Destiny

Gandhi, Kale, Your Beliefs and a Donut ~ Just Another Tuesday

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Your beliefs become your thoughts

Your thoughts become your words

Your words become your actions

Your actions become your habits

Your habits become your values

Your values become your destiny


I think Mahatma Gandhi said this…or Oprah. I can’t keep them straight.

That’s big stuff right there. A big concept.

Because most of us, most of the time, myself included, think that all of those things, those actions, words, habits, thoughts—are all separate—disconnected. That they have nothing whatsoever to do with one another.

Wrongo Bongo! We could not be more stupid, misguided, delusional, misinformed, naive, forgetful.

You know this stuff.

I know this stuff.

My freakin’ dog knows this stuff.

So, just a gentle reminder to be mindful of your beliefs, thoughts, words, actions, habits and values because they are all coalescing to form your destiny.

If you’re sloppy about it like I can get from time to time, you can say and think that you’re eating kale, but the kale is really donuts, and your belief in the destructive power of warm, yeasty goodness is too powerful to overrule the word kale, and just like that—the donuts I ate this weekend goes straight to my ass. So…

Not sure of what you’re creating? Look around at your life. It’s a big clue. HUGE.

You like what you see? Fantastic! Keep doing what you’re doing.

Not so thrilled with the lump of a chump on the couch? Even better! Because ALL of those things, those thoughts, words, blah, blah, blah—can be changed.
By you.
Right this minute.
Or after you finish your donut. Isn’t that worth knowing?!

Wait. I think we just created a new belief. Let’s run with it! (Put down the scissors first).

Carry on,
xox

I’m Scared Shitless, ALL THE TIME!

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So, you guys, in the past 36 hours, three of my squad, my spiritual tribunal — Liz Gilbert, Danielle LaPorte, and Marie Forleo, the ladies who I look to to give it to me straight — they ALL wrote or talked about looking fear in the eye, saying “fuck it” — and then moving forward.

This feels timely and comforting right now, seeing that most everything I’m doing scares the living daylights out of me. And if I let myself think, for even one second, how this, this preposterously audacious life of mine is going to work itself out, I will faint, or vomit, or both.

How about you? What scares you? Are you running toward it?
Or away from it?
Or Both? That’s crazy, stop doing that!

Can there BE a better message for a Thursday? Or any day for that matter?
Listen, I know you’re busy so, you can be satisfied with Danielle’s truth bomb, read some Liz or watch Marie. Your choice.

Carry on through the fear you guys, (Like Lizzie into the fire, *wink).
xox

Take it away Liz!


Question of the day: DO YOU ALREADY KNOW WHAT YOU NEED TO DO?

Dear Ones –
Here I was yesterday in the South Island of New Zealand, where I am visiting my beautiful cousin Melissa. You can’t really see Melissa in this photo (she is the tiny figure on the right) but trust me: She’s here.

Why is Melissa here?

Because four years ago, my cousin quit her good steady job (during a recession, no less!) and left behind her safe and familiar life in her small Midwestern hometown, and moved HERE, to begin a new life, starting from nothing, at the wild ends of the earth.

My cousin didn’t know anyone in this entire hemisphere. She had never before traveled. She feared she was “too old” to change her life. She had always been risk-averse, and the thought of moving across the world was terrifying. But she had been stuck for too long. She was suffocating in her day-to-day existence. She couldn’t take it anymore. She was tired of faking happiness.

Then she realized: “If I don’t face my fears, I will never grow.”

So she did it. She followed some deep, irrational, inner instinct that led her right to this place. She planned to stay in New Zealand for only four months…but she has now stayed for four years. And holy shit, has she grown. She sees this wild ocean every day. She has bungee’d off cliffs, and climbed glaciers, and repelled down mountains, and bought a house, and started a business, and — most amazingly of all — she has conquered her fear of public speaking!
(And oh yeah…she also met and married the love of her life here.)

As Melissa told me today: “I wish I had changed my life earlier, but I didn’t have the courage. I always knew what I needed to do, but for years it made me sick with fear to imagine actually doing it.”
This observation made me think of all the times in my life when I was stuck, and also knew exactly what I needed to do — but I might have put it off for years, because I, too, was sick with fear about actually doing it.

In fact, it made me wonder if maybe we all have some deep inner instinct about our true destiny — about what we need to do next, at every turn — but our fear and insecurity and self-doubt sometimes makes us put it off for years. Or forever.

I do believe that every single time in my life I have ever said in desperation, “I don’t know what I should do!” — in fact, I DID know what I needed to do. I was just too afraid to do it.

And then one day, you’ve had enough.
And then one day — you just freaking go do it.
And that’s the day when the best part of your life actually begins.
ONWARD,
LG

If you need more convincing, take a look at this!

My Own Personal “Field of Dreams”

Ray: I’m thirty-six years old, I love my family, I love baseball, and I’m about to become a farmer. And until I heard the Voice, I’d never done a crazy thing in my whole life.

Voice: If you build it, he will come.
~from the movie Field of Dreams


I’m baaaackkkkk! And I missed YOU!

I went away to devote a block of time to the screenplay I’ve been enlisted to write.
The one about death and life thereafter.

The comedy —the buddy picture—my own person Field of Dreams complete with a cryptic voice and characters who are invited to participate in this magical fairy tale I’ve been fortunate enough to be gifted with writing.

I haven’t always felt that way.

At first, it was so (insert baseball pun here), out of left field, that my inner skeptic was pooping her pants. I have a nose finely tuned for bullshit and this entire endeavor reeked of it.

But after a while, after a ton of questioning and “prove it to me’s” I plowed under my corn and built my field just as I’d been directed. I started writing a screenplay (which I had no interest in doing and absolutely NO experience at), that was dictated to me by my pal, the dead screenwriter.

And you know what happened? The more I got out of the way—the better it got. So much so that now, when I read it to people, ( even people I’ve just met  like the women at the retreat last week), THEY SEE THE PLAYERS ON THE FIELD. In other words, they believe in the magic and that never ceases to amaze me.

I remember loving Field of Dreams when it came out. Who doesn’t want to believe that there’s more to life than the mundane and ordinary? What Ray did seemed crazy but his courage (disguised as wavering conviction), wins everyone over in the end—even me.

I know. It’s a movie. But crazy as it sounds it’s also become a template for my life.

All ideas start as crazy fantasies. They do. Every. Single. One. of  Them.

They come out of nowhere, bite you on the ass, and invite you to come along for the ride.
What do YOU do when that happens? Do you up the volume on the radio (get caught up in life), to drown out the voices (ideas), or do you plow under the corn (take some risks), and build the field for the players to come and play (give your ideas life)?

I used to ignore the Voice. For years, I turned my back to the players on the field. But what kind of life is that?

When magic presents itself—I say, make the leap.
Not everyone will see the players on the field but that’s okay, those that do far outweigh the ones who cannot.

Plus, Magic can’t be contained. It bleeds into all other aspects of your life and that does NOT suck. I promise.

I’ve gotta go now, it’s the second inning and I’m up at bat.

Play ball!
xox


John Kinsella: Is this heaven?

Ray Kinsella: It’s Iowa.

John Kinsella: Iowa? I could have sworn this was heaven.
[starts to walk away]

Ray Kinsella: Is there a heaven?

John Kinsella: Oh yeah. It’s the place where dreams come true.

[Ray looks around, seeing his wife playing with their daughter on the porch] Ray Kinsella: Maybe this is heaven.

~Dialogue from the movie FIELD OF DREAMS

One Whopper Of A “What The Hell Wednesday”

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A famous photo of Picasso and his Muse

SUPERFLUOUS
su·per·flu·ous
so͞oˈpərflo͞oəs/
adjective
unnecessary, especially through being more than enough.

synonyms: surplus, nonessential, redundant, unneeded, excess, extra,

As you all may or may not know, I am an intuitive writer, meaning: I sit in stillness and basically say to the great cosmic soup of writers that reside in the ethers, “What do you want to write today?”

After almost three years of supplying content for this blog just about EVERYDAY—I—the me that thinks she’s a writer, would have run dry of ideas a LONG time ago!

So I’m smart. I outsource my material to those that are wiser, braver and funnier than I could ever hope to be.

My Muses.

These experts literally mine my brain for life experiences and then craft a story around them utilizing my language skills, which as you know, means raw and real with plenty of f-bombs.

I don’t flatter myself to think that this is a new story specific to me.

Muses have been around since time immemorial, and I know that all of the great art and music, literature and any role that Meryl Streep has inhabited, has come into the world this way. Some of us middle-men (receivers) are just more aware of the process than others.

So that being said, I have been told lately by one Muse in particular, that my blog is superfluous. Okay…

By not knowing the exact meaning of the word I took it to mean insignificant, and THAT hurt my feelings.

How could that be so if they are the ones writing everyday?

Well, because they have moved me to explore other intuitive pursuits. I’ll get to those in a minute.

And because superfluous doesn’t mean that at all.

It means unnecessary because it’s more than enough, redundant, extra—NOT insignificant at all.
Note to self: Janet, next time grab a dictionary before you get upset, and remember—muses always pick the perfect word. Every single time. It’s uncanny.

Still I was confused.

You see, I thought my future would revolve around this blog.
A book, maybe three. Spoken word events with me telling the stories found here.
I have become so intertwined with this blog that I don’t know where it ends and my true self begins. The essence of my Muses has integrated to the point that they are me—and I am them.

What that means is that I am either mentally ill, (the jury is still out) or just a fucking great conduit (I vote for the latter).

“We bamboozled you” chortled the most prominent Muse recently while I was out on my walk. She is a recent addition. An overachieving, comedic, bossy pants who has hijacked…well, everything.

As you know, my walks often prompt conversations and ideas, even arguments between my Muses and me. “Oh you did, did you?” I responded, silently of course.

“We got to you through the writing, you were open and eager enough to accept us coming through that way”.

She was right. I had been fighting the process of accepting the involvement of disembodied, outside forces since the early nineties when they had first made themselves known to me.
Back then it scared the shit out of me.
Me? A channel? No fucking way!

Twenty years later they got smart. “We’ll tell her we’re Muses,” they conspired.

A writer with a Muse? Sure! okay! I can do that. And off I went, full speed ahead into the blogosphere.

Bamboozelment achieved.

That was 2012 and ever since then I have sat my ass in the chair every day and waited for them. And they always show up.

Here’s where it gets interesting.

Once you become an open conduit like that, it gets easier and easier for their thoughts to come through.
And not just when I’m in the chair. No, they chat away while I’m driving, in the shower, on my walks, going to sleep, waking up, even while I’m cooking.

There is a cacophony of—not really voices—but thoughts and opinions going through my head that I know are not my own. The difference is subtle, but I have been doing it long enough that I can differentiate who is who.

Sorry, I promised interesting and I can feel myself beating around the bush so here goes: People that have passed on, dead people, now talk to their loved ones (usually someone I know) through me. It’s really quite beautiful, not creepy in the least. The conversations, and they ARE conversations, are so filled with love and interesting, private information that they’ve even made the most skeptical among us—ME—a believer!

Also, in the last six months I have been introduced to the most brilliant, witty and profoundly deceased famous writer, who has captivated my imagination and bamboozled me into believing that my blog is superfluous and that our story, the story of the collaboration between she and I, which is mystical, and magical and hysterical—is my future.

That will be my book. That is the life that has chosen me.

She has been gracious enough to help write the dialogue for my musical, (that’s how she sucked up and gained my trust), she writes the best of my blog posts, and most recently she has been teaching me to write the screenplay of our relationship.

I don’t feel comfortable disclosing who it is yet. I’m sure I will sooner or later…Baby steps.

All this to say: The greatest impression she has made on me so far has been her sheer exuberance at being dead. She had NO idea it was so…interesting…and full of potential.

The fact that she continues to remain bossy, funny and highly opinionated; that she still gets to write via our collaboration, that she is able to focus on her loved ones, and reach out to people—has blown her mind—and subsequently, my own.

“Death has gotten such a bad rap” she reiterates over and over again laughing her wonderful laugh.

Don’t you love knowing that?

What a wild journey this life is, and I’m just beginning to see the purpose of it all.

Hope I didn’t freak you out too much, Carry on,
xox

We Get More Than Just One Thing To Love

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I’m convinced that one of the main differences between an optimist and someone who walks around with a black cloud over their head without an umbrella; and horribly mis-matched shoes is this:

They believe, as I do, that we get more than just one thing to love

Ask anyone with multiple marriages under their belt if there is only one soul mate per lifetime. (don’t ask mid divorce).

The answer is no.

Optimist. Faithful to the belief that if your true love ship has sailed, just stand at the dock, another will come along.

I’ve loved several men in my life, each relationship was equally powerful but drastically different, and at the time, in the moment, I was convinced they were my one-and-only soul mate — the connection was that intense.

I loved some with only my head; a few exclusively with the region below my waist; but only a couple with all my heart, and they were spaced decades apart.
Thank God I had optimistically stood on that dock waiting, albeit impatiently, for another ship to come in. If I hadn’t, the loss would have been profound.

We get more than just one thing to love.

I found comfort in that because I often got distracted by my phone or the lady with one pink roller in her hair, and I worried that I’d miss my golden opportunities as they passed me by.
Now I know better.

But only because I’m older and wiser (ha) and because I know that as we change and grow, preferences shift and we start to want something different, something…more.

Thank God those ships kept coming — When situations ended I stood waiting for a virtual fleet of ships to come into port — I think I saw you there, (I could tell it was you even with the hat and sunglasses.)

And they always come.

Guaranteed.

This applies to careers as well.
By the time you get to be my age, (our age) you’ve worn many hats so to speak.

I loved working at the Antique Mall, I adored acting and singing, I loved being a jeweler, I LOVED my store, and when that ended I loitered long enough on the dock that writing found me— and it may be the all time love of my life.

We get more than just one thing to love.

I used to LOVE playing jacks as a kid, probably because I was inexplicably good at it, (good eye/hand coordination, that’s all) then I LOVED Barbie’s and Monopoly.

One summer as a fifteen year old I LOVED riding my bike up and down the hills the ten miles to the beach and back everyday. (now just the thought make me want to puke).

I had a friend who LOVED to ice skate, you could find her at the rink every morning, six days a week at 5:30 a.m. She was obsessed. Soon she became so good she started to compete.

I’m not exactly sure what happened, an awkward growth spurt or becoming boy crazy, but one summer she lost interest and all that changed, and by the fall she LOVED horses and started training and competing in dressage.
Now she owns a successful interior design business. Go figure.

Obviously she spent a lot of time on that dock, catching one ship and then the next, and the next, LOVING each one that came along.

We get more than just one thing to love.

More than one great love,

More than one fantastic hobby,

More than one way to wear our hair that makes us look the way we envision ourselves,

More than one goal in life, or purpose, or destiny (yes, I said destiny)

More than one thing that we are better at than anybody else,

More than one chance…

We get more than just one thing to love.

Marinate in the thought of that all weekend,

Bon Voyage! and Carry on,
xox

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Mark Manson On Life Purpose

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* Happy Saturday Loves!
My sister sent this to me and…I LOVED IT, and I had to share it with you! And I soooo needed to hear it!
I think Mark may be my much cooler brother-from-another-mother.
Enjoy!
xoxJanet

“One day, when my brother was 18, he waltzed into the living room and proudly announced to my mother and me that one day he was going to be a senator. My mom probably gave him the “That’s nice, dear,” treatment while I’m sure I was distracted by a bowl of Cheerios or something.

But for fifteen years, this purpose informed all of my brother’s life decisions: what he studied in school, where he chose to live, who he connected with and even what he did with many of his vacations and weekends.

And now, after almost half a lifetime of work later, he’s the chairman of a major political party in his city and the youngest judge in the state. In the next few years, he hopes to run for office for the first time.

Don’t get me wrong. My brother is a freak. This basically never happens.

Most of us have no clue what we want to do with our lives. Even after we finish school. Even after we get a job. Even after we’re making money. Between ages 18 and 25, I changed career aspirations more often than I changed my underwear. And even after I had a business, it wasn’t until I was 28 that I clearly defined what I wanted for my life.

Chances are you’re more like me and have no clue what you want to do. It’s a struggle almost every adult goes through. “What do I want to do with my life?” “What am I passionate about?” “What do I not suck at?” I often receive emails from people in their 40s and 50s who still have no clue what they want to do with themselves.

Part of the problem is the concept of “life purpose” itself. The idea that we were each born for some higher purpose and it’s now our cosmic mission to find it. This is the same kind of shitty logic used to justify things like spirit crystals or that your lucky number is 34 (but only on Tuesdays or during full moons).

Here’s the truth. We exist on this earth for some undetermined period of time. During that time we do things. Some of these things are important. Some of them are unimportant. And those important things give our lives meaning and happiness. The unimportant ones basically just kill time.

So when people say, “What should I do with my life?” or “What is my life purpose?” what they’re actually asking is: “What can I do with my time that is important?”

This is an infinitely better question to ask. It’s far more manageable and it doesn’t have all of the ridiculous baggage that the “life purpose” question does. There’s no reason for you to be contemplating the cosmic significance of your life while sitting on your couch all day eating Doritos. Rather, you should be getting off your ass and discovering what feels important to you.

One of the most common email questions I get is people asking me what they should do with their lives, what their “life purpose” is. This is an impossible question for me to answer. After all, for all I know, this person is really into knitting sweaters for kittens or filming gay bondage porn in their basement. I have no clue. Who am I to say what’s right or what’s important to them?

But after some research, I have put together a series of questions to help you figure out for yourself what is important to you and what can add more meaning to your life.

These questions are by no means exhaustive or definitive. In fact, they’re a little bit ridiculous. But I made them that way because discovering purpose in our lives should be something that’s fun and interesting, not a chore.

  1. WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE FLAVOR OF SHIT SANDWICH AND DOES IT COME WITH AN OLIVE?

Ah, yes. The all-important question. What flavor of shit sandwich would you like to eat? Because here’s the sticky little truth about life that they don’t tell you at high school pep rallies:

Everything sucks, some of the time.

Now, that probably sounds incredibly pessimistic of me. And you may be thinking, “Hey Mr. Manson, turn that frown upside down.” But I actually think this is a liberating idea.

Everything involves sacrifice. Everything includes some sort of cost. Nothing is pleasurable or uplifting all of the time. So the question becomes: what struggle or sacrifice are you willing to tolerate? Ultimately, what determines our ability to stick with something we care about is our ability to handle the rough patches and ride out the inevitable rotten days.

If you want to be a brilliant tech entrepreneur, but you can’t handle failure, then you’re not going to make it far. If you want to be a professional artist, but you aren’t willing to see your work rejected hundreds, if not thousands of times, then you’re done before you start. If you want to be a hotshot court lawyer, but can’t stand the 80-hour workweeks, then I’ve got bad news for you.

turd-sandwichWhat unpleasant experiences are you able to handle? Are you able to stay up all night coding? Are you able to put off starting a family for 10 years? Are you able to have people laugh you off the stage over and over again until you get it right?

What shit sandwich do you want to eat? Because we all get served one eventually.

Might as well pick one with an olive.

  1. WHAT IS TRUE ABOUT YOU TODAY THAT WOULD MAKE YOUR 8-YEAR-OLD SELF CRY?

When I was a child, I used to write stories. I used to sit in my room for hours by myself, writing away, about aliens, about superheroes, about great warriors, about my friends and family. Not because I wanted anyone to read it. Not because I wanted to impress my parents or teachers. But for the sheer joy of it.

And then, for some reason, I stopped. And I don’t remember why.

We all have a tendency to lose touch with what we loved as a child. Something about the social pressures of adolescence and professional pressures of young adulthood squeezes the passion out of us. We’re taught that the only reason to do something is if we’re somehow rewarded for it.

It wasn’t until I was in my mid-20s that I rediscovered how much I loved writing. And it wasn’t until I started my business that I remembered how much I enjoyed building websites — something I did in my early teens, just for fun.

The funny thing though, is that if my 8-year-old self had asked my 20-year-old self, “Why don’t you write anymore?” and I replied, “Because I’m not good at it,” or “Because nobody would read what I write,” or “Because you can’t make money doing that,” not only would I have been completely wrong, but that 8-year-old boy version of myself would have probably started crying.

  1. WHAT MAKES YOU FORGET TO EAT AND POOP?

We’ve all had that experience where we get so wrapped up in something that minutes turn into hours and hours turn into “Holy crap, I forgot to have dinner.”

Supposedly, in his prime, Isaac Newton’s mother had to regularly come in and remind him to eat because he would go entire days so absorbed in his work that he would forget.

I used to be like that with video games. This probably wasn’t a good thing. In fact, for many years it was kind of a problem. I would sit and play video games instead of doing more important things like studying for an exam, or showering regularly, or speaking to other humans face-to-face.

It wasn’t until I gave up the games that I realized my passion wasn’t for the games themselves (although I do love them). My passion is for improvement, being good at something and then trying to get better. The games themselves — the graphics, the stories — they were cool, but I can easily live without them. It’s the competition — with others, but especially with myself — that I thrive on.

And when I applied that obsessiveness for improvement and self-competition to an internet business and to my writing, well, things took off in a big way.

Maybe for you, it’s something else. Maybe it’s organizing things efficiently, or getting lost in a fantasy world, or teaching somebody something, or solving technical problems. Whatever it is, don’t just look at the activities that keep you up all night, but look at the cognitive principles behind those activities that enthrall you. Because they can easily be applied elsewhere.

  1. HOW CAN YOU BETTER EMBARRASS YOURSELF?

Before you are able to be good at something and do something important, you must first suck at something and have no clue what you’re doing. That’s pretty obvious. And in order to suck at something and have no clue what you’re doing, you must embarrass yourself in some shape or form, often repeatedly. And most people try to avoid embarrassing themselves, namely because it sucks.

Ergo, due to the transitive property of awesomeness, if you avoid anything that could potentially embarrass you, then you will never end up doing something that feels important.

Yes, it seems that once again, it all comes back to vulnerability.

Right now, there’s something you want to do, something you think about doing, something you fantasize about doing, yet you don’t do it. You have your reasons, no doubt. And you repeat these reasons to yourself ad infinitum.

But what are those reasons? Because I can tell you right now that if those reasons are based on what others would think, then you’re screwing yourself over big time.

If your reasons are something like, “I can’t start a business because spending time with my kids is more important to me,” or “Playing Starcraft all day would probably interfere with my music, and music is more important to me,” then OK. Sounds good.

But if your reasons are, “My parents would hate it,” or “My friends would make fun of me,” or “If I failed, I’d look like an idiot,” then chances are, you’re actually avoiding something you truly care about because caring about that thing is what scares the shit out of you, not what mom thinks or what Timmy next door says.

Living a life avoiding embarrassment is akin to living a life with your head in the sand.

Great things are, by their very nature, unique and unconventional. Therefore, to achieve them, we must go against the herd mentality. And to do that is scary.

Embrace embarrassment. Feeling foolish is part of the path to achieving something important, something meaningful. The more a major life decision scares you, chances are the more you need to be doing it.

  1. HOW ARE YOU GOING TO SAVE THE WORLD?

In case you haven’t seen the news lately, the world has a few problems. And by “a few problems,” what I really mean is, “everything is fucked and we’re all going to die.”

I’ve harped on this before, and the research also bears it out, but to live a happy and healthy life, we must hold on to values that are greater than our own pleasure or satisfaction.1

So pick a problem and start saving the world. There are plenty to choose from. Our screwed up education systems, economic development, domestic violence, mental health care, governmental corruption. Hell, I just saw an article this morning on sex trafficking in the US and it got me all riled up and wishing I could do something. It also ruined my breakfast.

Find a problem you care about and start solving it. Obviously, you’re not going to fix the world’s problems by yourself. But you can contribute and make a difference. And that feeling of making a difference is ultimately what’s most important for your own happiness and fulfillment.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Gee Mark, I read all of this horrible stuff and I get all pissed off too, but that doesn’t translate to action, much less a new career path.”

Glad you asked…

  1. GUN TO YOUR HEAD, IF YOU HAD TO LEAVE THE HOUSE ALL DAY, EVERY DAY, WHERE WOULD YOU GO AND WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

For many of us, the enemy is just old-fashioned complacency. We get into our routines. We distract ourselves. The couch is comfortable. The Doritos are cheesy. And nothing new happens.

This is a problem.

What most people don’t understand is that passion is the result of action, not the cause of it.

Discovering what you’re passionate about in life and what matters to you is a full-contact sport, a trial-and-error process. None of us know exactly how we feel about an activity until we actually do the activity.

So ask yourself, if someone put a gun to your head and forced you to leave your house every day for everything except for sleep, how would you choose to occupy yourself? And no, you can’t just go sit in a coffee shop and browse Facebook. You probably already do that. Let’s pretend there are no useless websites, no video games, no TV. You have to be outside of the house all day every day until it’s time to go to bed — where would you go and what would you do?

Sign up for a dance class? Join a book club? Go get another degree? Invent a new form of irrigation system that can save the thousands of children’s lives in rural Africa? Learn to hang glide?

What would you do with all of that time?

If it strikes your fancy, write down a few answers and then, you know, go out and actually do them. Bonus points if it involves embarrassing yourself.

  1. IF YOU KNEW YOU WERE GOING TO DIE ONE YEAR FROM TODAY, WHAT WOULD YOU DO AND HOW WOULD YOU WANT TO BE REMEMBERED?

Most of us don’t like thinking about death. It freaks us out. But thinking about our own death surprisingly has a lot of practical advantages. One of those advantages is that it forces us to zero in on what’s actually important in our lives and what’s just frivolous and distracting.

When I was in college, I used to walk around and ask people, “If you had a year to live, what would you do?” As you can imagine, I was a huge hit at parties. A lot of people gave vague and boring answers. A few drinks were nearly spit on me. But it did cause people to really think about their lives in a different way and re-evaluate what their priorities were.

What is your legacy going to be? What are the stories people are going to tell when you’re gone? What is your obituary going to say? Is there anything to say at all? If not, what would you like it to say? How can you start working towards that today?

And again, if you fantasize about your obituary saying a bunch of badass shit that impresses a bunch of random other people, then again, you’re failing here.

When people feel like they have no sense of direction, no purpose in their life, it’s because they don’t know what’s important to them, they don’t know what their values are.

And when you don’t know what your values are, then you’re essentially taking on other people’s values and living other people’s priorities instead of your own. This is a one-way ticket to unhealthy relationships and eventual misery.

Discovering one’s “purpose” in life essentially boils down to finding those one or two things that are bigger than yourself, and bigger than those around you. And to find them you must get off your couch and act, and take the time to think beyond yourself, to think greater than yourself, and paradoxically, to imagine a world without yourself.”

Footnotes:
Sagiv, L., & Schwartz, S. H. (2000). Value priorities and subjective well-being: direct relations and congruity effects. European Journal of Social Psychology, 30(2), 177–198.
Wrzesniewski, A., McCauley, C., Rozin, P., & Schwartz, B. (1997). Jobs, careers, and callings: People’s relations to their work. Journal of Research in Personality, 31(1), 21–33.
Newport, C. (2012). So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love. Business Plus.

http://markmanson.net

Throwback Thursday – Tall Hooded Guy Blew My Mind

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Half of me was wondering: Am I awake? But the other half KNEW it was a dream.

It was vivid and lucid. I could smell the dankness that hung in the air.
I could feel the powered sugar softness of the dirt under my bare feet.
I had entered a cave of some kind.

My hands ran along the cool, damp, uneven walls as I slowly made my way, back, back, back inside, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness.

There he stood, at the end of this narrow, winding,descent; a very tall figure in a black hooded robe.

I stopped. And stared. ‘I hope this is a dream, or I’m screwed.’

He put out his hands in a friendly way, beckoning me forward.
I walked toward him slowly.
Show me your face” I said.
In time” I heard back.

He started talking to me, telling me this and that about my life at the time. I just stood there, listening intently.

I was 26 years old, freshly divorced and in a new, rambunctious, highly sexualized relationship with a twenty year old boy/man who had saved me from having to think seriously about my future; and then after a summer of love, had left for college.
Deep down I knew what that meant, I was almost twenty seven after all, but I wore denial like an ivory cashmere shawl. It was cozy, and it made me happy.

This relationship you’re in, is going to end.” he said after lulling me into complacency.
Nooooooooo” I whined, not wanting to face the truth.
“That is not the direction your life must go. He is not your destiny.
My heart literally hurt in my chest. “But we’re so happy.”
I swear he said, “Not for long.”

Asshole.

I put my head in my hands and started to cry.
There was so much misplaced sadness there inside me, so many tears I hadn’t given myself the time to cry. I had run away from a seven year marriage without missing a step. I hadn’t looked back, I’d only felt a combination of freedom and elation. I had never shed one tear.
Yet, having to leave the arms of this young lover, who felt so misguidedly right, hurt like hell, and I sobbed like a blubbering, sex crazed idiot.
Tall hooded guy stepped forward and enveloped me in a full body embrace. I barely came up to his neck.

When he did that, it unleashed a torrent of sights and sounds that my brain was having a hard time keeping up with.
I suddenly had ALL KNOWLEDGE. 
Past, present, future.
My life. ALL life.
Earth, our galaxy, the Universe and beyond.
I knew the answer to every question that had ever been asked…and some that hadn’t been asked…yet.
It was all so simple. ‘Why did we make things so difficult?’ I remember thinking in a blurrrrrrr.
I knew the cure for cancer, the end of hunger and I saw lasting peace.
War seemed barbaric, as a matter of fact, so did humanity.
The twentieth century felt like the movie Braveheart, inside those arms.

He was right, I had strayed off destiny’s path. This dalliance had to end, and I had to start going inside to look for love.

It was over in a second. He dropped his arms and the rush subsided.
I came back to my present. To the cave, with this man.
I had no words.
He turned and started to walk away, his work here was done.

He’d broken my heart and then sent me on an amazing journey to explain why he’d come.
Turn around, show me your face!” I yelled. I was smad (combination of sad and mad)
He was far away, I could barely hear him now, “In time” he said, never turning around.

I woke up to a bright, hot summer morning in my shitty apartment, feeling such gratitude. The phone next to me was ringing.
“Thank God, that was just a dream.” I chanted over and over in my head, still processing my “know everything” moment, as I rolled over to pick up the receiver.
Hey” my beloved’s sleepy voice said on the other end, “we have to talk.”

My heart sank as tears immediately filled my eyes. They’d been waiting there for a long time.

I knew what was coming next. No more fucking around. 
Somtimetimes, before a big life shakeup, the Universe gives you a head’s up, This was mine.
It was time to start living my destiny.

Xox

Hi, I’m Janet

Mentor. Pirate. Dropper of F-bombs.

This is where I write about my version of life. My stories. Told in my own words.

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