I used to be a workaholic. But I’m not one anymore. The more I love myself the less of a workaholic I become. That’s because the more I love myself, the less I need to prove that I’m extraordinary through my work.
Patrick also has some words on ordinary / extraordinary here.
“I am here alone for the first time in weeks, to take up my “real” life again at last. That is what is strange – that friends, even passionate love, are not my real life unless there is time alone in which to explore and to discover what is happening or has happened. Without the interruptions, nourishing and maddening, this life would become arid. Yet I taste it fully only when I am alone…”
– May Sarton
It takes a lot of mindfulness to notice that an article is not making me smarter and more productive, but simply making me feel like I’m becoming smarter and more productive.
The internet is dangerous – let’s tread carefully.
There are many wonderful things in the world. This is one of them =)
Read more about Stardew Valley.
A new project brewing with friends.
There is a lot of pressure to become better. A better cook, a better writer, a better friend, a better partner, a better reader, a better meditator, a better yoga student, etc. But self-hatred can sometimes be disguised as self-improvement.
We like to think the pressure comes from outside, but more often it comes from inside. We want to become better because we think there is something fundamentally wrong with us.
But what if we stop thinking there is something wrong with us, apart from being fully human?
And any self-improvement is done, truly, out of a place of curiosity and joy?
What would life look like then?
“How many moments have we lost from thinking we’re unlovable?”
– Tara Brach
By Melodysheep. So incredibly talented.
“We are working ourselves to death. We call it cancer or heart disease or auto-immune disease and that’s fine. But just below the surface, beyond the label, we know the truth because it’s something we’ve felt our entire lives. Before the doctors gave it a name, we felt it. We are all dying of the same thing … a gaping hole in our heart, a lack of love, a sense that we’re not good enough, a belief that we’re unlovable.
And so we work … and work … and work in hopes of filling the hole or, at the very least, distracting ourselves enough to forget about the pain. But it’s all life in the end, and we all end up addressing the hole at one point or another. For some this comes as a trip to the therapist, for others a trip to the oncologist. For a moment we see clearly: we connect with the hole and sense there must be something more. But that hurts (unbearably), so we ease the pain with a stiff scotch or a pharmaceutical cocktail. And we are lost again.”
1. What’s the rush?
2. Time expands when you’re focused, contracts when you’re distracted.
3. Approach everything with the mind of a beginner.
4. Don’t be fixated on knowing where you will end up. Enjoy the journey; your joy will bring you to where you need to be.
5. Happiness is not needing or striving to be happy.
6. Watching one really good drama series is better than watching twenty mediocre ones.
7. The most mundane things in life are really the most important and beautiful ones.
8. We are here to do important work. We do important work by being true to who we are.
9. Investing is philosophy + psychology in action, and a real test of character.
10. Everything is just a thought.
I want one…