Fromm writes:

As long as anyone believes that his ideal and purpose is outside him, that it is above the clouds, in the past or in the future, he will go outside himself and seek fulfillment where it cannot be found. He will look for solutions and answers at every point except where they can be found, in himself. 

Proving, that meaning is made and not found. Joy is our responsibility, nobody is going to give it to us. We are the source of it, it’s not something that’s out there for us to acquire. 

Ask yourself this. How do you approach mundane and meaningless work? Do you avoid it completely, do it begrudgingly, or layer joy on top intentionally?

Motivation assessments suggest that people who approach it from the latter have a strong platform of emotional autonomy from which to develop their leadership capacity. Guided by their own set of rules and not affected by external forces, their internal local of control becomes the emotional anchorage that helps them remain firm, stable and focused in adverse or empty situations.

The good news is, this doesn’t require labor, merely bravery.

Joy, according the existentialists, is the emotional expression of the courageous yes to one’s own true being. It is the affirmation of that essential being in spite of desires and anxieties creates it.

Which means we can always do things that remind us who we are, that make us feel like ourselves, no matter what situation we are in. We can always take agency when doing uninteresting work and produce our own motivation. And all the tensions and worries that stop us noticing how sweet the world can be float away.

Barnum, the greatest showman and founder of the circus was once asked by a journalist, does it bother you that everything you’re selling is fake? To which he replied:

Do these smiles seem fake? It doesn’t matter where they come from. The joy is real.

We all do what we have to do to survive.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Do you give yourself permission to immerse in personal pleasures and private interests whenever you like?

Rogers, the great humanistic psychologist, pioneered the concept of unconditional positive regard. 

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

Although this theory originally developed within the context of client centered therapy, the intrapersonal applications are just as important. 

Because in the deeply complicated relationship with ourselves, we can achieve unconditional positive regard as well. We can love ourselves anyway. 

Ellis, the peer and worthy successor of the aforementioned psychologist, summarized it beautifully in his book about rational emotive behavioral therapy:

The need to impress others and to win their approval, and thereby view yourself as a good person, leads to an obsession that tends to preempt a large part of your life. You’re seeking status instead of seeking joy. Instead, rate yourself as good merely because you are alive. That kind of egoism will get you into very little trouble. 

The question, then, is how much do you trust yourself? How much belief in your own efficacy do you really have? Especially when things aren’t going as well as you’d hoped?

See if any of the following examples apply to your life.

You trust that you are valuable even when you aren’t valued.

You trust that you are a good person who is worthy of joy.

You trust that your own best is enough for you, even if it’s not enough for others.

You trust that you are loved and respected in spite of your lack of achievement.

You trust that you are a worthwhile person even when behaving incompetently.

You trust that you tried your best in the moment even if the amount of effort you offered didn’t produce the outcome you had in mind.

That’s a complete picture of true unconditional positive regard for ourselves, and it’s difficult to paint. Because most of us use such situations to make global ratings of ourselves as individuals.

We based this score solely on our approval and performance, rather than joy and aliveness.

The good news is, trust is a muscle we can train. We can learn to talk to ourselves in a way that a therapist would talk to their patients.

With love towards, forgiveness for, and acceptance of our humanity.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

What if you equate your sense of worth not with the outcome, but with your effort?

Are you about to embark on one of those soul searching quests? 

Perhaps setting off down a long spiritual path to find yourself? 

If so, here is my benediction for you. 

May you find what you’re looking for, but may you still love yourself if you don’t. 

Because despite your noblest intentions, there are no guarantees of enlightenment. Just like there are no inoculations from hell. That’s where the love part comes is. 

If you decide to take three months off from work traveling around the country, taking pictures of coffee stains, looking for a sign from the universe, it doesn’t mean you’ve earned the right to come out on the other side a reborn soul. 

Transformation cannot be forced. It takes a long time. Thousands of hours of evolving and surrendering and accruing experience and education. And along the way, if you’re not willing to forgive reality for being what it is, and if you’re not willing to forgive yourself for being what you are, then you will come out the other side caked with resentment. 

Personally, my transition from being an entrepreneur to becoming an employee took four years just find out who was full of shit. Most notably, myself. Then another few years to actually get good at it.

Look, all people do is change anyway. It’s not like this hallowed self we’re looking for is going to stay the same. 

Harvard’s history department did some research on this. Puett explains it as follows:

There is no true self, and no self you can discover in the abstract by looking within. Such a self would be little more than a snapshot of you at that particular moment in time. We are messy and multifaceted selves who are going through life bumping up against other messy, multifaceted selves. Who we are at any given moment develops through our constantly shifting interactions with other people. 

Isn’t it liberating to realize that the self and the world in which it exists is chaotic and imperfect? 

This insight is helpful to remember before selling all our belongings and hitting the road. 

Maybe there’s nothing to find. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

How long should you look for something when you don’t know what you’re looking for?

We have met the enemy and he is us. 

Adopted from an old wartime slogan, this message was famously used on a poster designed to help publicize the first observance of earth day. The goal was to help spread the message of environmental stewardship around the world, and it worked. 

Kelly, the cartoonist who died shortly after the posters were printed, offers context around his slogan: 

There is no need to sally forth, for it remains true that those things which make us human are, curiously enough, always close at hand. Resolve then, that on this very ground, with small flags waving and tinny blasts on tiny trumpets, we shall meet the enemy, and not only may he be ours, he may be us. Forward! 

Turns out, he was not only preaching the preservation of our beautiful planet, but also the stewarding of the landscape within. Nurturing the relationship we have with ourselves. 

Because so many of us get in our own way. We become the saboteur and source of resistance in our own lives. There are endless examples. 

Maybe you’re addicted to a dysfunctional story about relationships, resulting in you feeling lonely. 

Maybe you find a perverse satisfaction in indulging in doubt about your own creative talents, resulting in you procrastinating. 

Maybe you’re more comfortable in your familiar state of misery, resulting in your inability to move onto the next chapter of your life. 

Maybe you sabotage your own good habits by making excuses not to do them, resulting in poor health. 

Whatever that thing is, you have met the enemy, and he is you. 

Now, although there are as many examples as there are people to personify them, there is one commonality. 

Lack of trust. 

That’s typically how people get in their own way. 

If you are burdened by ricocheting doubts, switch your brain to this. 

Rush to affirm rather than dismiss your chances for success. Point yourself in the direction of possibility rather than failure. Show some compassion to your inner landscape rather than depriving it of the fuel it needs to flourish. 

And when the nagging clouds of doubt continue to rain on your religious parade, accept that you’re readier than you think you are. 

Everything you need is already inside of you. 

Who you already are is enough to get what you want.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

How could you create a version of yourself that you have no reason to doubt?

Hawk, the greatest skateboarder in history, gives the following advice to entrepreneurs:

Take pride in what you do, even if it is scorned and misunderstood by the public at large. 

That’s been one of the great frustrations of wearing a nametag every day. Some people just don’t get it. They may never get it. And although it’s not worth burning any calories to justify my idea, here goes nothing. 

Wearing a nametag all the time is not ironic and sarcastic, it’s literal and earnest. 

Scott is my real name, and the goal is to use that piece of information to meet people.

It’s not trying to be cool or funny, it’s sincere and useful. 

Even if people are suspicious about my motives when they first meet me, over time, the nametag usually grows on them. 

Because it’s one less thing to remember. 

Besides, most people can get used to anything if you do it long enough. 

Next, from a psychological standpoint, the nametag is not a prop for me to hide behind, it’s a pure and vulnerable expression of my true self. 

Reminds me of support group I once joined. At my first meeting, two of the members insisted that I took the nametag off during our weekly get togethers. They said it was a disruption to the integrity of the container of the group. 

Christ, get over yourselves. It’s just a sticker. 

Here’s another misunderstanding. 

Wearing a nametag is not a plot or a street hustle, it’s a way for me to give myself away. 

This one surfaced once I started living in a big city. People see me wear a nametag at a party or a bar or even walking down the street, and they immediately contract into a defensive posture. 

You’re wearing a nametag? Wait a minute, what’s your angle? What are you trying to sell me? 

Dude. Nothing. Relax. It’s a sticker. 

And lastly, it’s not some grandiose piece of performance art or political statement, it’s a tool for provoking joy. 

It’s always entertaining when people give me way too much credit. They assume far too complicated of a strategy behind this quirky social experiment. 

It’s simple. Nametags are fun. They make people friendlier. They make life more interesting. 

Isn’t that enough of a reason to wear one every day? 

The good news is, after twenty years of walking around with this sticker on my shirt, I no longer feel hurt or attacked when someone misunderstands me. 

Definitely annoyed. But that’s the price you pay when you stick yourself out there. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

What have you done long enough for most people to get used to?

Here’s an interview question that’s never been asked before. 

Tell me something you don’t have an opinion on. 

Share an issue or concept that takes up minimal if any space on your personal hard drive. Something that’s neither here nor there for you. 

This is not an easy task for most of us. In a world where people seem to have nothing better to do with their time than constantly excrete opinions on every goddamn trivial issues, the prospect of saying nothing about anything is terrifying. 

Let me get this straight. You mean the entire planet doesn’t have to know my view on every chickenshit issue? You mean throwing my two cents into the political mix isn’t needed to tip the scales towards a sweeping cultural overhaul? You mean harassing as many strangers as possible with my spiteful tirades about the new iphone isn’t useful? 

That’s a relief. Participation is not mandatory. You don’t have to have an opinion if you don’t want to. You officially have permission to rest your tired brain. 

Besides, nobody even listens to anybody anymore anyway. 

Even if you did have an opinion, it wouldn’t be noticed, much less, heard, much less understood, much less agreed with. 

Society has evolved into one gigantic transcontinental monologue, and the species most in danger of going extinct is a little creature called empathy.

And so, imagine being the only person in the room who actually had nothing to say. The only person happy not to have an opinion on everything anymore. 

It’s sublime treat. 

Remember, the heart has limits. Can’t care about everything. There are only a finite number of things that can fit into our emotional and intellectual bandwidth. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

How does your life change when you no longer have to do that?

Being a perfectionist is more than merely striving for technical flawlessness. 

It can also manifest in the form of aggressive idealism and naive enthusiasm. 

Ellis cites this brand of perfection as one of our core irrational beliefs. He writes:

We convince ourselves that precise and correct solutions exist for every world problem, and we must find them immediately. But that attitude only ties us up further into knots of indecision. Perfection becomes a fairytale, an unreasonable demand we place on the world. Compulsively obligating ourselves to it, that typically leads to stagnation and frustration. 

Now, that doesn’t make us bad people for wanting to save the world. The ache to come together to conceive of a solution that unfucks all this mess, that’s a universal human craving. 

But when things aren’t working the way we expected to, our natural inclination is to throw more at the problem. And that doesn’t always work. 

Maybe it’s an experience to be savored, not a problem to be solved. 

Maybe the pressure to find a solution is going to be unbearable and isn’t worth the cost. 

Maybe letting go of perfection doesn’t reduce our commitment to doing the best we can. 

Welshons writes in his book of prayers that the most healing solution to any problem is more love. Which is hard for many of us to stomach, since love is perhaps the most imperfect thing in the universe. But wishing to speed up the healing process is not the best use of our time. 

Remember, nothing is perfect, final or fixed in this material world. 

And striving for that is both unattainable and unnecessary. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

What if there is nothing wrong with the pain that you were experiencing?

If you’ve ever used one of those rickety old hair dryers, ceiling fans, hand mixers or air conditionings, it sometimes seems like they only have two settings. 

 Standing still and going full blast. 

 Which is somewhat annoying but perfectly acceptable for a household appliance. We don’t expect a ton of grey areas with that stuff. 

 But when it comes to the human being, having only two modes is potentially hazardous to our health. 

 Because if our only ways of existing in the world are standing still or going full blast, we’re in trouble. It’s not sustainable or healthy. Anything taken to the extreme can be a detriment. 

 Have you ever had a coworker or boss who came into work every day either completely exhausted or silently withdrawn? Perhaps you’ve been that person yourself. It certainly applies to my workaholic tendencies. And it’s not a pretty picture. 

 When the only two choices are standing still or going full blast, burnout is not far behind. 

 What we need is a dimmer switch. An internal device to gradually lower the brightness and intensity of our light output, depending on the circumstance. 

 That way, we don’t have to blast every single watt at all times. We can take back control of our energy and slide the switch up or down as needed. 

 Interestingly enough, dimmers have been around since the late eighteen hundreds. And recent studies show that they’ve been scientifically proven to reduce a home’s electric use up to forty percent over time, and even make your light bulbs last twenty times longer. 

 If that doesn’t illuminate a truth about healthy energy management, perhaps you need your vision checked. 

 Remember, rarely do we find truth at the extremes. 

 Embrace the grey and see what kind of voltage exists in the middle. 

 LET ME ASK YA THIS…

What extreme is causing a detriment to yourself?

Ellis writes in his book on reacting to antagonists:

People and things do not actually push our buttons. We push our own buttons. And we can learn not to push them. But before we do so, we accept that people are not actually driving us crazy, rather, we are driving ourselves crazy when they do it. And only when we take extreme ownership of our own reactions can we maintain inner calm and mobilize ourselves to survive in a hostile world. 

Think back to your first job in a real office with real people. Remember how enraged you used to get when confronted with some obnoxious stimuli? Maybe it was your coworker who chewed like a mule, or your dopey boss who had the jimmy legs, or the upstairs neighbor who blasted dance music first thing all morning. 

Probably made you want to strangle somebody with a cell phone cord, right? 

And yet, the harder you tried to make it go away, the cleverer people would get in their response. 

Proving, that while we can’t control what other people do, we can control what we think about what they do. 

We can forgive them for being human. We can remind ourselves that we’re no picnic ourselves. We can accept a baseline amount of ordinary misery as part and parcel of daily life. 

And in most cases, we can simply rise above and forget about it. 

We don’t have to like it, we just have to ignore it. 

Besides, why use other people’s little imperfections as creative inspiration for our own rage? Why grant others the satisfaction of negatively impacting our good mood? 

There’s no need to have an antagonistic relationship with their behavior. 

Bonhoeffer’s immortal words come to mind:

And though the waves foam and rage ever so wildly, they can no longer rob me of my peace. 

Whatever you’re thinking to yourself in this situation to get so upset, accept that you might be pushing your own buttons. And stop. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Will you live a vigorous life and not be a casualty of your own efforts?

My friend once introduced me to one of her coworkers. 

When the she learned about my daily practice of wearing a nametag, her immediate response was this:

Aren’t you afraid of getting kidnapped? 

Now there’s a strange thing to say to someone. Guess it never really occurred to me. 

But now that she mentions it, wearing a nametag every day could be potentially dangerous. In fact, multiple publications and organizations have been issuing official warnings about nametags for decades. 

Kidnappers know if they use a victim’s name, it makes them appear more trustworthy. The nametag acts as a point of entrance for someone who tries to con them. Which can increase the risk of crime and assault in the form of someone who pretends to already know you, taking advantage of your trust. 

Safety researchers call it the name lure. 

Bundy, one of the most famous serial killers in history, was well known for using this tactic. Using someone’s name put his victims at ease and gave the predator a chance to be engaging and soften his words. And because it happened in a second, he could short circuit people’s human instinct. 

All he needed was a second, then grabbed them, and boom. 

But that was back in the seventies. 

Certainly, we have learned our lesson when it comes to the potential danger of wearing nametags, right? 

Maybe not. Think about the well intentioned parents who label school items with their children’s name. All a kidnapper has to do is check the potential victim’s jacket or lunchbox, and they have the perfect way to lure the child into conversation.

Or what about the businessperson attending a conference in a foreign city. She goes out to lunch one day and is approached by a local man. He greets her by name, explains that he is from the hotel where she is staying, and will look after her. Then he takes her to meet friends at another hotel and buys her a drink. And when she wakes in the morning, she realizes that she’s been assaulted and robbed. Still wearing her conference nametag. 

Are these stories urban legends? Creepy campfire tales? Or legitimate warnings? 

Maybe all of the above. The guide to preventing kidnapping and abduction puts it best:

Just because someone knows your name, doesn’t mean that person should be trusted. 

Which brings us back to the original question. 

Aren’t you afraid of getting kidnapped? 

Well shit, now I am.

In twenty years, there have definitely been a handful encounters where my safety felt jeopardized. Trust me, there are some places you just don’t want to be wearing a nametag.

But overall, not really.

Perhaps there is a bigger question worth asking.

What’s worse, thinking you’re being paranoid, or knowing you should be?

LET ME ASK YA THIS…

Has anyone ever used the name lure on you?