From Convenient Good to Higher Good

Good people will regularly battle between doing good that is convenient versus doing the higher good. Higher good involves doing what is truly good in itself. This may mean giving or helping someone even if you don’t have that much to give. Convenient good will mean mainly doing good when it is convenient for you, or only when it provides some benefits for yourself.

As part of a higher good, someone may be willing to give or donate to a cause anonymously. When it comes to convenient good, someone may refuse to give unless they will be recognized for this “kind act.”

Let’s explore these ideas further. If we view ourselves as good people, at some point, we have to ask ourselves:

“Am I willing to help someone even if it isn’t convenient for me?”

Because truthfully, is it ever convenient to put your day’s plans on hold to help someone else? When someone needs help, it is often because they did not expect to need that help. Perhaps their car broke down, or they became sick unexpectedly or struggled to deal with a death in the family.

It can become convenient to avoid noticing one type of problem in our day-to-day lives, then another, then another, and soon enough, we are only concerned just with ourselves. It seems overwhelming to consider all the problems that everyone is going through, so we decide to forget them.

In time, we may end up blind to the problems right in front of us or expect someone else to deal with them. Larger and larger issues end up becoming the types of things that we don’t think about, don’t worry about, and don’t even see anymore. It becomes convenient to ignore them.

Maybe it is time that we wake up to the issues happening right around us every day.

Even at the level of our own families, perhaps it is easier to ignore their complaints or daily issues, so we keep living out our convenient lives, day by day. Some people who get too comfortable and refuse to truly listen and understand their partners may be surprised when they appear to “suddenly” want a divorce. We get used to ignoring and avoiding so many problems in the world around us that eventually, this ends up being the same approach or attitude we have with our own families.

We somehow come to believe that “Someone, somewhere will take care of this,” and we absolve ourselves of all responsibility.

Sometimes we lie to ourselves and say that we can only do so much. Sure, we all have limitations, but we tend to settle for doing little, and then we claim that we have done so much.

It’s easy to lie to ourselves and claim that we are doing what is truly good. But is it just convenient for you at that moment?

Do you take the time to stretch beyond yourself and sometimes do something good that is not convenient?

Ask yourself some questions today:

• Can I dedicate a bit more time to truly listening to someone’s problem?

• Can I give something more to someone in need, even if it costs me time or money?

• Can I take a few minutes to help a stranger in need today?

• Can I be more observant and try to see when someone truly needs help?

• Can I offer to help someone and truly mean it? This means not just wanting to appear to be polite.

• Can I afford to lose some of my free time to help someone?

• Can I call someone who is going through a crisis to check up on them?

• What are my strengths or areas where I may be able to help someone?

• Have I been assuming that I could not offer much to help people when perhaps I did have a lot to offer?

Don’t just think of these things, but actually aim to do something about it. Can we find it in ourselves to be someone’s hero today? Perhaps, in the end, it won’t cost us as much as we would think. It may just be a minor inconvenience. Or seeing the gratitude and relief on someone’s face may make it all worthwhile, causing no inconvenience at all.

Let’s do something that is a higher good today, even if it isn’t always convenient.

7 Reasons to Meditate

I have meditated on and off and to varying degrees for over 10 years now. On average, I meditate once or twice per week, about 10-20 minutes per session. I don’t view myself as an expert on meditation, but I have had some interesting experiences from it that may help you or that could make you curious enough to try it.

These are 7 reasons to meditate, based on my experiences practicing it.

1.     Separate your Thoughts from Yourself

I have come to understand on a deeper level that I am not my thinking. In fact, through meditation, I have been able to separate myself from my thoughts. The thoughts are there, but I do not cling to them, and in practicing this, I no longer see the thoughts as my true self. I can reflect on the thoughts and interpret them if I wish, but sometimes I decide that they are not so important, and they are not me, so I do not need to focus on those particular thoughts.

2.     Be Relaxed and Mentally at Ease

Now, if someone gives me a list to remember, I can do it more easily because I am not experiencing thoughts like “don’t forget this, it’s important” and “sometimes you struggle to remember lists, maybe you should write it down” and “if you forget this, you’re going to make them mad – so you better not forget.” Strangely, I don’t “feel” more focused – I feel relaxed like it’s all okay. If I forget or misunderstand, it’s fine. In that relaxed mode, I can comprehend more without needing to verbalize and picture everything in my mind. The information is absorbed more readily.

3.     Remember More Dreams and Experience Them More Vividly

This is good and bad. I have had some dreams where loved ones died, and of course, this was troubling because I experienced it very vividly and realistically, and then later, I was able to remember the dream fully. However, I find it interesting to remember precisely what happens in my dreams - sometimes, I use this to reflect on my life path.

Ultimately, meditation has helped me to be mindful, present, and aware, and so it makes sense that by doing this in my dreams, I can experience them more vividly and remember them better. Rather than just dreams, I believe that my memory has improved in general through meditation. I believe this is because my mind is not considering all of the unimportant - and can focus fully on what is actually relevant at any given time.

4. Understand Your Dark Side

In meditation, if I am anxious or overly worried, sometimes dark thoughts or visualizations pop up, “interfering” with the meditation process. This used to worry me, but now I believe that rather than being an interference, it is a necessary part of meditation. Rather than dwelling on these dark thoughts or visualizations, I can see them and observe them without needing to fear, worry, or even react to them. I can see them without needing to allow them to affect me.

If this happens to you and you find it disturbing, you can always take a break from meditation or pursue an expert that can help you to work through this and benefit from the experience, rather than getting stuck at this point.

5.     Enter a Mode of “No-Thought.”

Many people may think this means thoughtlessness or mindlessness, but they are not the same. We tend to believe that those who think more are smarter or more capable somehow, but this isn’t necessarily the case. The more time I spend in no thought, the better I can accomplish my goals in life. The mind naturally runs wild and goes all over the place, thinking of things that are irrelevant or unhelpful or even harmful to us. I am more at peace in no thought, and I feel free not to be concerned with everything that the world focuses on. When I need to or choose to engage in thought, I can accomplish what I need to in a highly efficient way. Through meditations, I can produce the least amount of thoughts to meet my objectives – that seems to be the goal, anyway.

6.     Free Yourself from Negativity (or Negative Thinking Patterns)

Sometimes during meditation, I actually visualize or imagine that my neurons or neural networks are being freed from needing to create certain harmful or irrelevant pathways. For example, if I had a negative experience with someone in the past, does that mean my brain should forever associate that person with negative things? Perhaps it is better for my brain to literally rewire and stop needing to connect that person to certain negative ideas. I will imagine myself being released from these harmful patterns. And I think it works. I’m not sure if it works because I imagine it this way or if it works as an automatic feature of the meditation process. In time, I have spent very little energy thinking about things that I perceive as negative. I am aware of the negativity when it is there, but I do not create extra negativity in my mind by dwelling on it or cycling through it.

As a side benefit, I can often see through the negativity of daily life, and I find myself laughing at it - sometimes only mentally if it is inappropriate to actually laugh out loud. Many of us in this life get stuck in needing to react to the negativity around us. In doing so, we generate and spread our own negativity. Sometimes all you can do is laugh at the irony that people tend to react to negativity by spreading more of it. When your faucet is leaking, do you react to this by pouring extra water on top of it?

I am grateful that meditation helps me to avoid needing to repeat negative thinking cycles and negative behavioral patterns that I may have committed in my past. I can be free.

7.     Feel Interconnected with Everything

When I fall deeper into meditation, which is not always easy to achieve, I can reach a point where I do not sense my own body or mind. Rather, I may feel as if I am one with everything around me. This is not so easy to explain, but rather than being an active being with a goal or needs to accomplish something, I become just another point of awareness. I can still hear and feel, but I will manage to at least temporarily extinguish thought, the desire for thought, the desire to extinguish thought, and the desire to interpret thought.

This means that for any sensory experience I have, it seems as if it is important just for the sake of the experience itself, not because of how it relates to a self or a prior thought. I lose the sense of self, as I lose my ego. The experience may be or sound scary to some, but when you get there gradually through deeper meditations, it is a pleasant experience. If you reach this stage enough, some of the insights gained here will transfer to your daily life.

Final Thoughts

As a caveat, I cannot be certain that I have had all of these experiences due to meditation. However, sometimes I meditate to help me work through a problem, and the more I meditate, the more quickly I tend to work through those issues. I do not take any medicines regularly, so this has been my regular dose of healing in my life. Also, keep in mind that I generally practice mindfulness and work on improving my awareness. I view these as all related to meditation. To me, mindfulness is just about practicing meditation in your daily life and actions, rather than only practicing it alone and in silence (as traditionally expected).

Overall, I think meditation helps to have greater and deeper insights into life that cannot easily be put into words. You can read I. C. Robledo’s Thoughts (this site) and intellectually understand certain ideas. But some things need to be experienced directly to truly understand them on a level deeper than the intellect allows.

For example, how much does the intellect help you to understand love? How much does it help you to understand a beautiful sunset? How much does it help you to understand cruelty? Some things cannot be figured out intellectually and must be experienced to see it for what it truly is.

Meditation can provide some of those types of experiences. However, keep in mind that I have meditated for many years. If you need to see rewards immediately, then this may not be a useful path.

I believe we should all have some form of meditative experiences, but some people may prefer other routes – physical exercise, yoga, spending time in nature, mindfulness, or journaling. If meditation doesn’t work for you, try something else.

As a final note, if you are not familiar with the meditation process, countless books and sites explain it. There are many different types and ways to practice meditation. Since you can find this information easily anywhere, I have decided not to go through it here.

The Liar’s Scale (Some Lies Are Worse Than Others)

All lies are not the same, so today, I want you to consider how some lies can be better or worse than others.

On the path to seeking Truth in our lives, I think it’s important for us to think about this because if we don’t put any conscious attention on how truthful we are, or how truthful the people around us are or the systems around us, then our lives can descend into falseness. We may tell bigger and bigger lies, become surrounded by falseness, and then one-day truth and falseness can blur together.

We should always maintain our grasp on truth because grasping truth means grasping reality. To help you maintain a better grasp on truth and reality, I present you with The Liar’s Scale: (Lower numbers indicate lesser lies, and larger numbers are for bigger lies.)

1) The Survivor’s Lie

The purpose of these lies is to meet personal needs – such as for food, water, shelter, or other necessary comforts. When telling such lies, the primary goal is to survive and not take more than necessary.

2) The Positive Lie (E.g., “White Lie”)

The purpose of this lie is not to cause any harm and not to hide any misdeeds. The purpose is usually to help prevent someone from feeling bad or to help someone feel better. Your goal is to somehow improve the situation for someone else by telling a positive lie.

3) The Minor Lie

These are small lies that we may tell to get our way in fairly trivial situations. The purpose may be to help others somehow, but often we are more interested in helping ourselves to feel better or avoid a negative consequence, rather than on how this lie impacts others.

4) The “Saving Face” Lie

This is a lie where you make up an excuse or state something just for the purpose of not looking bad. At this stage, you want to manage how people think of you, even if this involves lying to them. Rather than being motivated to make people think you are the best, you don’t want them to think less of you. At this stage, you lie about who you are, which seems to be bigger than the prior lies on the scale.

5) The “I Can’t Fail” Lie

With this type of lie, you had a goal in your life, and you have realized that you could not meet it normally. To meet it then, you have decided to either tell a lie or to cheat in some way to get your desired outcome. At this stage, the lie should only be an isolated or rare incident and not a regular occurrence. However, this type of lie is higher than the prior ones because at this stage, to avoid derailing your entire life or losing a job, people can be motivated to tell much bigger lies (or cheat in substantial ways).

6) The “I Must Win” Lie

Here, the need to always win or be right or better than others will result in lying to always have that competitive edge and to maintain the illusion of being the best. You are determined to be highly competitive or possibly the best, even if it means telling big lies. This is a larger lie than the prior ones because you have decided on an outcome you must meet, and you will do anything to get that outcome, which includes lying or cheating to meet that objective.

7) The “I Will Protect You” Lie

With this type of lie, someone is aware of a bad action (by themselves or someone else), and this person lies (or purposely does not state the truth) to protect someone from having to learn about this bad action. Someone may tell themselves that they lie to protect others, but often they are also lying to protect themselves from the backlash they will receive if people learn the truth. This lie is fairly high on the scale because these lies can easily turn into further lies to cover up prior lies. It is also high on the list because, generally speaking, this involves lies that people consider major breaches of trust or integrity. Otherwise, they would not expend so much energy in maintaining this type of lie.

8) The “I Will Hurt You” Lie

The above lies are usually not intended to cause harm actively, and that is why this lie is higher up on the scale. At this point, a person is motivated to harm others – it may be for revenge, to teach someone “a lesson,” or because someone has personal reasons for disliking someone. Such lies may be used to acquire money or valuables or to cause psychological or physical harm.

9) The “My Life is a Lie” Lie

At this stage, someone has discovered that lying is a powerful tool for getting what you want. You may be able to gain sympathy by making things up or exaggerating your problems to absurd degrees. You may make up stories to entice people to give you money. Whenever your integrity or expertise is called into question, you may have lies ready to support your behavior. At this stage, major aspects of your life may have been fabricated. Your resume may be mostly made up of falsehoods, your attire may indicate that you are much more successful than you are, and your relationships may be based on promises you have made and never intended to follow through on. At this stage, a person is so used to lying as their way of life that when they are inevitably caught in a lie, they make up new “facts” to support a new story that justifies their actions.

The “Keeping the Justice” Lie

Another type of lie that will not be easily ranked above is the “Keeping the justice” lie, where someone lies to uphold some greater sense of justice or values. The reason this one will be kept unranked is that, in the end, we must all make our judgment calls as to whether it is worth it to try to keep the justice or not. And we may all have different impressions of what is justified.

I’m interested in discussing lies because it happens quite a lot, and we tend to accept it as a way of life. Anything someone tells you or anything that you read today may be a lie. We are all aware of this and probably have made some level of peace with this.

Unfortunately, the more lies a person tells, the more likely they are to fall into a pattern of telling deeper and bigger lies more frequently. At the highest stages of lying, a person’s life consists more of lies than of truth. When they get up in the morning, the first thing that runs through their mind is which made-up stories they may have to tell to which individuals to get the desired results or protect all of their prior lies from being discovered.

Even at lower stages of lying, one can easily slip into deeper levels. Imagine if someone perpetually tells minor lies (#3 on the scale). These may be small lies, but it seems like in time, this person may slip deeper and deeper down the scale as lying becomes a regular part of their life.

I would encourage you to become more conscious of any lies you may be telling in your life. Sometimes, they can become so routine that we fail even to notice them. For example, perhaps there is someone in your life which lies to you regularly. If you “go along” with these obvious lies, then in a sense, you are lying too.

If someone lies to you or those around you often, think about what you can do to break this cycle where they “sell” you their lies, and you appear to “buy” into them. We should find ways to reduce the lying around us because people who do this regularly may not even be conscious of what they are doing. And if they think they are getting away with it, they may be motivated to continue. Perhaps this is a bad habit they developed, and they will not stop unless they are called out on it somehow.

Here are some remarks I have made in the past or that I might make if I hear something that is an apparent lie:

• Really? That’s not what “such and such source” told me.

• Where are you getting your facts from? I don’t think I would trust that source.

• Some people are concerned with (insert whatever sense of integrity or value the person aims to protect with this lie), but I couldn’t care less.

• So what do you think about (mention another topic)? Or “Look at the time – I really have to get going.” (This can get them to see that you will not sit by and listen to lies.)

• Wow, that is truly unbelievable – that is one for the record books (said with slight sarcasm).

• Now you are just making stuff up (not in an irritated tone, but possibly a slightly amused tone).

• I wasn’t born yesterday, you know.

• Now that flies in the face of everything I know to be true (I may save this one for a pathological liar).

Think back to times you have noticed that someone was most likely lying. If you pay attention, you can often spot signals that will indicate someone may be lying. For example:

• An inconsistency in what someone has stated. Perhaps they claim to be whatever is advantageous at the moment, and this may result in conflicting statements.

• Their body language or tone of voice is out of sync with the words they use. They may tell you bad news in a happy tone of voice.

• They always have excuses to avoid having to do undesirable activities.

• They tend to get overly defensive, and their tone of voice rises sharply.

• They become uncomfortable and touch their nose or face as they speak.

• They closely monitor your reaction, possibly to see if you are “buying” their story. They may check for your reaction to judge if they should continue with their story or modify it to appease you.

• They make claims that do not have common sense or reason behind them – and they do this regularly.

I have given you a lot of information here. Why don’t you take a minute to reflect on the lies in your life? Consider:

What types of lies do you tell?

On average, where do they fall on the Liar’s Scale?

Have your lies gotten smaller or bigger in time?

What about the people around you. How much do you think they lie, and are you doing anything about it?

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If you liked this post, you may want to read this post next - The Path to a True and Fruitful Life - where I discuss the most impactful truths that I have found in my life.

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If you are ready to pursue your unique path to truth and understanding, you may wish to read Your Personal Truth: A Journey to Discover Your Truth, Become Your True Self, & Live Your Truth.

You can read the book on Amazon and other major retailers.

Finding the Courage to Challenge Yourself

Allow me to take you back to my middle school years (7th and 8th grades). One day toward the end of the year, teachers began handing out this piece of paper with a checkmark on it. On this paper, they decided whether we would take remedial, regular, honors, or advanced classes in high school.

In English class, the teacher checked off that I should take honors level English classes. Great, no problem.

In Science, the teacher checked off that I should take regular level, science classes. I would admit that I had not performed as well as I should have in 8th-grade science. I hadn’t taken it as seriously as I should have. While I often had a B grade, I was probably only performing about average for the class. After class, I spoke with the teacher, and I told her that I thought I could perform well at the honors level. I wasn’t sure if she was truly convinced, but she went ahead and decided to recommend me for the honors level.  Great.

The last class of the day was Algebra. At the beginning of the class, the teacher handed us our sheets of paper. I was shocked at what I saw. I had to read it over and over until it sank in.

The teacher had checked off that I should take pre-algebra in high school. This was quite a surprise because I had already taken pre-algebra in 7th grade, and I was currently in an algebra class. My grades in algebra were around the B+ level, and I was in the top 30% of the class.

I couldn’t focus on the class anymore at that point. I was sweating profusely. I felt mad at first, but then I felt embarrassed. I figured I had been in the class a full year. If the teacher recommended me for pre-algebra, then I guess this was his professional opinion. I had been hoping to take honors algebra, but that seemed quite unlikely now.

In my mind, I started to come up with reasons as to how the teacher could justify recommending me for pre-algebra. Sometimes I had filled out my homework assignments recklessly, not showing my work properly. My exam scores were decent – so I decided the homework must have been the problem. Or maybe I had done something to offend the teacher personally, and I just never realized it. My mind raced, making up possible reasons to explain how my entire future could be derailed by this.

Whether true or not, I felt that if I took pre-algebra in high school, then my college applications would seem laughable. My credentials would not be competitive enough to get into a good school. Of course, on top of this, I was insulted. The teacher was recommending that I go back to a lower level rather than move forward.

The class was almost over already, and I had gone through all this sweating, a spectrum of emotions, self-doubt, and even self-pity. I was so ashamed at the teacher’s recommendation that I had tucked the sheet of paper in my notebook, not wanting anyone to see it.

The class ended, and students were getting up to leave.

It crossed my mind that I should talk to the teacher, but I was a sweating, nervous mess by that point. I didn’t feel like I could talk to him – I didn’t know what I would even say.

Nonetheless, I needed to know why he was doing this to me. At the last moment, I went up to him with the sheet of paper with his recommendation on it.

In the most deflated way, I mumbled:

“Mr. S, I just wanted you to know that I was actually hoping to take honors algebra next year in high school.”

He glanced down at the sheet of paper I was holding with his recommendation.

“Oh my!” he said, realizing that he had checked off pre-algebra.

“That’s not right at all. Of course, you’ve been doing well enough in the class that I think you should handle honors algebra just fine.”

He crossed out his old recommendation and checked off honors algebra.

It was just a mistake, that was all.

This is a really old story if I’m going way back to middle school. It’s not because I have no other stories for you about courage. But it’s because, at that point in my life, it took a lot for me to talk to an adult directly. As a child, I avoided talking to adults whenever I could. It felt intimidating, and usually, I imagined that they would get whatever they wanted in the end. There was no point in getting into an argument with an adult.

What is interesting to me now is that this took not only courage but that I was actually using my courage to ask to be challenged. I was essentially telling my teachers that I didn’t want an easy ride in high school. I wanted them to push me further. Of course, I wanted to be competitive for college, but I also wanted the intellectual challenge for myself.

I never viewed myself as someone with much courage, but things get interesting when you want something badly enough. When you want it, you become willing to speak up and ask for it.

I see many of us moving away from the challenges, being quite happy to have things easy. We tend to feel better about ourselves when we are performing well in easy situations, but it’s important to push yourself harder, perhaps even to your limits at times. When you push yourself harder and harder, you may find that you are capable of much more than you thought.

The true lesson for me here has been the power of believing in ourselves. Although I struggled to believe in myself, and I almost didn’t say anything to my math teacher, ultimately, I had enough belief in my abilities where I felt the need to speak up.

We shouldn’t just be a leaf in the wind, being pushed this way and that by the forces around us. Rather, we should have some input into where our lives go. When we take our life into our own hands, we learn that what we do matters. Our actions can lead us toward something better or away from it. But if we don’t have the courage to live by our own will, then we may never learn that lesson.

Find the courage in yourself to strive for that challenge so that you may become something better. If you are not being pushed or challenged enough, then ask for it. You do not always need rewards to go along with it. The challenge is worth it for its own sake, to have the chance to grow beyond what you thought you could.

Often our true potential is much, much higher than we think it is. When we find the courage to challenge ourselves, we will begin to take steps that can ultimately lead us to greatness.

The Paradox of the Model Citizen

The paradox of the model citizen is that he has to know all the rules (e.g., laws, ordinances, regulations, etc.), and these rules are constantly growing, adapting, and changing – making it impossible to know them all. Then he has to obey all these rules unless it is more appropriate not to follow the rule. Rules that may be broken are those that are completely trivial or those which are unjust in their purpose. For example, the model citizen should not follow a trivial rule that gets in the way of his ability to be a productive model citizen. He should try to follow the trivial rules, but only within reason.

Also, if a rule is unjust, such as a rule that is prejudiced against some people, he has the right to defy that rule in as civil a manner as possible. However, by the nature of the rules themselves, he will likely be punished if he is caught violating a trivial rule or violating an unjust rule.

At times, the model citizen may be confronted with a situation where he must break one rule or another. In such cases, he should break the more trivial rule rather than, the more severe one. Other times, rules from one entity may conflict with the rules of another. Either way, he is in a paradox because he must choose to break a rule nonetheless. And model citizens should choose not to break any rules.

The model citizen is placed in paradoxical situations where he must defy some rules at least sometimes, meaning that he is not the model citizen. However, the model citizen that does not defy the rules is not a model citizen either because he is the fool who follows all the rules and gets in the way of society operating properly.

For example, imagine a citizen who refuses to leave a store until he receives his 12 cents in change from the cashier, even if the cashier has explained that he ran out of change. In this case, a person would be within his right to demand his change, but it is completely unreasonable. This would be especially unreasonable if this person were holding up a long line behind him.

As another example, consider a citizen who goes to the bank and wants to open a new account. The banker may say that he must sign a 25-page document to open the account. If he were actually to read it, though, the banker and surely everyone who works there would consider him a complete fool. Who would even consider wasting so much time reading this document? A model citizen may consider it, but that is the model citizen paradox, where the model citizen actually accomplishes nothing and wastes time by being the model citizen.

The true model citizen probably does not demand his 12 cents and probably does not read the 25-page document at the bank, even though such actions defy the rules or allow them to be defied.

The true model citizen values his time and ability to accomplish some good in this world. And that cannot be done if he is obsessed with every minor rule that can be used against him. The unfortunate part is that model citizens will be most concerned and worried about breaking every rule. They don’t want to tarnish their record of always following the rules. Yet, to get anything done in their lives, they must occasionally defy those rules.

Thus far, I have not even factored in all the social, implicit, unwritten rules of society.

For example:

• How many times is it appropriate to go to the restroom during the day?

• How often should you go out with friends?

• How much money should you make?

• How many friends should you have?

• How many decorations should you have in your home?

• How should you greet an acquaintance?

• How much time should you spend talking when you are in a group?

If we are overwhelmed by the official written rules, there are plenty of unwritten ones as well. Popular or likable people tend to follow these social rules well. Likewise, the model citizen will wish to follow these rules, as he values the general idea of rule-following.

The model citizen values rule-following because it helps to keep order in society. Order is good because the better you behave, the better outcomes you receive. For those unwilling to follow or obey rules, they will receive worse outcomes typically. The model citizen also values rule-following because he does not want to get in trouble for disobeying a rule. When you follow the rules, you avoid unwanted consequences. Lastly, the model citizen values rule-following because this allows him to have a more respectable and higher level in the social world. People who do not follow the rules tend to be viewed as less intelligent, troublemakers, and possibly criminals.

The problem here is that the model citizen who is too rule-focused will lose his identity. He will become obsessive about needing to follow every rule, and those rules will dictate his behaviors. He may avoid doing much because the more you do, the more likely you will break some rule, even if you were not aware of that rule.

The model citizen, in time, may lose his personal will or energy. His motivation becomes to avoid breaking the rules rather than to be his true self.

The reality is that there are so many rules at so many different levels that it would be almost impossible to avoid breaking them all – there are city, state, and federal laws. There is international law. There are rules and regulations at your workplace and every other building or organization you interact with. If you live in a gated community or apartment, they will have their own rules and regulations. If you have kids, their school has rules. And as already mentioned, there are countless unwritten social rules and expectations.

The model citizen will, of course, realize that the most critical rules are usually obvious: such as not killing, stealing, causing damage to property, drug dealing or drug use, or causing the most obvious forms of trouble.

But we should be aware that if we focus too much on rules, we may lose who we are. Rather than being who we are, we will come to avoid being who they don’t want us to be. Being who you are is different than avoiding being.

Consider the social rules that may dictate much of human behavior. Of course, etiquette is valuable in society, as this helps us to avoid being rude and hurting feelings. However, if everyone followed etiquette perfectly, where would we find personality? Isn’t personality in the nuances of how we choose or do not choose to follow etiquette?

Ask yourself: are you being you, or are you avoiding being something else?

Rules tell us what we should not be. And while these are valuable limits, especially when it comes to serious crimes or misdeeds, I don’t think we were meant to be shackled by rules everywhere we go.

For example – it is a basic social rule that we should be considerate of others. Yet, the rules are not human and not considerate of us. At some point, there are so many rules, and some of them trivial or not well known, that the rules themselves become an inconsiderate imposition on our lives.

Also, becoming obsessive about too many rules may end up creating a self-limiting mind, always focused on what we can’t and shouldn’t do, rather than on what we can and should do. If you focus on what you can’t do every day, that ends up being all you can see. Your creative abilities end up being used only for thinking about what you can’t do, rather than actually being used for their true creative purposes of coming up with new and interesting possibilities.

We need the rules – that is not in debate. However, we have so many rules that we create the paradox of the model citizen. The model citizen cannot be the model citizen. We cannot find the model citizen because he defies himself by trying to be one.

What can we do about this? Ignoring or disobeying the rules is not the answer. Rather than becoming obsessive about the rules, however, we could develop our own conscience, our sense of truths and values, and what is right. I’m not sure that we need written rules to know what is right from wrong. Thoughts or actions can actually feel wrong in your body, such as the “gut feeling.” We should listen to those to help us avoid what is wrong and move toward rightness. Do not give way to impulse – rather, listen to the deep-seated human feelings from within.

Ultimately, we should aim to take more right actions. This means that when we are presented with options or choices, we aim to do what creates more good for ourselves and the world. In this way, we can operate beyond rules and the idea of the model citizen.

The model human may be the one who knows his truth best and who demonstrates this through every action. He would not focus on not doing (e.g., obeying rules). Rather he would focus on being who he is and needs to be (e.g., doing what is true to yourself and right becomes the most worthy path).

The Winner’s Mindset - 8 Tools for Success

Introduction

Quite often, I see that people are not equipped with the right mindset to win, succeed, or resolve the problems in their lives. Of course, there is no magic solution. What I am going to present here may take a lifetime to master, but it will provide a pathway toward accomplishing more than many of us even would have thought possible.

Consider the importance of using all these tools together. If you only use a few of them, you will be limiting your potential.

1. Growth Mindset

Dr. Carol Dweck has studied the growth mindset – a mindset where you believe that you can grow in your abilities. This is important because if you attempt to do something and fail if you have a growth mindset, you will believe that you can always work on it and improve. If you have a fixed mindset, you will believe that your skills and abilities are fixed, and there is not much you can do to get any better.

With the growth mindset, you believe that the more you work and push yourself, the better you can get. And this belief turns out to be true. Likewise, for those who believe that they are limited, or those with the fixed mindset, their beliefs also turn out to be true for themselves because they limit their own potential with this mindset.

2. Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

The growth mindset may actually be a form of the self-fulfilling prophecy. Note that people who think they can grow and improve can do so. Those who do not think they can grow and improve are unable to do so. This may be an oversimplification – but at least those who think they can are much more effective in accomplishing their goals.

With the self-fulfilling prophecy, whatever you expect to happen is quite likely to actually happen. There are limits to this, of course, but this concept is one of my favorite because it shows us just how powerful the human mind is.

As an example, if I take two forty-year-old men who look to be in average shape, and I ask them to do 40 push-ups for me, who is more likely to accomplish this? The one who doubts his own abilities, or the one who is sure he can do this? If they both had the same height, weight, health status, and muscular build, the one who was more sure of himself would have a better chance to accomplish the goal.

In my life, I have found that when I believe something is going to happen, I don’t spend any energy doubting or thinking about failure. That means I use more energy to accomplish what I want to do rather than on negative emotional energy. Therefore, I am much more likely to succeed at what I believed I would succeed at.

Often your belief will create reality. Be careful about what you expect, as it will probably happen. In this sense, it will pay off to be optimistic and expect things to go well.

3. Affirmations and Visualization

A“belief” with nothing to back it up can feel empty and meaningless for many of us. If I tell you to believe in yourself and believe that you will succeed, this sounds like empty motivational speak. It doesn’t feel real, and it seems unlikely to actually make a difference in your life. For that reason, you may wish to try creating affirmations and visualizations to make your beliefs more real in your mind.

Affirmations and visualization are tools you can use to create stronger positive beliefs in your mind, making it more likely that they will come true. This is an application of the self-fulfilling prophecy, where you train your mind to expect something to happen through affirmations. Affirmations are statements you make and say to yourself in effort to make them feel true and real. Once you have your affirmation, you can visualize that thing happening in vivid detail so that your mind feels it already has happened. Then there is nothing left to do but live out that which has already happened in your mind. Ultimately, your mind will feel comfort in simply living out that path which you have already created. This will feel like destiny, in a way. To do anything else outside of what your affirmation/visualizations indicate would feel like going against nature.

As an example of an affirmation, you may write down a statement such as:

I will live my life today without allowing negative emotions to guide my actions. Instead, I will be guided only by positive emotions, reason, and intuition.

With visualization, you would visualize yourself living out the above affirmation. You may envision someone verbally attacking you. But rather than allowing negative emotional energy to overcome you, you would respond calmly by suggesting that you continue this conversation when the other person has calmed down, or you could state that you have more important things you need to do at the moment. They should write their grievances in an email to you so that you can respond at a later time. If the person continues to be verbally aggressive, you may calmly walk away and say, “Have a nice day!” Notice that with this affirmation, the goal is not to extinguish negative emotion but rather to stop such emotions from guiding our everyday actions.

4. Ongoing Learning

Part of the way you win and do better than others is to learn more than them. In many fields, you must develop your expertise to perform well. Even if your field is not intellectual or informational, you could be surprised at the importance of continuing to learn. For example, someone who plays sports at a high level would want to study their opponents’ weaknesses to search for ways to gain a competitive advantage.

Our world changes and adapts rapidly, and so to keep up with this, you must continue to learn regularly. The prior principles focused on your beliefs and mindset. But if you have a positive mindset and you have not learned anything, then you may be an overconfident amateur.

5. Work Harder and Smarter

Working hard is a continuation of ongoing learning. You will need to learn and work harder than most people if you truly want to win. Generally, this can mean working more hours or training more rigorously. Then when you reach a level where everyone is working quite hard, you will need to work smarter to gain an advantage.

Working smarter could mean finding any critical weaknesses in your abilities and working to develop those. It could also mean finding your greatest strengths and fine-tuning those to become even better at what you do. Working smarter can also mean prioritizing what is truly important for you to work on. All work is not equal. You could work very hard and make very little progress if the work was not important or instrumental.

Working smarter can also mean finding the right leader, colleagues, or organization to work in. If you are highly skilled but in the wrong environment that can not properly use your skills, you will not accomplish much.

6. Make Your Own Luck

To increase your chances of winning or success, you should aim to make your own luck. This can mean increasing your chances for something good to happen. The way you approach this will be different depending on your field.

For example, if you have written something that you think everyone needs to read, you may pay to translate it into several languages. Even if no one in your native language is impacted by what you wrote, perhaps you will find people who truly believe in your ideas with another language.

Also, you may practice sending out an email to an author, political figure, or owner of a company regularly, depending on your goals. Be quick and to the point. Don’t ask for anything big such as for a job. You may start by recognizing their good work and how you are interested in what they do. Then you may ask if they have any suggestions to help you with a particular problem. Or perhaps they can suggest a resource that may help you. If you feel it is appropriate and you are especially interested in learning more from someone, you may offer to buy that person lunch so that you can have a quick conversation with them.

The general idea is that you will want to put yourself in positions where you will more likely accomplish your goals, whatever those goals may be. I recently heard that in high school, Bill Gates and his friends hacked into his high school’s computer databases so that he would get placed in classes with all females. The idea was that this would help increase Bill Gates’ chances of getting a date. Surely he must have had better chances of getting a date when he was surrounded by females.

To increase your luck and opportunities, ask yourself questions such as:

• Where can I position myself to increase the chances of meeting my goals? (This may even involve moving.)

• Who can I network with or contact to increase the chances of meeting my goals?

• What can I do to make more people notice my skills and talents (e.g., starting a blog, podcast, or volunteering to work for free for someone who is known for being the best in their field)

Notice that to increase your luck, you do not need particular goals. The general goal is to put yourself in situations or circumstances that will make it more likely for good things to happen. Of course, you probably should have some specific goals that you are working toward in your life at the same time.

7. Creative Problem-Solving

When you practice generating many solutions to your problems, you can get very good at this. If this becomes a daily practice for you, you will find that eventually, you can effortlessly come up with a variety of potential solutions to virtually any problem.

This creative skill is one of the greatest assets you can have because so many people are not used to thinking this way. In school and our work lives, many of us get used to searching for one solution to our problems. When that one solution does not work, we become frustrated and need to call the boss or Google it.

If we practice our creative idea generation abilities instead, we could become better and better. In time, we would feel confident that we could solve new problems on our own without always needing extra assistance.

As I already indicated, the world we live in is rapidly changing and demands that we adapt to it. Those who can look for creative solutions will be in the best position to succeed when difficult circumstances arise.

To practice this skill, the next time someone makes you aware of a problem, try to come up with five possible solutions to solve it. Also, of course, if you come across your own life problem, do the same thing. Do not settle for the first or even second obvious solution that you come. Work harder to train your mind to be more creative.

8. React Positively to the Overwhelming Likelihood of Failure

I often see that as soon as a problem becomes difficult, people are ready to give up on it. They will say that this is too difficult. Or, if the situation involves a game or competition, as soon as one team starts to lose, they will become discouraged and feel that there is no way to win.

However, the person with a true success mindset will never stop looking for possibilities to win or accomplish what they truly want to do. A problem that can develop in our mindsets is that when you look for reasons to give up, the next time you face a difficult problem, it becomes easier to give up. You can actually train yourself to become a failure. If you choose to give up every time things get difficult, you will train yourself to give up more easily and more quickly with each new problem you face. Eventually, just the slightest indication of trouble will cause you to throw in the towel. You will fail before you truly even get started.

Rather, we must train ourselves in the opposite direction. The harder things get, the more stubborn you should become, searching for pathways to accomplish your goals. Obviously, there is an actual point where it makes sense to give up, but it depends on the circumstance. If you do not look forward to succeeding at something, then you should probably give up. But more often than not, we give up too early on our goals or dreams.

My favorite way to train this mindset for not giving up is with games. It could be chess, Monopoly, or even video games. It doesn’t matter. I’ve learned that it is fun to win, but I also enjoy having fun when the odds are stacked against me. Even when you think all hope is lost, if you keep pushing forward and going for the win, sometimes you will get it. And it is gratifying to get that win when it seemed impossible. Games are a perfect vehicle to train your mindset because there is no real excuse to give up – you are usually not risking losing money or wasting anyone’s time.

When you can do so, practice continuing to go for the win even when others think it is a lost cause.

As an example, recently, I was playing a speed chess game. The other player was higher rated than me, and he outplayed me completely. Eventually, I got to the point where I realized I couldn't win the game if I played normally. I was down a lot of material (or points).

My solution was to make the worst possible move in the game.

The move was so bad only someone new to the game could make it. (My opponent and I were both in around the top 5% of chess players). I left my Queen vulnerable, which is the most valuable piece. In his mind, he never would have expected me to make this worst possible move, and so he didn’t realize how bad it truly was. He proceeded in the game, making a “normal” move. Then I stole his queen. I made the worst move possible in the game, but a side effect of this was that it would allow me to take his queen for free. Then I proceeded to win a game that should have been impossible for me to win at that point.

Notice that I used some creative thinking here - I don’t think most people consider making the worst possible move as a viable option when trying to win. Giving up assures you that you will lose, so sometimes, in difficult circumstances, it makes sense to try something “so crazy, it just might work.”

Train your mindset in small everyday ways like this. No game is too trivial. No situation is too minor. Take whatever opportunity you can to teach yourself to have a winner’s mindset. Keep going for that win even when the odds seem stacked against you. Trust me when I say that those wins feel the best.

If you liked this post, I also recommend reading my post on Oliver James’, as he is currently on the path to success despite dealing with functional illiteracy and mental health issues. It’s a truly inspirational story.

How Do You Respond to Challenging Questions?

Children can sometimes question endlessly, can’t they? They have been known to ask what something is, and then when you explain it, they may ask “Why?” over and over to try to learn more deeply.

As adults, we have often reached a point where we stopped questioning. This is unfortunate as I can see that this habit of not questioning has taken a toll on society.

On a routine basis in my interactions with experts, I will ask a question that could be challenging – for example, it could be unique or considering things from a different perspective. Usually, I feel that they should know the answer because I am asking an expert in their field. I feel that I am just asking them to think through problems in a slightly more complex way, rather than just giving me the solution they may find in their work manual or a Google search.

Often when I ask these questions, I am met with some of the following responses:

“I’m really not sure – maybe the reason is...”

When I hear this, usually they make something up, where often it is obvious to me that their answer is not correct. The problem with this approach is that they are more concerned with appearing to be helpful rather than actually being helpful. Sometimes, I also have the impression that they are worried about looking foolish or unknowledgeable – they want to hide the fact that they do not know certain things. With their approach, they are not learning anything new from my questions.

“I have no idea. That isn’t what we focus on here.”

Often, they will tell me this in an annoyed tone, as if I shouldn’t be asking questions. The problem here is that I have asked a question somehow related to their field. Yet, they are drawing clear lines as to what they will not think about. With that approach, their knowledge will forever remain limited as they refuse to learn new things. I understand that some things are outside of a person’s professional domain, but I still think people should be more curious about how different domains are related. Divisions between fields are often just imaginary lines or boundaries that we draw. In reality, everything is interrelated.

 “What’s important actually is that….”

After saying this, they focus on something else, more concerned with selling a product or guiding me to do what they want me to do rather than answer my question. In this case, they do not place value on questions. They view questions as a distraction from meeting their goal. This is a mistake because if they actually learned how to answer some questions, they could better help their clients and better meet their goals. In this case, they seem to be refusing to acknowledge that anything they don’t already know could be important.

The above responses are the most frequent ones that I get. The ones below are less common.

 “That is a good question. I don’t know the answer, but I will have to look it up and get back to you.”

Although they probably have good intentions, they usually never get back to me. Usually, this is someone who is interested in learning or in helping their clients. Still, they are very focused on meeting their immediate goals, and they will probably not invest time in looking up answers unless they think it is necessary. Although this is better than some of the above options, they are still failing to learn from new questions that they receive. And most of the time, they have still not actually answered the question I presented.

“I will look this up now,” or “I will ask my supervisor and get back to you in a moment.”

Usually, with this approach, they can give me a helpful response. Typically, even if they do not know the answer, they can help me understand why they do not know. Perhaps they will explain that there are several possible reasons that something has happened. Or they may need to run extra tests or perform extra services to answer some of my questions. The person who responds with the above phrase (in bold) will place value on new questions and seek to answer them. They will understand that questions present an opportunity for learning and growth. This response is fairly rare, and I am glad to see that some people (or the organizations they belong to) value answering potentially challenging questions.

“The answer is:” (and they proceed to give a good and reasonable answer.)

This is the part that saddens me. When I ask unique, thoughtful, or detailed questions, I don’t expect to receive good answers anymore. This is because of my experiences in having seen that most of the time, I will not receive useful answers to my questions. Usually, I am met with one of the top 4 phrases mentioned above – which results in me getting no answers.

The person who knows the answer to my question right away usually has a lot of experience is highly talented, or places a lot of value on learning new things and trying to answer new questions effectively. Someone who answers my question with reasonable solutions has probably thought through this question already. They have been asked similar questions in the past, but rather than avoid the question, they learned what they needed to answer it appropriately.

With this type of person, sometimes I will continue to ask more questions. My curiosity is endless, and I am fascinated by the opportunity to learn more about topics from people who are truly experts in their fields. Often, someone who can answer one challenging question is also quite capable of handling other challenging questions. After a few questions, I will often get to a point where we find a limit to their knowledge. But this type of person will always think about my questions more deeply and seek the answers for their own benefit.

It is frustrating to see that many people on a daily basis are on autopilot. They are going through certain motions. They do not expect any challenges in their day, nor do they want them. Any new question is assumed to be pointless or a distraction. For many of us, we see questions as child’s play. We think of the child who annoyed us with endless questions, or the person who makes a fool of himself asking questions with obvious answers, or we think of the teacher who scolded us for “wasting” classroom time with questions. Questions have a bad reputation for many of us, but we need to focus on bringing them back into our lives.

In my life, questions are the primary thinking tool I use for everything. The trick isn’t just to ask questions but to ask good ones. How do you ask good questions? By developing the habit of questioning so that you learn to ask better and better questions. What is a good question? The good question is that which helps you to accomplish your goals.

I want to be challenged with new, interesting, and even difficult questions. Actually, I think we should all want this.  

Do you really want to think the same thoughts every day, do the same things every day, and not be pushed into becoming anything better every day?

Is that what we are truly after? This seems quite meaningless to me, as I hope it does to you as well.

Today, I ask you to challenge me, to push me further.

Ask me any question, even if you are sure I will not know the answer.

You can do so in the comments section below.

I am the type of person who cannot let it go. When I am asked something, it will roll around in my mind until I find a solution. If I go to sleep concerned about something, I wake up with the solution in my mind.

I cannot guarantee that I will know the answer to your question, but I will try to figure it out and give you a helpful response.

In your life, seek to ask more questions and encourage people to ask you more questions. When you are asked new and challenging questions, search deeply for the answers. You will become more and more confident every day in your ability to solve problems if you do this.

Eventually, you may reach a point where you can craft the right questions for yourself, and you can seek your own answers to these questions.

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If you could use some example questions to help get you into the questioning mindset, consider reading the following (written with co-author Dave Edelstein):

Question Yourself: 365 Questions to Explore Your Inner Self & Reveal Your True Nature

The Value of NOT Thinking

I find it valuable to think – it helps us identify problems and find ways to resolve them. But oddly enough, there may be a great deal of value in not thinking that most of us are unaware of.

Have you ever had an experience that was supposed to be fun, but you got caught up in thought? You were busy wondering if this was as fun as something else you had done if the hot weather was ruining the experience, if you had too much work to do, and should not even be having fun in the first place.

The thoughts rolled on and on, as you almost forgot you were even having this so-called fun experience. The experience that seemed to be so much fun actually turned into a series of thoughts in your mind. Your thoughts pounded in your head, and the experience faded into the background.

Many people go on yearly or periodic vacations. And I think what we often want is to get away from our lives, ourselves, and thoughts. But what do you do when the same old thoughts you always had follow you around everywhere you go?

Can we take a vacation from thinking?

Even if you master your thoughts and don’t allow them to interfere with your experience of being and living, how will you react when people around you are bombarded by thoughts? Meaning well, they may feel the need to avoid uncomfortable silences and constantly talk about the weather, their kids, their lives, and their plans. And communication is a wonderful thing, but just as with thoughts, sometimes communication can get in the way of the experience we are having.

What if someone near you asks: Are you enjoying yourself? Do you need more of something? What do you think of that thing that just happened, that was wonderful, wasn’t it? We should take a picture – let’s pose for one here. Etc.

This sort of behavior will, of course, take us away from the experience. And we cannot always control our own thoughts, let alone the thoughts and actions of the people around us.

The first step here is to figure out if your constant thoughts are getting in the way of truly experiencing your own life. Is the analysis of everything that happens to you actually holding you back? Do you have to find meaning in everything you do, or are you let down by the fact that something was just a normal life experience that didn’t result in anything useful?

The topics I discuss on this site are not meant to cripple us in thought and anxiety over whether we are making improvements in our lives. That would be counterproductive. If you become depressed or anxious over your inability to improve in your life, then we need to reset your expectations and perhaps take a break from thinking.

Sometimes our thoughts hold us back, even if they appear to be useful or positive. This is a strange thing for many of us to realize. Our own thoughts that seem to be trying to help us can actually get in the way. Even seemingly good thoughts can get in the way of experiencing something to the fullest.

We are not our thoughts.

This is something many people fail to realize. Some people have a very dark thought, and they become distraught. They think this means they are a bad person because they have had this horrible thought. The thoughts are not just coming from us. They are produced by all of our life experiences and all that we have seen. We have all seen darkness – in ourselves, in some behaviors of the people around us, and most certainly in the news, movies, and other media. Many thoughts are not our own. Rather they are created by our experiences with the outside world.

When I have thoughts that are not especially helpful, I pretend that there is an iPad in front of me, and the sole purpose of this iPad is to record all of my thoughts. It records every single thing that happens in my head, line by line. When you see it that way, you see your thoughts as separate from yourself, and you can select the ones that are useful and forget about the rest.

The main tool I have used not to allow thinking to interfere with my experiences is to meditate. Everyone has heard about this now, so it is nothing new. To explain briefly, when you meditate, you sit quietly and observe your thoughts passing through you. You do not need to hang onto them or dwell on them. If you wish to begin, start with a few minutes of meditation per day and gradually work your way into it more deeply. Over time, this can create radical changes in the way you think or don’t think.

Mindfulness can also be useful. With mindfulness, you train yourself to be more aware of nature and what is happening around you. Rather than get lost in thought, you aim to immerse yourself in the environment around you.

The more you think, the more those thoughts crowd out the whole experience you are having. The more you focus on the experience fully and the physical sensations it causes, the less room you will have to obsess over your thoughts.

Experience more. Think Less.

As much as I think deeply, this is counterbalanced because I spend much of my time in a non-thinking mode. For example, as I write now, my mind is only on what I am doing. I have trained it not to worry about any other problems or goals that I have in my life. This is my sole focus. So I am thinking, but only on what is necessary at the moment. In anything I do, I aim to immerse myself into it, only focusing or thinking about what is necessary. Even if I have other thoughts, I don’t focus on them. I don’t give them extra attention.

These patterns are a daily practice. If you find that you have a huge log of thoughts piling up in your head every day, holding you down rather than helping you, it will help to practice meditation or mindfulness. Yoga, martial arts, or other physical exercises may produce similar results for some people as well. You can also consider having a professional massage or going to the sauna.

Whatever it is, find something that will help you to have a vacation from thinking (or perhaps a mini-vacation). This can be used as a tool to refresh and reenergize your mind to make your thinking more clear and powerful.

From Inner Focus to Outer Focus

I am extremely self-reflective. You may notice I reflect about myself, society, and even the universe.

However, at certain points, I have created so many problems that self-reflection couldn’t fix them.

When you don’t know what path to go on in life, and you’ve had limited experiences, can just thinking it through truly solve this? Instead, you may need to seek out new experiences to learn more deeply what you truly want to do.

When you have constant troubles with your spouse or significant other and every day is like walking on eggshells, is self-reflection going to resolve these issues that have built up over the years? Instead, you may need to communicate more effectively.

When you are drowning in your own self-created misery, anxiety, depression, guilt, or whatever it may be, is thinking through the thoughts that created that misery going to help? Instead, you may need to find ways to get away from your own toxic thoughts and participate more fully in the real world - get physically active, spend time with friends, or take up a hobby.

The great challenge of helping yourself or even helping others is that there is no one solution that works in all cases. I am a great proponent of self-reflection and learning about ourselves. But sometimes, the solutions to life’s troubles don’t come from within.

Sometimes we have to pay attention to what is happening around us. We have to become more in tune with what is outside of us and beyond our own small corner of the universe.

Many of our self-created problems come from assuming that we are much more important than we are. In such cases, focusing more deeply on ourselves may create more problems rather than helping to resolve them.

There are two primary forms of focus that we can employ in this life. There is Inner Focus and Outer Focus.

Inner Focus

With inner focus, you are aware of your thoughts, problems, how everything affects you, and your feelings. This can be good so that you are aware and conscious of how you are living your life.

But if your inner focus becomes too powerful or extreme, this can become like a gaping black hole that sucks you deep into yourself, to the point that it becomes difficult to escape from yourself. You can reach a point where you are stuck in your own thoughts and feelings, unable to perceive anything beyond your own miseries and problems. This is clearly counterproductive.

The trick is to catch yourself sinking into yourself deeper and deeper like quicksand and to do something about it before you truly get stuck.

Outer Focus

With outer focus, we are attuned to what is going on around us. You can see the nature around you, whether people, birds, squirrels, insects, or even plants and trees. You wake up to the fact that there is so much going on all around you. Birds are feeding their young. Bees are pollinating the flowers. A child that scraped his knees is calling for his mother.

Despite that your mind focuses most of its energy on yourself, you are not the center of the universe.

In seeing deeply into what is happening around you, it helps to diffuse your own personal problems. The more your focus is on what is happening outside of you, the smaller you and your problems seem by comparison.

I used outer focus to overcome a great fear of mine. In graduate school (a decade ago), I needed to deliver presentations regularly. Usually, every month or two, I needed to do this. But I had stage fright. As a child, I sometimes skipped school on days when I was expected to present. As an adult, I realized that skipping out was not a real option. This would not help me or anyone.

In trying to overcome my fear of public speaking, I examined myself more and more closely. What will people think if I mess up? What if I forget what I wanted to say? What if I don’t know the answer to someone’s question? I could easily fail and look stupid, and people could laugh at me. To make matters worse, possibly, I was a fairly shy, quiet individual.

The way to resolve this thinking was so simple that I was surprised when I realized the solution. The solution was to put my focus on others, not on myself. If I’m about to present, and I think, “Don’t mess this up,” then this is setting things up horribly.

Of course, I learned my material and studied it carefully, and I practiced my presentations several times. But what truly made the difference was that I changed my frame of mind.

I stopped thinking about how I was going to look. I developed a mindset where I no longer cared about myself. I focused instead outwardly on helping others. I viewed my presentation as me teaching my classmates something new. I was there to help them understand a new topic. I wasn’t there to scrutinize my every thought and move. The more I focused outwardly, the better I was able to present. I became concerned with them and their learning process, not my own appearance. After a few presentations thinking in this way, I no longer feared it.

Self-reflection is a useful skill to have. We must be cautious because it can become a harmful habit if we reach the point of Self-obsession.

I have heard of some people who were very ill – they suffered daily with fragile health. They took medications or treatments that were so strong it left them feeling weak. Yet some of these people worked intensely and performed at such a high level that people were amazed at what they could accomplish - the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg comes to mind.

Some of the world’s highest performers have this figured out. It isn’t about themselves - it’s about what greater good they can do for others.

Perhaps we will surprise ourselves when we stop getting sucked into our own daily pains and problems and instead focus outside of ourselves on helping those around us and the solutions we can provide.

Today, open your eyes and truly see what is happening around you. Let go of the pains and problems within, and focus on what is happening outside of yourself, beyond your small corner of the universe.

Community Acts of Kindness

In this society, a lot of strain is placed on teachers and schools: they are expected to take care of all of a child’s needs in some cases since some parents cannot do this on their own.

A lot of strain is placed on police: they are expected to deal with a wide range of societal problems that no one else wants to deal with.

A lot of strain is placed on parents: they are expected to raise children well while dedicating themselves fully to their jobs. If these parents have older parents of their own, they may be faced with parenting children and caring for their parents all at once.

Much strain is placed on college students: they are expected to know what they want to do with the rest of their lives and pursue that major, yet there is no guarantee that there will be jobs when they graduate. The field that they study may not even exist in a few years.

There is a lot of strain placed on those with poor health or those with disabilities: how can they be expected to thrive when they must deal with lost time, energy, and the financial costs of their illness.

There is much strain placed on most people who live through some of the above or have family members who are living through other strains that I did not mention.

At some point, we must realize that no single profession can take on all of these strains. A teacher cannot fix it when a child is facing neglect in their home. The police cannot fix it when that child grows up to commit crimes. The solution of putting this person in jail is not a real solution. The real solution would have been to prevent this from happening in the first place. The parents of this criminal cannot fix it when they had decided long ago to work two jobs each to keep the lights on at home. They never made time for their own child.

The college student cannot fix it when he has taken 100k dollars in loans to get a degree in something that employers view as irrelevant. His guidance counselor never mentioned the risk of that when he was studying hard to earn good grades.

Those in poor health cannot fix it when they have to choose between spending money on taking care of their health or getting educated in a field that will help them have a good career.

Many people are strained enough that they can’t see beyond their immediate situation.

Expecting some of these professions to fulfill their roles perfectly can have disastrous effects. In reality, no one will fulfill their roles perfectly, so as individuals, we need to take on more – if we are in the position to do so.

If we can help someone, we should do it. If I can help some people in my community, this helps build a better community for all of us.

Many people surely will think that they are not in the position to help anyone. But it’s not as complicated as we may think. We all have a set of skills. If someone needs your help and cannot pay, consider helping out pro bono (without charging them). If you need certain materials to do the work, then tell them to pay for the materials and that you will do the rest.

For example, perhaps you make your living working at a company, earning a decent salary. But you also have many handy skills. If a coworker needs some help around the house, you may volunteer to help out one day, and you may not ask for any compensation if you know that he is struggling. Or perhaps this coworker is new and just moved in. He has plenty of other costs and things to worry about, and so it would be a great help to him if he did not have to pay you.

If you own a business and a client is paying for a wide variety of services, and at the last moment the client notices that he actually needs more services from you, you may perform a small additional service at no added cost as a “thanks” to this client. Or you may look for creative ways to help him that don’t require much extra work on your part without increasing his costs.

The better you are doing in your own life, the more you should look for opportunities to add value to the people around you, even if it does not necessarily increase your own profits.

We live in very profit-driven societies. We are obsessed with currency because it is a hard metric that we can track. We can look at our bank statements and see that the figures are going up or down or staying steady. With so many other important areas in our lives, they are not always so easily trackable.

For example, we do not have a device that measures love, peace, happiness, or wisdom. These are immeasurable, so we tend to disregard them in our societies that place great value on data. We treat them as unimportant when they are actually critical features of a properly functioning society.

Our thinking needs to shift more to being like a gardener. If I plant a peach tree and watch it grow, I am not concerned if it bears no fruit the first season I plant it. Maybe it is still young and needs time to grow. Maybe in the second year, it will give me a few peaches, but maybe in the third year, it will provide loads more peaches than I need.

The fruits come when they come – all I can do is nurture them to grow and wait patiently.

Practice your patience, and stop needing everything to happen right now.

Likewise, with our communities, the fruits will come when they come. If I meet a neighbor and find out her child struggles in algebra, I may think back to my own childhood. I found algebra to be highly frustrating, and I thought I would never understand it. But eventually, through hard work and through the kindness of my teacher, who tutored me pro bono, I was able to understand it quite well. And so, I may volunteer to help a neighbor’s child whenever he has a problem he is stuck on. (These days, there are so many online resources to help with these kinds of issues, but they did not exist when I was a child.)

These are small steps, but that is fine. We are all busy with our own lives, but there is so much more that matters beyond our own personal concerns.

Surely you have your own struggles, but ask yourself if you have all that you truly need. Do you have much more than you need? If you do, start thinking of others around you, of your community.

This neighbor’s child struggling through algebra may end up becoming a mathematician. Without my help, he may never have realized that he actually enjoyed the topic very much.

We never know what kinds of fruits will come from our actions or how much time they may take to truly blossom, but that is the wonderful thing about these community acts of kindness.

Even if the fruits of your labors are not always your own to profit from, there is a tremendous pleasure that comes from knowing that you have helped someone to become a better version of themselves. To help someone overcome an obstacle that is holding them back can also be life-changing.

When your community is able to thrive, there will be cascading effects. If one community is thriving, that community will help neighboring communities, and this positive, helpful energy will gradually spread through and through. From one community to the next, one city to the next, then one state to the next, then one country to the next.

It is not so easy, and I don’t mean to make it sound that way. But it all begins with a simple step from one individual. That one individual could be you today.

When someone asks you for help today, don’t cast them aside so easily. Take a few minutes and see what you can do to help. If you can, avoid setting up a “Wall of Busyness” where you are so busy with your own life that you cannot do anything for anyone else.

We tend to value our independence and figuring out our troubles on our own – but no one truly does everything on their own. The self-made man or woman is an illusion. No one is born, and taught, and guided toward greatness all on their own. We can achieve quite a lot through our own willpower, but we still need others to get there.

So it would be a step in the right direction if we continued to value our independence, but it is also important that we place more value on helpfulness. People need help to become fully independent. And people need help to thrive and arrive at a position where they can also help others.

Don’t judge someone just because they are at a lower level in the game of life. See what you can do to push them forward. You may be surprised to find where they end up.

So many people are on social media now. You may consider looking for groups or communities in your social media channels that correspond to your physical location. Perhaps someone near you could use a helping hand.

Or you may look for ways to help people who need advice in an area that you have expertise in. There are online communities for every conceivable skill, problem, and interest.