Life leaves me stranded in the gossamer of belief

Beliefs are just guesses based on incomplete evidence.

They’re thoughts we’re in the habit of thinking. Things we actively keep reindoctrinating ourselves with.

That’s why the opposite of belief isn’t disbelief, it’s experience.

Because no matter how skillfully we construct our precious little mythologies to help us deal with the unknowable, eventually life takes the wind out of us and reality comes crashing in.

Can you think of memorable moments in life when your belief system failed you? When you thought something was perfectly blank and white, until a complicated new world showed little interest in such binary concepts?

My marriage counselor comes to mind. She had me build out a matrix of every romantic partner from my life, asking two sets of comparative questions for each relationship.

Section one included this:

What rules were you navigating by at the beginning, aka, what did you think love was? How did those rules shift by the end, aka, what did you find love to be?

Section two included this:

What are the lingering unanswered questions? What parts did you fill in interpretations for, but still don’t understand?

The exercise was transformative. It not only helped me understand my tendencies and blind spots in relationships, but also shifted the way I thought about belief in general.

Like how being overly protective of my beliefs was causing me suffering. And how nobody really knows anything, we’re all just guessing.

Even if that little lamp of idealism still burns hot, when we see that life and reality are different from our opinions about them, we have to adjust.

We have to be willing to turn over those boulders inside our brains.

Otherwise our hearts will stay in hiding. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
When was the last time your idealism was spoiled by contact with reality in others?

The unfinalized self cannot be completely known

The primary obstacle to expanding our creative life is way we view ourselves.

The actual language we use to describe the work that we do.

For the first two decades of my career as an artist, referring to myself with specific words like writer and performer and entrepreneur and agency creative and startup employee, those labels really mattered to me. And they served me quite well.

But once afternoon, my mentor posed an interesting question. She asked:

How do you hold your career identity in your mind?

After ten seconds of silence, she smiled and responded, well then, maybe you don’t, and that’s good too.

It felt relaxing to not have a label for once. Reminds me of a passage from a book about my favorite filmmaker:

The unfinalizable self is a person who cannot every be completely known, understood or labeled. Perhaps our path to expanding our creative life is viewing ourselves through that infinite prism. Stepping beyond all those old roles we played and becoming more solidly positioned.

There’s a groundedness there that’s hard put to words, but that’s the whole point. Whatever it is, it supports our ability to freely and safely express our inner resources in new and exciting ways.

A friend of mine is a multi talented creator who does everything from painting to stage acting to standup comedy to journalism to life coaching. And one of her clients recently said to her, forget about all those labels girl, you’re just a giver.

Isn’t that nice? It’s so simple and human, and yet, completely unlimited. Being a giver is far bigger and more meaningful than some category.

To quote the aforementioned filmmaker biography, your career is a a nomad education of movement that features a changing curriculum of your own making based on the passion and pursuit of the moment.

Who were you before the world told you who you needed to be?

Dark strips of unfulfilled need, checkered fields of loneliness

When we’re young, we assume that being disagreeable leads to ostracism and loneliness.

As a result. we quickly learn to align our feelings and opinions with those around us as a survival tactic.

Which works to a certain extent when we’re children. Especially if the people around us are angry and yelling and we don’t want to add fuel to the fire.

But as adults, if we have not properly named, tamed and reframed that fear, then we’ll start to feel obliged to choke down anything that doesn’t jive with us. We will give up all the things that are important to us because of our own lack of boundaries.

Anything to avoid causing trouble.

Adrienne writes that when we are children, we don’t usually have full agency to shift the dynamic because our safety and livelihood depend on it. And so often, these dynamics perpetuate because we are scared to be alone, scared to create conflict, scared to take a step back.

But when we are adults, we can begin to notice how we are playing into the dynamic, and to shift. That realization becomes liberation itself.

Here are a few of the things that we remind ourselves.

Just because we disagree doesn’t mean we’re betraying someone.

Just because we have the backbone to express our preferences doesn’t mean people we love are going to abandon us.

Just because we speak up in pressure situations doesn’t mean people will reject and humiliate us.

And who knows? They might even respect us more for taking the risk of having an opinion.

Either way, the boundaries we set by amplifying our voice reinforce our freedom.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Where could you afford to be to be a little less agreeable?

Art is what makes life possible for me

Making things is not only the most natural way for me to engage with the world, but it’s also the most useful way for me to cope with the heartbreak of the world.

Because no matter how utterly incomprehensible and overwhelming the reality of life gets, art is still the most satisfying way for me to be at peace with the madness.

Rollins famously said that music is what makes life possible for him. He accesses most things he does via music. People are great, but they can be problematic and have a lot of needs. Music is the best possible deal.
Hundreds of thousands of hours of it sit patiently, waiting for him to engage. He can’t think of anything that delivers more consistently.

This is perhaps my favorite argument for art. Using our hands and minds to make something exist that did not exist before, it’s a rare experience that serves a much larger function that simply identifying and expressing ourselves.

It’s a way to get through time.

Evolutionary biologists would refer to this as adaptive value, which is the utility of a behavioral trait that can help an organism cope with its surrounding conditions and survive in its environment.

Some plants release volatile chemicals to protect themselves against herbivores. Some animals camouflage their skin to hide from predators.

Artists do the same thing. But instead of spraying gas or changing colors, we make art. That’s what saves us when the world tries to eat us alive. Whatever it throws at us, creating is the way through, and creating is the way out.

Creating is the support system for our life. When the world tries to obliterate us with a maelstrom of doubts and anxieties and travesties, our creative instrument becomes the undiscovered and infinite country we travel to and make it all okay.

And even if our art changes nothing in the world and reaches nobody who lives in it, nobody can take away what it did for us.

P.S. Prolific, my software for Personal Creativity Management (PCM), only has 13 (of 100) Founding Member slots left in our beta program. If you want 300+ tools to help inspire, organize and execute your ideas, try it for free today.

Take what you got and fly with it

Most video games offer something called unlockable content.

Through various achievements or codes, players can access everything from a single weapon to a secret character to enhanced graphics to a tidal wave of sorcery and swords.

For those who play regularly, unlocking content absolutely transforms the gaming experience. The genuine exploration is enjoyable, the discovery process is rewarding, and every time something new gets introduced, it feels like you have a new reason to play.

Interestingly, this feature of video games is something no other mass consumer art form offers to its audience.

Books, movies, television shows, musical albums, none of these have unlockable content.

But there is one place where this gaming concept is actually quite transferrable.

Our careers.

The process of unlocking is something that each of us can embrace in our work. But instead of acquiring a grenade launcher, we gain access to a new talent or skill.

In order for the unlocking to occur, a few factors must be in play.

First is the culture, which is the organizational piece. There must be a propensity for growth built into the organization itself. The company actually has to value, encourage and facilitate personal development.

Otherwise team members will just keep playing with the same old weapons over and over again.

Next is the leadership, which is the interpersonal part. Executives and managers must empower their employees to take risks and initiate projects and run tests every single day. Work that forces them to not only use, but also expand their arsenal of skills.

Otherwise team members will be afraid to fail.

The final component of the unlocking process is intrapersonal. Because all that organizational structure and leadership aside, the onus is still on the individual. People have to give themselves permission to find something new. To integrate the raw material of their lives and access new talents and skills, it’s choice they have to make. If they want the freedom to use the talents they might never exercise anywhere else, most of that comes from within.

Otherwise they’ll keep playing the same levels over and over.

Zappos is famous for their core value of pursuing growth and learning. The constitution in their culture book says it beautifully:

We believe that inside every employee is more potential than even they realize. And our goal is to help employees unlock that potential. But it has to be a joint effort. You have to want to challenge and stretch yourself in order for it to happen. It’s like a game to see what part of ourselves we can bring to work every day.

All of that unlockable content could be available to you. Several factors will have to come into play, both inside and outside of your control.

And it certainly doesn’t happen at every organization.

But when it does, wow. Game on.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Will you take the chance to be loved for the hard work only you can do?

Why did the codependent call a taxi?

Onion reporters recently found that nine of every ten purchases from small businesses are driven by a customer’s guilt at exiting the store without buying anything.

According to their research, ninety percent of all transactions at independently owned shops throughout the nation are motivated solely by intense pangs of guilt experienced after making eye contact with the owner and realizing you’ll have to walk past her at the register before you leave.

This satire may as well be journalism. Because every day people choose to do things that are going to haunt them through an afterlife of obligations that hold no possible benefit to them.

Every day people allow themselves to be talked into making exceptions because it’s a special occasion. Every day people succumb to replying to every message they get because they’re afraid of disappointing strangers.

All because of the treacherous power of guilt.

Reminds me of a great recovery joke:

Why did the codependent call a taxi?

Maybe the driver was lonely
.

Point being, guilt is a wound we inflict on ourselves. And we can stop the bleeding if we really want to. Here’s a framework that’s been helpful for me.

First, honestly ask yourself this question:

Is there anything you’re still doing because of guilt?

Perhaps you’re collecting, collating and resending the mail being sent to the previous tenant of your office. If so, ask yourself the next question.

How long have you felt guilty about this?

Let’s say this mail project has been happening for the last six months. Next, ask yourself this:

What is the standard against which you measure your guilt?

Perhaps you believe that it is immoral to ignore that mail and your duty as a fellow citizen to return it to sender. Then ask yourself this:

Does the length of time for which you have felt guilty seem disproportionate to the possible benefits for you?

Naturally, everybody gets a grace period for the first six weeks, but if taking the time to sort a stranger’s mail and communicate to them to come pick it up has become a significant source of stress in your life, then that’s on you.

Moving on, ask yourself this question:

What do you have to let go of in order eliminate that feeling?

Perhaps it is an over developed sense of duty. Maybe it’s your excessive need for closure. Your overwhelming fear that you’re not doing enough to help others. Or your exceedingly high standards that you beat yourself up for not meeting.

After you’ve named that, ask yourself one final question:

How much more rested and free would you feel if you were no longer carrying that guilt on your back?


Thoreau’s words come to mind. He said that the really efficient laborer will be found not to crowd his day with work but will saunter to his task surrounded by a wide halo of ease and leisure. There will be a wide margin for relaxation to his day.

Sounds awfully nice.

Remember, we only feel guilt when we are judging ourselves.

Try sending a wave of compassion down your spine instead. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Is there anything you’re still doing because of guilt?

Deepen our sense of awe for our own existence

Rogers first developed the concept of unconditional positive regard for his psychotherapy clients in the fifties.

It’s defined as the basic acceptance and support of a person regardless of what they say or do.

The encouraging part is, we don’t have to pay two hundred dollars an hour to benefit from this experience. Each of us can deepen our sense of awe for our own existence. We can learn to relate to ourselves not from place of narcissism, but from a place of compassion.

One tactic is not over identifying with an individual success or failure. Setting boundaries on our tendency to allow single events to define us, either positively or negatively.

Cloud, the preeminent educator on the topic of boundaries, recommends the following question:

What outcomes or individuals have had the power to make you begin to feel so bad about one event or outcome, that you feel like everything is going south?

We all have our own version of this. Personally, mine always centered around mechanical or manual labor. Building, adjusting or operating simple machines. Especially when others are watching. That gives me the sweats, flushes my skin and results in me calling myself and incompetent and pathetic schmuck. What’s yours?

But this is the moment is where the unconditional positive regard comes into play. Before, during and after the event, we breathe deeply and remind ourselves of a few fundamental truths.

You can execute simple tasks calmly and competently.

This recent experience does not limit who you are and what you can become.

Your level of skill is not fixed and unchangeable until the end of time.


Because your value is solid, it doesn’t rise and fall in lockstep with your latest result. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Do you see yourself as a worthwhile being even when you are not behaving notably competent?

Shedding off my anxiousness like old skin

The label of my chamomile tea claims that the taste is like landing gently on a carpet of rose petals and lemongrass, weightlessly waiting to be steeped into a cup of serenity.

Compliments to that marketing copywriter. Who knew tea bags were so eloquent?

But as enjoyable as chamomile is, it’s still not a sustainable strategy for promoting calmness. Some research has shown modest benefits of the herb. Like the one study that helped sleep disturbed rats fall asleep quicker.

Overall, though, the ability of tea to reduce anxiety is clinically inconclusive.

This may come as disappointing news to those who are looking for a quick fix to their stress. People who think they can buy themselves a lower heartbeat.

But that’s not the way anxiety works. Take it from someone who has tried dozens and dozens stress reduction hacks, some of which helped, some of which did nothing, some of which gave me diarrhea for three years.

The only true path is making a concerted effort to bring calmness into our lives.

Think about the most peaceful person you know. Do you think their stability are the results of their choices and judgment, or because they drink the right tea?

No, their relaxed lifestyle is a result of prioritizing. They are stable and steady wherever they happen to be because they have a thoughtful system for managing anxiety that’s tailored to their unique temperament and environment.

If you want to steep yourself into a cup of serenity, there is no one thing that will take you there. Drink all the tea you want, but don’t stop there.

Instead of turning any one thing into your single point of success or failure, think of anxiety management an investment in your mental wellbeing that requires a diverse portfolio of assets.

And then broker that account as if your life depended on it.

Because it does. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Is your stress so familiar that you take it for granted?

Smaller, simpler, saner and slower

The pandemic has been economically devastating, but here’s one of the glaring upsides to our society’s transition to a more remote workforce.

Individuals and organizations were suddenly required to eliminate millions of non value added activities from their daily existence:

Attending wasteful, boring meetings. Planning expensive and exhausting events. Enduring stressful and uncomfortable travel. Managing annoying and absurd office concerns.

All gone in an instant. When you do the math, it nets out to hundreds of hours and thousands of dollar a year per person. The world has significantly reduced its overall labor intensity, whether we like it or not.

And as a result, we have freed up this abundance of time and energy that can now be focused on more meaningful pursuits.

The question is, why did we have to wait until there was a global pandemic to realize this? Shouldn’t we be eliminating activities that don’t add value as a regular practice?

Dilbert comic strips have been satirizing company inefficiencies and wastefulness since the late eighties, and now it seems all the characters have finally gotten their wishes granted.

It’s the workplace we have always dreamed of.

Flexible schedules, clothing optional, and zero commute.

What’s not to like? Sign me up.

Furthermore, if we zoom out for a moment, the lesson here is about more than just business. It’s deeper.

Personally, my appreciation for the coronavirus has been the opportunity to return to a smaller, simpler, saner and slower version of life.

It’s frankly embarrassing that it took a pandemic to slow me down, but hey, I’ll take my sanity where I get it.

The virus has been sad and scary and challenging for millions, and my life is no exception. But the quarantine also brought me a measure of peace unlike anything else could.

The frenzied and frantic pace that used to be the norm has come to a screeching halt. Brooklyn now feels like this charming little town where everyone says hello to each other. That hasn’t happened since, well, ever. Maybe my utopian paradise of all our neighbors wearing nametags will finally come to fruition.

Look, it’s unlikely that life will stay this way forever. Our goal for today is to simply enjoy it while we can. And to remember how cleansing and liberating it feels to eliminate activities that don’t add anything to our lives.

To appreciate the fact that nobody in the past year has felt the need to utter the phrase, hurry or we’ll be late!

Because there is no late anymore. There is no past or future. In a pandemic, all we have is right now. That’s it. And it could be gone in an instant.

It’s funny, so much of what we do on a daily basis is of limited value, for us and everyone else. But it’s clear that we can get much better results with much less energy, with the few things that are actually important.

In a world where modern life has always bullied us into making everything bigger, trickier, crazier and faster, maybe smaller, simpler, saner and slower is a worthy goal.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
What meaningful pursuits will you enjoy with your newfound abundance of time and energy?

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