative. Realising the cost and unable to afford it by himself, he calculated the cost per seat and wrote on a borrowed blackboard as a joke, “Virgin Airlines one-way: $39 to the Virgin Islands”. He then went around the airport as a human billboard advertising it to everyone else that was stranded. Some people bought into it, and they all managed to take the chattered flight to their destination. Upon arrival, he recalls somebody saying “sharpen up your service a bit and you could be in the airline business”. So when he returned home, he drew on the experience, decided to rent a Boeing, and Virgin Atlantic was born. The rest, as they say, is history.
Ever thought of a great idea that you’re still dwelling on? Well, I’m sorry to break it to you - “Having a great idea means nothing if we don’t act on it”. There is a huge difference between a great dormant idea and the one you act upon. As the German psychologist Michael Frese suggests, developing a ‘doer’ mindset is a precursor to proactivity becoming second nature. In his words, “action is the active ingredient”. While inertia can be attributed to learned habits like procrastination and perfectionism, proactivity can also be a learned habit. Frese’s teachings centre on always linking ideas to action, a concept termed the action cycle where one is trained to consciously act on every idea until it becomes habitual. The world is full of people with incredibly brilliant ideas and huge potential who never act on their dreams. Therefore, my charge to Self and You the reader is to dream, but more importantly - “to Do”.
Remember - “Dreams don’t work unless you take action”. The surest way to make your dreams come true is to live them - Roy T. Bennett.
Peace, Love & Light
The Pursuit
Recently, I’ve pondered and written a lot on the paradoxical tensions we are perpetually faced with as humans. One such tension we grapple with on a regular basis is success and how societal or individual constructs discern it.
In certain spheres of life such as sports, success is subjective and often judged by winning titles or medals. In other spheres of life, success is more objective, somewhat ephemeral or elusive, and difficult to define. Despite the breadth of our vocabulary and language, it is particularly difficult to define what success means for one’s self and as such, we often rely on societal constructs as a measure of success. The pitfalls of relying on societal constructs lie in the parochial way success is defined, particularly in modern culture. Today’s cultural movement of instant gratification which undermines the incremental effort required in fulfilling one’s potential makes the idea of success more difficult to discern for many. The narrow-mindedness of its delineation is deeply misleading as it often infers that success is somehow connected to something tangible like a person’s net worth or material possessions which couldn’t be farther from the truth. It will be wrong to suggest money doesn’t provide some semblance of happiness because it does. However, research asserts with certitude that it doesn’t provide the happiness of a sustained nature. Begs the question, what is Success?
Mindset plays an integral part in understanding the idea of success. The fixed mindset views success (however defined) as having the talent, the gift or inherited genetic personality trait to excel and reach the pinnacle of something. the growth mindset on the other hand acknowledges talent as a contributing factor but focuses more on what we do with talent. People with a fixed mindset typically fall on the extreme ends of the spectrum and are typically confronted with two possible self-limiting risks. They either fall on the end of the spectrum where they think they are so talented and that they don’t have to try, or on the opposing end where they think that they lack the requisite talent to succeed in a particular area of life and as such, they give up or never try. An appropriate example of describing this is perhaps a young talented sportsperson who thinks they have a ‘God-given’ talent and sees no need to put in the hard yards or graft into becoming successful. The antithesis is one that thinks they just don’t have the ‘God-given’ talent and as such gives up on trying to become successful in their chosen field. Both instances of a fixed mindset are equally as self-limiting for any individual.
Conversely, the growth mindset views success as a continuum, something we keep pursuing or aspiring towards. It acknowledges ‘intangibility’ as an element of success by not viewing it as a tangible outcome or endpoint. This is validated by the anticlimax we often experience after achieving a long-held ambition or goal which infers that the outcome is hardly ever as pleasing as the pursuit. This is well documented in research that shows the numerous amount of people who fall into depression even after reaching the acme of their career and then retiring with nothing else to pursue in life. The growth mindset realises that real success lies in the pursuit of becoming ‘better’ not the illusion of being the ‘best’.
Pursuit is what has helped humanity evolve to where we are today as a species - it is what keeps us alive. For there is no feast big enough that you’ll never eat again, no drink so thirst-quenching enough that you’ll never drink again, and there is no success great enough that one can stand in forever. So, perhaps the true meaning of success lies ultimately in the journey to fulfilling one’s potential, as defined by one’s self. Because there’s something incredibly satisfying about focusing on being the best we can be and realising that the idea of success is a pursuit of something intangible, something we may never truly attain, yet has meaning to us and being at peace with that.
Remember - To travel is better than to arrive - Robert Louis Stevenson
Peace, Love & Light.
Personal Responsibility
I’ve always been fascinated by the human experience, and how this continuum called life and its meaning is perpetually plagued by paradoxical tensions. We are constantly presented with contrasting choices such as joy or pain, happiness or sorrow, success or failure, and the onus is on us to use our discernment in finding our balance somewhere in between either end of these contrasting spectrums. When good things happen to us, be it in our career, relationships or finances, we are quick to take credit for it, we assume responsibility and attribute it to our good fortune, intelligence or hard work. However, when bad things happen, or life doesn’t happen as we hoped, we attribute it to factors outside our control. We seek reasons, make excuses and tell stories to convince ourselves that it is due to ill luck, the fault of others or God.
Begs the question, why do we do this? Well, psychologists suggest that it is simply easier to do so. Inherently, when bad things happen, human behaviour seeks to shift the blame on external factors such as the weather, your job, your boss, your spouse, and the list can go on. Innately, human disposition seeks to gain pleasure or avoid pain. The shift in responsibility and blame often tends to lessen the pain or pressure we would typically feel when we attribute unfavourable outcomes to our own doing, so naturally, we dissociate ourselves from negative happenstance.
Personal responsibility is a delicate and controversial theory and understandably so. It is postulated on a value and belief system that we are responsible for and should take ownership of everything that happens to us, good or bad. One can understand why most will object to this viewpoint as there are admittedly situations where we are victims of extreme circumstances to which we deserve empathy. It helps that as social creatures, others may feel sorry for us in such circumstances and in turn empathise with us. In such situations, it feels good to be acknowledged as our victimhood is validated by the emotional scaffolding we receive from others. However, when such scaffolding is withdrawn, we return to feeling disempowered and make excuses for how we feel. The most insidious thing about excuses is that they are so valid. One has a valid reason to feel like a victim especially when you are actually being victimised, but to what end?
While this might appear a privileged viewpoint when comparing people that live in societies where opportunities abound to others that live in societies with the odds stacked against them, the idea is not to lean into disempowerment but instead to strive for self-empowerment. When we choose to take full responsibility and accountability for the outcomes and results in our lives, we unshackle ourselves from an identity of excuses and stories that prevent us from the life we want. Taking personal responsibility is not about being harsh on one’s self or blaming one’s self, but instead, it is about developing a growth mindset to accept and change whatever circumstances we find ourselves in. It is the precursor to controlling one’s destiny and finding the freedom to choose how we feel, think and act.
Remember: “With great power comes great responsibility. But with personal responsibility comes great power”
Peace, Love & Light.
I AM
We are the stories we tell ourselves. I recently became acquainted with a young gentleman by the name of Taylor who happens to be the lifeguard at a local swimming pool I frequent as I’ve recently developed a penchant for swimming. Typically, our conversations begin with an exchange of pleasantries;
Taylor: How are you?
Me: “Not bad”. Yourself?
Taylor: Always good.
His optimism for life is evident in his response and this made me ponder my response, as the phrase “Not bad” implicitly minimises anything good. Begs the salient question, “where does our default pessimism emanate from?”
A few hundred years ago and beyond, being negative actually saved your life. For our ancestors, the thought that one could be devoured by a beast at any point in the day managed their expectations of life, and as such, looking out for danger somewhat protected them from pain. Over time, what was once a survival mechanism has filtered down culturally as a coping mechanism. Strangely, we now use pessimism as a mechanism for managing expectations or preventing disappointment. Even worse, we use self-deprecation as a show of humility in an attempt not to come across as overly confident or braggadocios. We’ve developed and embedded a secular culture of flippant use of words, and our common language is littered with limiting words and stories we tell ourselves. We’ve become desensitised to the fact that subtle words have profound meaning on our everyday reality when used repetitiously, and that binary definitive statements we make about ourselves are potent and capable of shaping our realities.
The strongest force in us humans is that we act in a way that completely reflects the way we define ourselves. Being mindful of the limiting beliefs that emanate from self-deprecation is sufficient reason to “opt for” and expect only the best. Mohamed Ali once said, “I told myself I was the greatest long before I even was and then something amazing happened, I became the greatest”. He could have simply said “I am not a bad boxer”, instead he said, “I am the greatest”. And despite suffering five bruising career defeats, people still regard and remember him as the greatest because that was the story he told himself, and he and everyone believed it.
Fascinatingly, the mind is very suggestible and malleable, it doesn’t know or care if what you’re telling it is true or false, good or bad, it just absorbs and embeds it as a belief. The words and stories we tell ourselves are like programming codes into the operating systems of our being. If only we become aware that using self-deprecating words like “I am not organised, I am not good at this or that” only creates feelings and actions that are congruent with those words and in turn our reality, we’d probably refrain from using them. Therefore, my charge to Self and You the reader is to develop a sense of self-awareness, to make subtle alterations to your vocabulary, and to catch yourself anytime you adopt a language of self-deprecation.
Remember - “I Am are two of the most powerful words, for what you put after them shapes your reality” - Gary Hensel
Peace, Love & Light.
The Middle Passage
If you’ve had the chance to read the “About” section of this website, you may have somewhat of an understanding as to where my curiosity and quest for meaning emanate from. Oftentimes, our awakening is preceded by a transcendent event (e.g death of a loved one) that stuns us into consciousness and henceforth determines how one values and utilises every subsequent moment one is afforded in this realm. Many of us treat life as if it were a novel. We meander from page to page passively, assuming the author will tell us at the end what it was all about. The longer one remains unconscious, which depth-psychologists refer to as provisional personality, the more likely one is to view life only as a succession of moments leading toward some vague end, the purpose of which we tell ourselves will become clear in due time but never does. In the words of Ernest Hemingway, “if the hero does not die, the author just did not finish the story”. So, on the last page, we die, with or without illumination.
Life is long and lived in chapters. The middle passage begins when a person is obliged to ask self-probing questions of meaning which once circumambulated the early imaginations of childhood, and thereafter was replaced by the provisional personality moulded through “experience of” and “interactions with” our environment, culture and other individuals (family, peers, colleagues etc). The provisional personality is the lens through which we view life based on our experience from childhood to adolescence and first adulthood. The middle passage begins when one summons the courage to face issues that hitherto had been patched over. When questions of identity return and can no longer be evaded. The middle passage begins when we ask, “Who am I apart from my history and the roles I have played? What am I summoned here to do?”. The middle passage is where first adulthood ends, and second adulthood or true personhood commences.
However, the imperfection of what it means to be human is that we carry the history of our life in our psyche as a dynamic and autonomous presence, so more than likely, we are defined and dominated by our past. Furthermore, we’re institutionalised, conditioned and controlled by the power of societal mores and norms (e.g marriage, religion, roles etc) which further shape and embed the provisional personality we’ve acquired. We are beguiled into believing the understandable delusion that if one lives oneself life as one’s parents have, or rebels against their example, one will thereby be an adult. That getting married, bearing children or becoming a taxpayer are confirmations of adulthood. Conversely, the middle passage is an opportunity for redefining and reorientation of the provisioned personality, a rite of passage between the extended adolescence or first adulthood and our inevitable appointment with old age and death. The middle passage represents a wonderful, albeit often painful opportunity to revisit and revise our sense of self. If we are deficient in courage, no revisioning can occur. Those who travel the passage consciously render their lives more meaningful. Those who do not, remain prisoners of their provisioned personality, however happy or successful they may appear in normal life.
The middle passage is a unique invitation to become conscious, to accept responsibility for the rest of the chapters of one’s life and risk the largeness and immensity of purpose to which one is summoned. In the middle passage, one is required, psychologically to die unto the old self so that the new self might be born. Such death and rebirth is not an end in itself; it’s a passage. It is necessary to go through the middle passage to more nearly achieve one’s inherent potential and to earn the wisdom of mature ageing. Thus, the middle passage represents a summon from within to move from the provisional life to true Personhood, from the false self to Authenticity.
Neither regret nor resentment are of use in this phase. In fact, the reviewing and revisioning of one’s life from this vantage point requires a deep sense of understanding and forgiveness of the inevitable crime of unconsciousness. But not to become conscious through one’s journey of life is to commit an unforgivable crime.
Remember - “Who you truly are is only limited by who you think you are” - Normandi Ellis
Peace, Love & Light.
Impostor Syndrome
Nearly a year ago, I joined the now renowned Cohort 13 (London) of the Warwick Business School to begin what was a trepidatious yet exciting journey of an Executive MBA. Typical of most civilised gatherings, the first day commenced with an exchange of pleasantries. Members of the cohort introduced themselves, highlighting their professional achievements and any claim to fame.
I kind of knew what to expect from a group of executive MBA candidates, but despite my assumptions, nothing prepared me for meeting 23 highly astute and experienced individuals with a gamut of immeasurable wisdom. Incumbent and aspiring C-suite executives and entrepreneurs to mention a few, all successful in their rights with uniquely strong personalities, they articulately vocalised their achievements and long-term goals. As the penultimate individual to speak and having listened to a trail of incomparable achievements, it suffices to say I was overwhelmed by a wave of impostor syndrome. I felt as though I was in the wrong room.
The reality is that we all feel a visceral feeling of discomfort any time we find ourselves in positions that appear to be outside our comfort zone. I have felt it many times before as I navigated both academic and professional life, yet I was still ill-prepared for the situation I found myself in last September. However, my interpretation of this feeling has since altered tremendously. I’ve learned to understand that at the very core of what it means to be human is to evolve, and if we’re to truly grow, then we are supposed to spend our lives in situations that make us feel like an impostor. Our inherent need for growth requires that we live our lives at least one step outside our comfort zone, and if we’re ever spending too long in a room or situation where we don’t feel to some degree like an impostor, then we’re perhaps in the wrong room.
Everyone that has ever done anything for the first time felt like an impostor, and I’ve come to understand that the feeling I felt nearly a year ago now wasn’t evidence that I was in the wrong room, if anything, it is clear proof that I walked into the right one as I have grown immeasurably as a person, and with growth also comes fulfilment.
Growth is an underpinning part of the human experience and we’re supposed to spend our entire lives doing things that contribute toward our growth, things that make us feel like an impostor. It is tangible evidence that we’re living a progress-full life where we’re trying new challenges that bring us into new encounters and stages of life. We should all feel impostor syndrome, if you’re not, then you’re probably playing it safe, and you should challenge yourself a bit more.
Remember - “Everything you want is just outside your comfort zone” - Robert G. Allen
Peace, Love and Light,
Opportunity Cost
4000 weeks, that is the approximate length of the average human life span. When put into such numerical context, it sounds somewhat frightening to comprehend the outrageous brevity of human life, but it also puts into perspective the criticality of its best use. However, the paradox of being human is that even though we are finite creatures, we are somehow counterintuitively and biologically wired to live as though we are infinite. We are finite in the amount of time we have here and finite in the amount of time we’re awake daily and able to do meaningful work or foster meaningful relationships. Even more perplexing is that we are finite in how much control we can exert over our limited time, that is - “nobody knows what can happen in the very next moment”. We are all fundamentally vulnerable to the event that we can exit this realm at any moment.
Interestingly, a lot of what we do and how behave as humans (primarily with regards to how we manage our time) is based on emotional avoidance. It is as though we are created with the inherent disposition to try to avoid confronting the fact of being perishable items with a finite amount of shelf-life. We avoid feeling our finitude. Our mortality prefers to ignore the fact that our lack of immortality is our most pressing concern. Instead, we continue to swim frantically against a current whose strength we can never match. While some may approach this realisation with fear or wanting to do everything humanly possible in their set time. Confronting and feeling our finitude is the precursor to doing extraordinary things with the time we’re given. Embracing and living the reality of our finitude frees us of the impossible quest of trying to fit into every construct and expectation of the world.
Every waking day, we are confronted with the salient anxiety of choosing what to give our precious time to, knowing that whatever we choose only gets done by forgoing other things we could potentially be doing. It means neglecting or sacrificing other competing priorities. Every great inventor or idealist that ever did anything previously thought unimaginable or impossible did so deliberately understanding that it came at the opportunity cost of sacrificing other things in pursuit of that which they deemed most important. However, it appears the average human doesn’t understand the concept of finality, hence we defer what ought to be important such as our happiness to the future (e.g I will be happy when….), validating a false and foolhardy assertiveness that we will live forever.
Everything we choose to invest our time in happens at the expense of other things that could occupy that time, and living in this harsh reality may help us choose wisely how we invest our precious time by focusing only on the pursuit of meaningful work and meaningful relationships. While the idea of “meaningful” is a complex language, everybody knows what “meaningful” means for them. For me it means being in the right place, doing what you ought to be doing and putting to good use your limited amount of time here on earth. It is very easy to get lost in a world without hard edges around it, one that doesn’t have boundaries and unfortunately, that sort of world is more alluring for most including myself hence I write about ideas I grapple with. Whatever you choose to do in each moment, endeavour to make it “meaningful”, knowing it comes at an opportunity cost.
Remember - “You are a perishable item, live accordingly” - Unknown
Peace, Love & Light,
Framework for a Good Life
One of, if not my favourite analogy of the journey of life is by Ray Dalio. He describes life as a river that carries us forward into encounters with reality that require us to make decisions. We can’t stop our movement down the current of this river and we can’t avoid those encounters. We can only approach both in the best possible way. Over the course of our lives, we have innumerable amounts of encounters that ultimately determine the quality of our lives and it pays to have a framework for navigating this journey and dealing with these encounters.
We all desire a good life or at least some semblance of what that means. As such, I thought to share a framework of six simple things I’ve learned and endeavour to practice daily (in no particular order) that are proven to contribute toward a good quality of life.
Create - We are created to create. Attempt to create something daily in line with your passion or hobby. This may be writing a few words for your yet to be published book, a section of a new business plan or simply a blog like this to inspire others. Whatever that means for you, “Create”.
Learn - Learning is a lifelong process that begins at birth and never ceases until death. Be it a new concept, an idea or simply a new word for your vocabulary, learn something new every day.
Move - When the body moves, the brain grooves. Dynamic movement is great for our physical and mental well-being. For some it is a long-distance run, for others it is simply a long walk. Whatever this means for you, “just Move”.
Connect - “How good will life be if living brings us together as death does?”. In the finite time we’re here and on this journey, endeavour to connect with loved ones. Please do not wait till they die to tell tales of how you felt about them.
Contribute - A life of meaning is that which pours into others. Whether it is sharing an inspirational text of this ilk, teaching something you’ve learned or volunteering your time, in the smallest of ways, endeavour to “contribute” to the life of others.
Appreciate - Have an attitude of gratitude. The more grateful you are, the more reasons you’ll have to be grateful. In all things, give thanks.
In this continuum called life, our focus ought not to be on grand gestures that define our meaning in life, but on the simple things that contribute to a life of meaning.
Remember - “The race of life is a marathon, not a sprint.” - Tony Robins
Peace, Love & Light,
Leave With Nothing
Recently, I’ve been increasingly fascinated by research on the correlation between money and happiness. Logically, intuition suggests that money and the opportunities it affords play an important role in happiness. Undoubtedly, access to wealth can provide access to enjoyable experiences, material possessions and increased security. However, Psychologists often cite empirical evidence showing an exiguous relationship between wealth and happiness, and conclude that money is unimportant for happiness. In fact, they argue that beyond a certain amount of money, it doesn't make one’s life any better. While this is open to debate and certainly not the underpinning message of this write-up, it serves as a preamble to the main message.
It is no news that in modern society, we are beguiled into trading our time for money. A huge amount of us live in the paradigm where we have to trade our time by way of work in order to earn money which in turn affords us material needs and wants. While this is norm for most people, the trap is that we are seduced into undertaking more work so as to afford more material things. As such, the opportunity cost is that we forgo the very essence of living by being too busy earning.
Once we become accustomed to earning money, we often lose sight of the fact that money itself isn’t the be-all and end-all of human existence. Instead, the very essence of life is to accumulate meaningful experiences. In an ideal world, we’d simply trade our life energy for meaningful experiences. However, the harsh reality is that we must first make money in order to survive, and then enjoy the aforementioned experiences. As a result, we must exchange our life energy (in the form of work) for money, creating the ideal process flow of Life Energy → Work → Money → Access to Fulfilling Experiences. However, most of us tend to omit the final part. Like the proverbial Ant, we spend more time labouring/gathering, and very little time enjoying our fruits of labour before we age or die.
Bill Perkins highlights this point in his book Die with Zero. He argues that the minute we attain financial security, our focus must be on quality of life, not our bank balance. The book is premised on the idea that we should aim to have zero balance in our bank account, ‘give or take’, by the time we die. Anything more than that might mean one has lived sub-optimally. It infers that any money that we haven’t converted into fulfilling experiences (or given away) by the time we die represents wasted life energy. Furthermore, it stresses that expending one’s life energy on making more money when one is financially secure makes zero sense.
Most people might object to this and understandably so, particularly when it comes to leaving behind inheritance for one’s children. However, a school of thought also argues that - “if you raise your child to be useless why give them money; if you raise your child to be useful why do they need money”. Better yet, it is perhaps sensible to discard the age-old tradition of donating money to our children whilst on our deathbeds. A windfall of money is helpful, but with the average age of inheritance being 60, a windfall begins to question its own usefulness at such age. So give your children money while you’re still alive and able to them channel it towards an impactful life for themselves. The same goes for charity - there is so much inequality in the world at present, so engage in more charitable things while you’re still here and able to make an impact on the lives of others.
Remember - “For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it” - 1 Timothy 6:7
Peace, Love and Light,
Automaticity
Various scientific studies have shown that somewhere between 40-50% of what we do everyday are products of habits we’ve cultivated over time. While this percentage might appear on the high side, take some time to consider how many things you do everyday on autopilot. From brushing your teeth while scrolling through your phone at predictable intervals to dressing up in a particular order, lacing-up your shoes, driving the same route to work, navigating the aisles of your favourite supermarket, the list goes on. This is of course essential to how we navigate everyday life, you can imagine how exhausting it’ll be to have to logically think about every single action you take. However, if the aforementioned statistic is anything to go by, it infers that half of our lives is lived in autopilot, a terminology scientists refer to as “automaticity”.
Small simple steps done repetitiously lead to habits and our habits are at the core of who we are. Without ‘habit loops’, our brains will be inundated with every infinitesimal detail of daily life. James Clear, author of the book ‘Atomic Habits’ says, “The habits you repeat (or don’t repeat) everyday largely determine your health, wealth, and happiness. Knowing how habits are formed and how to change them gives us an agentic shift (the switch between the autonomaticity and agentic state) on how to confidently own and manage our life. More importantly, it helps us focus on behaviours that have the highest impact on our lives, and serves as an enabler for reverse-engineering the life we want.
James Clear identifies habit loops as having four components: a cue, a craving, a response, and a reward. He uses an example of tuning on a light whenever you enter a dark room. The cue is - walking into a room and realising it’s dark. The craving is - feeling it will be easier to navigate the room if it were not to be dark. The response is - to flick on the light switch, and the reward is - a room that is lit and easily navigable.
This process is exactly the same for all habits we create - good or bad, and creating habits to automate essential parts of our lives is a fundamental streamlining technique we do largely unconsciously, often to our benefit, but also sometimes to our detriment. Of noteworthiness is the fact that it is much easier to start new habits than it is to end old habits.
As we approach that time of the year when we begin to reflect and analyse how this year has gone, particularly areas we may have underperformed, in an attempt to make new resolutions that’ll propel us forward in the coming year, ‘awareness’ and the ‘knowhow’ to actualise these resolutions is a superpower to have. Use the habit loop to consciously reclaim your agency.
Remember - “you don't eliminate a bad habit, you simply substitute it with a good one” - James Clear
Peace, Love & Light,
Competitors and Achievers
Casting my mind as far back as I can remember, my dad has always referred to me as “the achiever”. I never probed him for the meaning behind the moniker, and merely took it as a compliment for excelling at something worthy of his acknowledgment which ranged from delivering on tasks he set me to some of my academic prowess. Of noteworthiness in my recollections are those words being accompanied by his infectious laughter which spurred me to do more things that made him proud and happy.
Unlike my dad, I was never great at any sport. Although I attempted nearly every sport under the sun, perhaps in a desperate attempt to be like him, my inability to compete at an elite level, coupled with my anathema for losing made my interest for competing wane very quickly. I soon realised that I very much enjoyed being in my own lane, focused on what was achievable and within my capabilities.
However, living in a highly competitive and hierarchical world where social climbing seems the order of the day in both our societal and professional spheres, we’re constantly confronted with the conundrum - are we competing or are we achieving?
Recently, I learned that there are two types of people, Competitors and Achievers. Achievers wake up with their own to-do list which comprises of things they want to do by the end of a certain day or a period of time. They are focused on getting those things done, all of which is very much within their own swim lane. Conversely, competitors are looking to people in the other swim lanes wanting to beat them.
This ideology might sound a tough sell, particularly in an age where we’re seduced by the allure that comes with climbing up the fictitious social ladder, or excelling in different spheres of life which subconsciously moulds us into more competitive creatures. However, it is equally important to be mindful of the potential toxicity competition breeds, and how it encourages judging one’s self by other people’s standards as opposed to our individual capabilities.
As I’ve come to understand the dichotomy between both, I’ve found it far easier to embrace not being a competitor. The world needs more achievers and less competition, and the achiever in me is laser focused on raising the bar for myself, on areas I’m gifted in, and particularly on things I’m able to accomplish.
Similarly, my charge to you is to embrace yourself and remain authentic. Align with your core values and stay in your own lane. There is no competition, only your potential to be the best version of you.
Remember - “The only one you should compare yourself to is you. Your mission is to become better today than you were yesterday.” - John C. Maxwell
Peace, Love & Light,