Which seeds are you watering? A good gardener knows when and how to water the seeds of their fruits and vegetables. You are also a gardener. You have within you all the seeds: seeds of envy, seeds of joy, seeds of greed, seeds of love, seeds of ambition, seeds of contentment. The question is: which seeds are you watering? When I watch the news I find that my seeds of negativity, hate, and...
Run. Run faster. You’re almost 40 and you haven’t achieved enough. Everyone running this race is ahead of you. Look to the left – that woman has more money. She has a bigger job. She owns two properties. Look to your right – that man has published three books and started two businesses. He has his own podcast. I heard he’s worth $12 million, and he’s only 35...
I recently walked past a man sitting on the side of the street talking to himself. He was speaking loudly, with great emotion, and every few sentences the topic of his soliloquy seemed to change dramatically. In one moment, he seemed to be ranting about a woman: “And who does she think she is?! You don’t talk to me like that! Don’t you ever dare talk to me like that!” In...
Unsupervised, children will get into trouble. Breaking dishes, muddying the carpet, drawing on the furniture — you name it. But put a parent or teacher in the room, and they’re much more likely to behave. The simple process of being OBSERVED leads to children behaving better. Same goes with our own minds. Unsupervised, our minds will run rampant. Ruminating, stressing, judging, catastrophizing —...
Mental obesity is on the rise. We all know the symptoms of being physically unfit — obesity, labored breathing, poor strength, chronic illness. We also know exactly what it takes to become physically FIT — exercise, nutrition, sleep. What is less known is what it means to be MENTALLY unfit. What does it mean to be mentally obese? Here are some common symptoms: you find it difficult to focus...
A gorilla is standing in front of a Van Gogh. He’s standing in front of this painting and he’s intrigued. ‘What exactly is this thing?’ he wonders. ‘What does it mean?’ He wants to understand this painting, so he begins to study it. He makes a list of all the colors in the painting. Maybe that will get him closer to understanding the painting. Then he invents a microscope and sees that the paint...
As you progress on the spiritual path you will naturally find yourself speaking less and less. You’ll come to see that, most of the time, spoken words are the vehicle of the ego. I speak because I want to spread my thoughts and my beliefs. I want you to think and believe as I do. I speak because I want you to think of me in a certain way, and so I choose words as a way to construct my social...
What’s the difference between philosophy and photography? One uses a camera. Aside from that, nothing. They’re both all about perspective. Don’t like what you see through your lens or through your life? Change the composition. Pan slightly to the left or to the right. Crop out the people, places, and habits that no longer serve you. Lacking direction, meaning, purpose? Zoom out. Keep zooming out...
In a recent conversation with a mentor I mentioned how important it is for me to live close to nature. “You ARE nature,” he reminded me. Touché! At some point, our society began to inadvertently nudge us toward the false belief that we are somehow separate from the nature we see when we look out our windows. It’s with this understanding that we can start to observe nature in order to understand...
A friend asked me how many books I’ve read this year. I said 3. He’s read 15. After our chat he sent me an article on how to increase reading speed so that you can consume more books faster. Consuming too much too fast leads to indigestion. I learned that when I was a toddler. It’s true in regard to what we put into our bodies and I think it’s true in regard to what we put into our minds. It is...
My soccer coach used to run us to death. He’d have us sprinting up and down steep hills…carrying a teammate on our back. “What am I, a Navy SEAL?” I remember thinking to myself. When we finished we’d be exhausted. We’d put our hands on our knees and drop our gaze to the ground. Our coach didn’t like that. “Heads up! Heads up!” he would scream. I never understood why it was so important to...
Wherever you go, there you are. If you’re thinking that changing a job or a house or a location will have a lasting impact on your happiness then you might hear someone utter this platitude. I’d like to make a minor alteration to the saying: “Wherever you go, there your brain is.” The reason why changing your external circumstances rarely has the kind of impact you hope is because...
I once stood under a freezing waterfall in the mountains of Japan. In the middle of winter. And believe it or not I wasn’t out there alone. There were others. This was a thing. It’s an ascetic practice called “takigyo” or “waterfall meditation” and it holds the purpose of purifying and strengthening one’s mind and body. Standing directly under the path of the heavy and unimaginably cold...
How many lives do you have? We’re told that we only have one life, and that we’d better make the most of it. As the story goes, we’re born and then we die. The time in between is our one life. But look a little closer. Are you sure that you’re born just once? Are you sure that you die just once? Put a photo of you at 5 years old next to a photo of you today. Are you that 5 year old? Do you still...
The coronavirus has brought extraordinary devastation to our external lives, but even more chaos to our inner lives. Anxiety, uncertainty, loss, fear. For you, the inner storm may just be heavy rain with some intermittent hail, maybe some thunder and lightning. But for many, the inner storm feels more like a tornado. So what should we do? Well, what does one do during a storm? One seeks shelter...
