Your first time here? If you like what you see, consider subscribing by RSS or email (it's free!) Thanks for stopping by! -Jonathan

[Note: This is the 2nd article in the series How to Make Your Dreams a Reality.]

I’ve wasted a lot of time in my life doing what works. I can’t count how many times I’ve used this excuse to stall pursuing my dreams.

• I went to college because that’s just “what works.”
• I go to a job and sit in a cubicle for 8 hours a day because “it works.”
• I don’t work on the weekends because I feel I need to reward myself for a week’s worth of drudgery. I have to say… “it just works.”
• I do the expected things. I try to make art because I’m supposed to be creative. I read because I’m supposed to learn. I dress a certain way because I’m supposed to be cool.

It’s not working. Read more

Have my articles helped (or at least entertained) you in some way? Click here to buy me a coffee.

26 comments

photo by livenature

What do Johnny Cash and Tito Ortiz have in common? They have the elusive “IT” factor. There’s just something about them that naturally draws people to them. They’re magnetic, enigmatic, and charismatic (and any other kinds of matics). Something just makes you want to know them, be like them and follow them.

Imagine you walk into an elevator; everyones greets you. Everyone seems to be paying attention to you, looking at you and wondering what you’re doing.

When you get off the elevator you go into an important meeting. When you walk in, everyone at the table stands up to greet you and or shake your hand. During the meeting, you’re constantly asked for your opinion. “What do you think about this?” they ask. “How do you feel about the direction we’re going in, what could we do differently?”

As you leave everyone wants to talk to you. They smile and wait patiently for their turn. You’re cool and collected while they vie for your attention.

Imagine you walk out of the building and a hail a taxi, but instead a limo pulls up. You go to your favorite restaurant around the corner, and your table is already reserved. Hell, when you go to sleep, your butler would try to brush your teeth if you didn’t insist that it wasn’t necessary. Read more

Have my articles helped (or at least entertained) you in some way? Click here to buy me a coffee.

21 comments

photo by Jill

People seek self-help for a reason, to help themselves, duh. But like all good things, self improvement has it’s disadvantages. Some people take it too far. Instead of improving their lives, they become delusional.

1. Tony the Tiger… err Robbins

Before I got into personal development, I always thought of people like Tony the Tiger.. I mean Tony Robbins and Richard Simmons as the epitome of self improvement. I guess like many people, I confused self improvement with motivational speakers.

Don’t get me wrong, I like Tony Robbins, I think he’s a great guy and I’m sure he’s helped a lot of people out. But it’s just not my style.

The whole chest pounding, firewalking thing always threw me off. I understand the idea is to get pumped up, but can’t you do that without burning your feet to a crisp? Also, is that really sustainable? If I have to walk on hot coals everyday just to find motivation, something is probably wrong with my life.

These are also the people that remain positive under any circumstances.

Volcano eruption? The heat will help you sweat and detoxify.

Hurricane? Now I don’t have to wash my car.

Earthquake caused a gaping hole in the middle of your house? We could make a swimming pool!

Denial Anyone?

2. Productivity is the opiate of the masses.

There are certain things you must do. This includes things you need to do to not die and stay out of prison.

Some people just have a problem with these things and turn to productivity gurus for help. But it can often be taken overboard. When you can’t enjoy yourself without doing something productive, you have a problem.

3. Self Improvement is your drug of choice

There’s nothing wrong with ferociously pursuing personal development and new contexts. The problem is when “improving” has become more of a drug than means to an end.

Some signs of this deadly illness may include:

• Lack of friends, social life, or connection to the outside world
• Improving has become more important than living
• Spending half your day reading lists such as “4,000 motivation hacks” and “12 ways to super power ultra charge your brain” but can’t recite a single sentence from any of them.

4. Hacking your life is more important than living it

Some of your favorite conversations include: a new method for color coding your to do list (purple is uber urgent, black is ninja important!), how you turned your watch into a fork slash writing utensil slash stapler, and how to turn your dishwasher into a plasma tv.

You also think that hacking your life includes using cashew butter instead of peanut butter on a jelly sandwich, using a clothes iron to make grilled cheese, and hacking your sweatshirt.

Although I do have to admit, if I could pull off the sweatshirt hack without looking extremely flamboyant, I might give it a go.

5. Um, it’s your turn. Move.

Imagine you aspire to be grandmaster chess player. You study the game, your read books, you watch other masters play. You’re so engrossed with learning and improving your game, you never actually play. You’re just stuck on “what’s next.”

When you’re so gung-ho on improving, it can be easy to lose sight of the reason for it in the first place: to make life better. But if you’re just preparing to live and not actually living, what’s the point?

Some honorable mentions were…

Not being able to feel good about yourself without listening to a tape of “Because I’m special and I’m worth it” and the guy that thinks Lao Tzu was a Zen master.

Have my articles helped (or at least entertained) you in some way? Click here to buy me a coffee.

19 comments

Staying within the social norm and fitting in, to most is more valuable than authenticity. Don’t attract attention to yourself, be liked by others and do what your told seems to be the mainstream mantra. Life is not a uniform organism. The truth is, we will never find personal freedom by trying to please others and conforming our life to a template. If we are all truly different, why do we try to force the unique shapes of our personalities, skills, beliefs and ideas into the square peg of social acceptance?

Here’s the basic template for life:

• Learn to walk/speak, be a good boy/good girl
• Go to school, get good grades
• Go to college, graduate. Try to find something you love, but eventually sacrifice your passion and settle for a career choice that’s practical.
• Get a job (find security)
• Get married (security)
• Have kids (security)
• Die
• Repeat

This is the most common life pattern. Most of us think that this is just normal; it’s just the way it is damnit. Living for security alone though, is a meaningless existence. If our only motive to live, is to survive, to keep the hamster wheel spinning, then I’m done. I just can’t imagine a life where security is the highest value. That’s like saying blue is the most important color, or the stomach is more important than the brain. Obviously all the other colors are just as important in making up the field of vision, and the all of the organs are necessary for a healthy organism.

Security is definitely an important part of life, our survival depends on it. But excitement, adventure, pain, turbulence, drama, passion, mystery and pleasure are equally important. I think we forget this because security is the basis for us being able to experience all those other wonderful things. Yet security is a means, it’s not the reason for living itself. Just as we don’t live to eat, we eat to live; we don’t find happiness to seek security, we seek security to facilitate happiness.

When you think about what you truly live for, your answer probably won’t be security. At least mine’s not. I think it’s important that we re-evaluate how much our feelings are really aligned with our actions. Do we really value comfort more than freedom?

Not only do we have templates that we’re expected to follow, but we also have roles we’re expected to fill.

If you’re a man you’re expected to behave a certain way. Anger and jealousy are the only acceptable emotions. You want to cry? Suck it up. Be a man, damnit. You have a feeling about something? Right…

If you’re a woman you’re expected to be feminine and nurturing. Have a strong opinion? You’re a bitch. You want to lead? You’re joking right?

These social roles may have worked for cave dwellers (woman not behave, hit with club). They also worked for primitive societies based on hunting and territorial rivalry. Men had to be tough. If they broke down and cried, it might have meant a spear to the head. But despite how much social revolution and civil rights movements we’ve had, we haven’t had much of an internal empowerment movement.

The Anti-Role Collateral

The truth is, most of us know what we want. We know what makes us feel alive and what makes us feel dead. The answer then isn’t looking for yourself, but having the courage to live unabashedly, to do what truly brings you bliss. The collateral of claiming your personal freedom and rejecting the cubicle mind mentality, might mean getting some strange looks and being completely rejected once in a while. People might question your choice to not go for so-called security. People might think you’re a total nut-case. But that’s okay. You’d probably look at the same people living fearlessly and wonder what the hell they’re doing. That’s the beauty of diversity. Homogeneity is the bane of life.

The Anti-Role collateral is:

• It’s the stares you might get for being a man and not being afraid to cry in a movie.
• It’s being a woman and not being afraid to take charge, even if the same people that saw a man do that and applaud them, think you’re a bitch.
• It’s the shock from voicing your opinion to the vice president of your company even though you have no degree and started two weeks ago.
• It’s the whispers of people on the street that see man in a suit having a real conversation with a homeless person.

The price we pay for consciously living our lives and forging our own path is the anti-role collateral. Sometimes that means embarrassment, humiliation and flat out rejection. But I can’t think of any bigger embarrassment to me than not being true to myself. A sovereign mind to me is more valuable than any fictional social approval.

Free-Styling Life

Just over a hundred years ago, everyone thought it was impossible to fly. A very small group of people chose not to believe that. They chose to believe that it was possible and decided they were going to prove it. No one would doubt it now, seeing a plane or a helicopter is an everyday experience.

Living a life that’s not based on a template and being true to yourself may not mean paving a road in the sky like the Wright Brothers. However, if you tell everyone you want to start your own business, you will be doubted. They’ll tell you everything that’s wrong with your idea and why it won’t work: You have no experience. You’ve never run a business before, what do you know about sales? It takes money to make money. The truth is:

• Almost no one starting their first business had any idea what they were doing.
• Those that broke barriers in civil rights, oppression, policy reform and questioning authority were scared as hell, but they knew what was right in their heart. They couldn’t live with themselves if they didn’t do something.
• Not only is it impossible to plan everything out in advance, it’s extremely boring that way.
• Most successful people became that way by embracing their unique talents and capitalizing on them, not by overcoming weaknesses.
• Integrity and authenticity are vastly more important than productivity and fictional social acceptance.

The domestication of humans places a lot of shoulds and shouldn’ts on us, but we also have a lot of arbitrary self-imposed rules we place on ourselves:

• I’m not good enough because I don’t have enough experience.
• I made a mistake so it’s necessary to punish myself over and over again and not let go at any cost.
• I’m not worthy or not good enough because I don’t have x amount of money or x title.
• I’ll never understand the mysteries of life because I just don’t have a philosophical mind.
• I don’t have time for creative or passionate pursuits, I have to be practical.

I’ve realized that just as much as social restraints and pressures are real, they are only real within you. Our deepest beliefs about reality and ourselves are not true in themselves, but our thinking makes them true in our experience.

So maybe you’re already on the anti-role, free-style side of the street. You just haven’t bought a house there yet. What price are your willing to pay for your sovereignty?

To get more freedom inducing rhetoric, Subscribe to Illuminated Mind.

Have my articles helped (or at least entertained) you in some way? Click here to buy me a coffee.

40 comments