Tag: Self

Life is Short…But Also Long

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I recently finished listening to a John D. Rockefeller biography. The audiobook really got me thinking, as I was able to progress through the entire length of the life of arguably one of the most important people in history, in less than a month.

The audiobook stirred questions like,

“How can one best use the time they have for maximum happiness and impact?”

“How could someone so significant in history be fit into such a short audio recording?”

When John D. Rockefeller is remembered, “robber baron,” and “monopolist” come to mind. Yet, the process of refining oil to be used as fuel, through which it can be argued that most of the modern world was built, were a direct result of the Standard Oil company’s technological enhancements to the industry.

What seems shocking is the fact that a man so influential in history, so brilliant, having lived such a long and influential life, could have his life watered down into just 35 hours of narration. Most people will never accomplish anywhere near as much is Mr. Rockefeller did, despite having access to more knowledge, better education, and instantaneous communication technology.

It seems like most people don’t know how to utilize their time.

Seneca tackled this issue during his letter “On The Shortness Of Life.” This snippet of 2000 year old advice is entirely relevant to the modern day.

Seneca states,

“It’s not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste much of it. Life is long enough, and it’s been given to us in generous measure for accomplishing the greatest of things, if the whole of it is well invested. But when life is squandered through soft and careless living, and when it’s spent on no worthwhile pursuit, death finally presses and we realize that the life which we didn’t notice passing has passed away.”

There is a stoic principle of “Memento Mori” which translates as, “remember you are mortal. It is meant to color your perspective and make you think about the fact you are going to die. It is meant to make you think about how you choose to spend your time.

Life will probably be long enough for you to accomplish some of the things that you want to get done. The amount of the goals you hit will depend on how many you have, and how you budget time and money to realize them. Some options will exclude others. For example, you likely cannot become both a cattle rancher and an astronaut at the same time. Remember, as Confucius said, “the man who chases two rabbits catches none.”

You can do anything, but you most likely will not be able to do everything. Sure, there are outliers. Elon Musk is a great example of how a person can accomplish feats that astound the average citizen. However, he too will leave things unfinished when his number comes up.

Life is long for most people, but that doesn’t mean it moves slowly. At some point there will be no more days for you to look forward to. You might reflect on that and see if what you’re doing is what you want to be doing.

A Daring Adventure or Nothing

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Throughout time there have been those who stayed home to farm and those who left home to conquer.

Those who went out into the world with a drive to explore. And those who, for whatever reason, held themselves back from true adventure.

Life is not for those who hold themselves back. To reach your grave safely, never having dared to do a great deed is no accomplishment. To go from birth to death without truly exploring the limits of your own constitution, your own character, and your own capacity is not a feat, but rather a travesty.

Yet, so few people accomplish what they desire. So few people travel the world. So few people actually tell the person they love how they truly feel. So few people dare to start a business or write a book.

Everyone says that they want to get out and explore. But their minds are all filled with phrases like “I wish I could do that” or “Wouldn’t it be nice if…”

Thoughts like that are cancer to your life. If you think something in that vein, you should turn 180º and think in the opposite direction.

You are either growing or dying.

You are either exploring or cowering.

You are either making waves or being knocked over by them.

The truth is, most people don’t do the things they want too in life because they never make up their mind to do them. They never focus on what steps need to be taken in order to get to where they want to go. They never choose to boldly go where no man has gone before, they flounder and indefinitely put off their dreams.

Instead of testing their own limits, they stick to the well trodden and mediocre paths of their forefathers and waste away like motes of dust drifting in a summer breeze.

That is a recipe for nothing other than failure. When you do what everyone else does, you get what everyone else gets.

Your life is going to be over sooner than you know it. Whether you randomly are killed by a freak accident or you are met with an early grave because you just gave up. You will be around for a while, but I bet that time will be shorter than you think.

So stop making excuses.

Stop doubting yourself.

Stop procrastinating.

You have no idea what you can accomplish if you quit wasting your own time on fickle momentary “needs” and truly worked on yourself. You are the master of your fate. You are the captain of your soul. You hold the power.

Like Hellen Keller said,

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.”

 

If you like this content, feel free to share it. You can also engage with me on Twitter @paulrhobus, or email me at hobus.paul@gmail.com.

Just Feel The Rain

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The present moment is elusive.

Being the busy bodies that we are, we often do not experience the whole reality of living. Instead of being in the moment, we are focused on future problems or past failures. We spend our lives mentally living out how we hope the big presentation at work will go tomorrow. We are all too easily caught mulling over what we could have said during an argument, instead of being here, now.

At any given moment, your brain is running at 1,000 miles per minute. That object between your head is the organic functional equivalent of a computer. With over 100 BILLION neurons between your ears, you have a lot of connections to contend with.

It makes sense that we spend a lot of time carried away, lost in thought. But that doesn’t mean it is good for us. We let our animal minds hijack higher brain function and we get stuck in the feedback loop of following whatever our mind switches too.

This constant chasing of the next thought is detrimental to our mental state. It doesn’t allow us to focus. We become like a dog chasing our own tail, constantly engaged in activity, never moving anywhere meaningful.

In my last post, I wrote about how life is either a daring adventure or nothing. When I say that, it’s meant to get you dreaming about what your life could be if you followed the examples of Thor Heyerdahl or Richard Branson when they made daring expeditions.

However, this emphasis on planning and adventure means nothing if you cannot enjoy the present moment. It means nothing if you travel to Lima, Peru if you spend the entire trip thinking about when you will return home.

The only true moment you have is the one passing you by right now. All you are able to experience is the present moment. You will always be losing time. The clock is always ticking.

Tick tock.

Tick tock.

But when you focus on the present moment, you slow this clock. Instead of being placed in a state of angst for the future or melancholy about the past. You place yourself in control of what truly matters. The now. You feel the wind on your skin. You feel the heat of the sun. You smell the roses because you are here.

It’s so easy to get lost in thought and get worked up about the smallest impediment to your day. The car doesn’t start and suddenly your entire existence is thrown into disarray. But I promise you, when you work on living in the present moment, all these minor problems are just that, minor. Insignificant. Relative.

It’s okay if its raining. The problem isn’t the rain. It’s your attitude towards the rain. Stop worrying about getting wet and just feel the rain.

You live moment to moment anyway, why not try to feel the life inside you while it’s still there.

 

If you like this content, feel free to share it. You can also engage with me on Twitter @paulrhobus, or email me at hobus.paul@gmail.com.

Shoot First And Ask Questions Later: AKA How Modern Discussion Works

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Its no secret that as a society we are getting worse and worse at discussing problems. From falling literacy rates in colleges to the inability to compromise or agree to disagree. Our culture is daily becoming less and less capable of interacting with ideas that we deem uncomfortable or antithetical to our own beliefs.

This entire problem is ridiculous.

Think about how life would have gone if the United States had not been able to engage the Soviet Union in discussion throughout the duration of the cold war. You can bet we all probably would not be here. In May of 1960 Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet First Secretary stormed out of a meeting with President Dwight Eisenhower. But what’s important about this is not that he left, its that he tried to discuss prior to leaving. And he didn’t go start World War 3 afterwards. He came back to the discussion table with someone he thought would be more able to talk with, which ended up being JFK.

PX 96-33:12 03 June 1961 President Kennedy meets with Chairman Khrushchev at the U. S. Embassy residence, Vienna. U. S. Dept. of State photograph in the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library, Boston.

Discussion is one of the best things about democracy. The practice goes all the way back to Ancient Greece where a system of direct democracy was used. This process has been continually refined and reimagined in order to come to the current representative democracy we have today. This ability to change and reorder the political system was not done by oppression or scare tactics. We got to where we are now because we talked and listened, we engaged in discussion with others even when we didn’t like what they had to say.

kitchen_debateAgain, look at how then Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev discussed the differences between capitalism and communism in their famous “Kitchen Debate.” This event is actually on film and can be watched here. These are two world leaders who have the collective ability to destroy the planet. So their discussion is tense, but it is ultimately an admission of them realizing that they have to learn to give and take from each other. They have to be able to communicate in order for any sane conclusion to be reached.

This is the problem we have today. Nobody wants to communicate. Everyone wants to be heard without having to do the hard part of listening to what the other person has to say. Everyone wants to be right, but doesn’t want to accept that nobody is perfect. Everyone wants their ideas to be universally accepted, so we only talk “yes men” who act as an echo chamber for our beliefs. This level of insular behavior is a huge negative when everyone partakes in it, because it closes the society off from its ability to weed out bad ideas and grow stronger. After all, if an idea is unchallengable, it is a precedent for totalitarian rule.

We need to be able to talk about the issues that we face as a society. If we are unable to create and continue discussion on a topic, that topic becomes a cancer to our ability to survive. Sure, not everything is comfortable to talk about. Sure, its easier to put your head in the sand. Sure, you can pretend that someone else will come along and solve the problem. But you are someone too, and as a member of this citizenry, its your job to help the rest of us and use the words you learned as a means of building a bridge.

So be part of the solution, engage with people you disagree with, challenge your own beliefs. Create discussion, because the more you do this, the more well-rounded of a person you will be. The more soberly you will be able to examine your life. The easier it will be for you to see the holes in your own logic. It will make you smarter, calmer, more confident. Listen to understand and appreciate the other person’s point of view, even if you could never agree with that perspective. As F. Scott Fitzgerald said,

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”

Do yourself, and the world, a favor. Ask questions first.

 

 

If you like this content, feel free to share it. You can also engage with me on Twitter @paulrhobus, or email me at hobus.paul@gmail.com.

Maybe We Are All Too Narcissistic

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As A millennial, I think I am the shit. Because, duh, I am. And I’ve been told that my whole life. But maybe this is a really bad thing.

Maybe the high self-esteem we have all cultivated is detrimental to the ways in which we communicate with each other.

Maybe we spend too much time looking at our bodies and neglecting our brains.

Maybe we blow our accomplishments out of proportion and stifle those of our peers.

Maybe we get offended so easily because we hold ourselves such high regard, that any mistake or failure of observation on another parties part becomes an insult.

Maybe we wouldn’t have a spray tanned idiot as our president if we were less narcissistic of a culture.

In his book “The Road to Character,” author David Brooks illustrates that this egotism has been growing consistently for a long time.

He states,

“Between 1948 and 1954 psychologists asked more than 10,000 adolescents whether they considered themselves to be a very important person. At that point, 12 percent said yes. The same question was revisited in 1989, and this time it wasn’t 12 percent who considered themselves very important, it was 80 percent of boys and 77 percent of girls.”

Imagine asking that question now. I would be shocked if two out of ten adolescents answered that they did not consider themselves very important. I bet their parents would take them to counseling if they heard those words come out of their child’s mouth, for fear of low self esteem.

Brooks goes on to say that,

“The median narcissism score has risen 30 percent in the last two decades. Ninety-three percent of young people score higher than the middle score just twenty years ago.”

This got me thinking about the way in which narcissism is viewed by our culture. Before we go any further, I want to define the term and give some examples, just so we are clear.

Google says,

“Narcissism — excessive or erotic interest in oneself and one’s physical appearance.

Synonyms: vanity, conceit, egotism

Antonyms: modesty

In Psychology — Extreme selfishness, with a grandiose view of one’s own talents and a craving for admiration, as characterizing a personality type.”

Then I saw this chart under the definition which shows the prevalence of the term throughout history.

Thanks for the comfort Google.

I also saw a post on Facebook about President Trump. In the comments, there was an image of a textbook posted with a list of examples of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Here are the ones I found most relevant.

  • Has a grandiose sense of self-importance.
  • Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty or ideal love.
  • Believes that he or she is “special” and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high status people.
  • Has a sense of entitlement.
  • Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her.

Do any of those descriptions bring people you know to mind? Good, They do for me too, and they do that because we live in a culture that promotes self-expression and by default, cultivates narcissism.

This reminds me of a quote from the book, “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” by Tom Wolfe.

He writes,

“I went to see the Beatles last month… And I heard 20,000 girls screaming together at the Beatles… and I couldn’t hear what they were screaming, either… But you don’t have to… They’re screaming Me! Me! Me! Me!… I’m Me!… That’s the cry of the ego, and that’s the cry of this rally!… Me! Me! Me! Me!… And that’s why wars get fought… ego… because enough people want to scream Pay attention to Me… Yep, you’re playing their game…”

That book was written in 1968. So this trend has been around for a while. Long enough to get noticed, long enough to produce a demagogue like Donald Trump.

But, what is really disturbing about this trend. What we all should really worry about, is how social media plays a role in this. We should care about it because future generations will grow up already immersed in this sphere. To say otherwise is to be a luddite, and we can’t make a better future by acting like that.

The problems with social media are systemic.

In his book “Ego Is the Enemy,” Ryan Holiday lays out the problem with social media.

He states,

“Almost universally, the kind of performance we give on social media is positive. It’s more ‘Let me tell you how well things are going. Look how great I am.’ It’s rarely the truth.”

You have all done it. We take a picture and edit it just right and then post it on Insta and marvel at how important we are when all of our friends like the picture so we will keep liking their pictures. Its fake.

But we do things like that because we want to show others how important we are. It feeds our collective narcissism. It feeds the very problems we have in our society.

Do you think that the Berkeley students rioted about Milo Yiannopoulos because they felt that they were too important to have him as a speaker? I would bet that they did. (For the record I am not a fan of him, but I am highly disturbed by the de-platforming of speakers) I would bet that many of the problems we have with the Regressive Left are a result of the members of that side of the political spectrum being narcissistic and thinking that they are more important than debate and discussion of ideas. If you think that you are the most important person/group in the world, why would you converse with people you see as below you? This harkens back to the textbook page, an individual or group that, “believes that he or she is ‘special’ and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high status people.” Sounds like the rioters to me.

This is an issue I do not see getting better any time soon. And I wish I could tell you how to solve this. I wish I had an infographic or a canned “5 Steps” article to help with this. But I don’t. I really do not know what will make this any better.

The only thing I can think that will help is this quote…

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So for my new model of anti-narcissisim, I am calling you to do something that humbles you.

Volunteer.

Compliment someone.

Admit that you made a mistake.

Let someone else go in line ahead of you.

This is not a comprehensive list, and I am by no means an expert on how to be humble. But it is a start, and it is something to think about as we continue into the 21st century.

 

If you like this content, feel free to share it. You can also engage with me on Twitter @paulrhobus, or email me at hobus.paul@gmail.com.