Do you ever feel like what you want to do goes against what society ‘wants’ you to do? Like, maybe you want to be a painter, but your parents and your school tell you that you’ll never make any money. Maybe you want to take a gap year after high school but your parents fear you’ll never go to college and, thus, never ‘amount to anything’. Maybe you are attracted to people of your same…
Knowing yourself is an important part of being a complete human. Maybe this is just my opinion based on my own values, but it seems to be a theme. Throughout history there have been thinkers proclaiming the importance of knowing oneself. To justify this conclusion we can look at the opposite side of the coin. What is NOT knowing yourself like? To me, not knowing yourself leads to lots of misbehaviors. Breaking societal norms (which…
How you choose is more important than the choice itself
Leaping into the Abyss Will Set You Free
Do you ever have trouble sleeping? Do you sometimes struggle with what to do next? Analysis paralysis style? How about when you are by yourself in a crowd. Do you feel like you have to pull out your phone? Personally, I have trouble just ‘being’, sometimes. And it’s really kind of funny, because deep down, that’s all I really want. And I think a lot of us are like this. We crave peace. Calm. Even…
Do you love your job? Are you happy with your career? Many of us will answer no to both of these questions. And it seems to me we visit these questions at two key moments in life: When we leave the nest, usually around 18 years old Sometime in midlife when we wonder how we got there. Maybe between 40 and 50 years old Lucky for me, I’m almost 50 AND I have daughters who…
Do you ever ask yourself this question? I have asked myself this question for as long as I can remember. In fact, I use this argument as a way to justify complaining. It’s not a habit I am proud of and I’m working on changing it. But I often find myself getting angry because I can’t find a definitive answer to whether something is good or bad or right or wrong. Do you ever get…
If you think about any element in your life you can probably see an example of the Are vs Should Problem. Sometimes it looks like indecision or Analysis Paralysis (and see Episode 11: Analysis Paralysis). Other times it feels like frustration or anger. In my experience I feel like I am ‘of two minds’ where I hear two competing voices telling me to do entirely different things. What are the important elements in your life?…
The beginning of my investigation into the ‘Are vs. Should Problem’, or the struggle many of us experience between the person we ARE and the person we feel like we SHOULD BE. Have you ever experienced this? Most people I ask say, ‘doesn’t everyone?’. But I really don’t know. All I can say is that I, personally, often feel like I have a natural reaction to a given situation or decision that is intimately coupled…
You definitely know about this one. So many choices when making a decision that you get overwhelmed. So overwhelmed, sometimes, that you can’t even MAKE the decision and end up stuck; paralyzed. Mostly, I think, it’s fear that keeps us stuck. Kind of like the Fear of Missing Out (FOMO). But I think the biggest contributor to the old AP is believing there is only one right answer. I don’t think that’s true. Moreso, choosing…