Category: Mindfulness

You Control Your Thoughts, Not Your Impulses Cover

You Control Your Thoughts, Not Your Impulses

Nik

When you’re hungry, are you actually hungry, or do you just think you’re hungry?

“What a dumb question,” you might think, “of course I know when I’m hungry!” But do you? There’s plenty of evidence to suggest otherwise.

For one thing, 70% of Americans are either overweight or obese. Not all those cases might be the result of overeating, but a lot of them are. At some point in their lives, two out of three people in the United States have lost the connection between how much they should eat and how much they actually eat. Chances are, that initial question has something to do with it.

You may not have a weight problem yourself, but you sure know what it’s like to eat something you shouldn’t have. We all do. Who can blame us? So many tasty snacks, so many great TV shows, modern technology just makes it too easy to keep munching chips long after you’re satisfied. Clearly, we can’t always tell reality from fiction when it comes to our stomachs growling.

Why is that? Let’s do a thought exercise to understand what’s going on.

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7 Lessons From My First Week of Meditating an Hour a Day

7 Lessons From My First Week of Meditating an Hour a Day

Nik

I started working on my habits in 2012. That story is now seven years in the making. One of its side effects is awareness. Self-awareness, mostly, but also awareness about many other things.

For a few years now, I’ve considered myself a mindful person. I know my strengths and weaknesses, and I spend most of my day in a self-aware mode of operating. If I’m biting my nails, I’ll know. Sometimes, I’m so mindful I can’t not notice things, especially the flaws and perfections of other people.

Because I was so aware and mindful already, I thought, “I don’t need meditation.” Until I heard Naval Ravikant speak about it:

“It’s one of those things that everybody says they do, but nobody actually does.”

Naval said many people abuse meditation for virtue-signaling. They pretend to care about mindfulness to look like a moral person without doing any of the actual, hard work of properly meditating. That’s why we have thousands of meditation apps, head bands, cushions, and other gimmicks when meditation is literally “the art of doing nothing,” as Naval calls it.

No matter whether you’re a fake meditator or a skeptic who thinks they don’t need it, like I did, chances are, you’ve never done an actual meditation session in your life. The reason you haven’t, if you ask Naval, is that it’s scary, because once you start, you’ll inevitably have to deal with all your unresolved issues:

“It’s like your email inbox. It’s just piling up. Email after email after email that’s not answered, going back 10, 20, 30, 40 years. And then, when you sit down to meditate, those emails start coming back at you.

‘Hey, what about this issue? What about that issue? Have you solved this? Do you think about that? You have regrets there? You have issues there?’ and that gets scary. People don’t want to do that, so they’re like, ‘It’s not working, I can’t clear my mind, I better get up and not do this.’ But really, it’s self therapy. Instead of paying a therapist to sit there and listen to you, you’re listening to yourself. And you just have to sit there as those emails go through one by one.

You work through each of them until you get to the magical inbox zero. There comes a day when you sit down, you realize the only things you’re thinking about are the things that happened yesterday. Because you’ve processed everything else. Not necessarily even resolved it but at least listened to yourself. That’s when meditation starts.”

When I heard Naval say these things, I realized:

Noticing is not the same as processing.

The word ‘mindfulness’ is very misleading in that regard because being aware of what’s going on in your life and dealing with it are not the same thing, even if both require being mindful. In my literal email inbox, I get a notification for every email that comes in. But until I’ve opened it and looked at it, I haven’t really processed it, have I?

So actually, there are two kinds of noticing: the kind that nets you new inputs and more information which are then sent down to your subconscious, and the kind that processes those stimuli once they make their way back into your consciousness. One is downloading your emails, the other reading them.

Think of it this way: The most enlightened meditation guru will notice everything twice, once on the way down and again on the way up. There may be a delay in between, but, at the end of the day, everything is taken care of.

Often, that second kind of noticing is enough to deal with a problem because most of our problems don’t need to be dealt with in actions at all. They’re like notification emails. We just have to acknowledge them so they can leave our minds and not cause us stress. However, if you don’t make time to deliberately do this second kind of noticing, it never happens.

That’s why I decided to finally give real meditation a go. Today, I want to share with you what I’ve learned.

So, how *do* you meditate properly?

It’s not an excuse, but one of the reasons why I avoided meditation is that all these prescriptive practices I’d heard about sounded fake. Naval finally gave me a practice that sounded simple enough to actually feel like the real deal:

“It is literally the art of doing nothing. All you need to do for meditation is to sit down, close your eyes, comfortable position, whatever happens happens. If you think, you think. If you don’t think, you don’t think. Don’t put it effort into it, don’t put effort against it.”

Naval also explained that all concentration exercises, whether it’s focusing on your breath or something else, ultimately aim at letting go of whatever you’re concentrating on. Therefore, you might as well skip to the letting go.

“The problem with what I’m talking about, which is not focusing on your breath, is you will have to listen to your mind for a long time. It’s not gonna work unless you do at least an hour a day and preferably at least 60 days before you work through a lot of issues. So it’ll be hell for a while, but when you come out the other side, it’s great.”

Right now, I’m trying to get to the other side. Every morning after waking up, I set a timer for an hour on my phone. I sit cross-legged, lean against the wall, fold my hands in my lap, and close my eyes. Ideally, I remain in this position. If I feel my limbs falling asleep, I change how I sit but keep my eyes closed. Whatever pops up in front of my inner eye pops up. Sometimes I get dragged into it for a while, sometimes I don’t. That’s it. When the hour’s up, I’m done.

I set the goal to do an hour each day knowing full well I wouldn’t make it on some days. I’m on day eleven now, and, for the first seven in a row, I meditated one hour each day. Since then, I’ve also had days where I did 15 minutes, 25 minutes, etc. But whenever I can, which is about 80% of the time, I do the full hour.

Here are 7 things I’ve learned so far.

1. Your brain is fuller than you’ve ever imagined

When you die, supposedly, your whole life flashes before your eyes. In movies, this is usually portrayed in some form of montage, like a slide show or quick sequence of scenes. My first two sessions felt like that. Think the ending of American Beauty or the blackout phases in Limitless.

Except I didn’t black out. I just got scene after scene after scene. I jumped from a conversation eight years ago to a moment in kindergarten to recess in third grade to something that happened a week ago. It was like swiping through memories on Tinder, but I didn’t control the swiping. That was my first lesson:

Your brain is full. Fuller than you have ever imagined.

You won’t believe what you find once you start meditating. Actually, ‘find’ isn’t the right word. Things will just come to you. Your subconscious is like a fountain, always bubbling. But in your day-to-day, you’re too busy to see what comes to the surface. Meditating is taking time to sit and watch the fountain. Sooner or later, everything shows up again, if only for a few seconds.

2. Meditation is cleaning your brain in real-time

Especially in sessions where lots of memories pop up, I can sometimes feel my brain “pulsating.” Once in a while, it’s as if a wave of cold water runs down my head. I might get goosebumps, but it feels good. Like a weight is lifted. I can sense my brain getting “lighter.” The best description I can come up with is “cleaning your mind in real time,” but it’s enough to let me know it works.

3. You will get glimpses of nothingness

I can only assume these to be previews of what’s to come, but, occasionally, I found myself in a somewhat empty space. With so many thoughts racing through your mind, passing you by, eventually, you’ll wait for the next one, and it won’t come. There’s just…emptiness.

It’s like you’re pulling on a series of strings and are used to one following another. At some point, you automatically reach for it, and when all you grasp is air, that’s surprising. But it’s a nice surprise. It feels refreshing. A brief moment of silence in a sea of noise. It’s hard to describe, but I think, ultimately, meditation leads to regular visits in this palace of calm.

4. Every impulse has a thought attached to it

When you’re sitting there, literally doing nothing, your body will need some time to adapt. It’s physically uncomfortable, and you’ll receive physical signals that it is. A pang of hunger. The urge to shift around. An itch in your ear.

One thing I’ve realized is that every one of those impulses comes with a thought. And only if you jump on that thought do you reinforce that impulse. If you let go of the initial thought, the impulse quickly subsides. Take being hungry. You feel emptiness rise in your stomach. Maybe it even growls. And there it is: the thought. “I’m hungry.” This is where the rubber hits the road.

If you don’t engage with the thought, it won’t stick. But if you immerse yourself in it, it’s as if you’re grabbing an outside rail on a speeding train. In an instant, you’re swept away. Then, all you can do is hold on for dear life. The impulse is the train and being hungry will now dominate all your subsequent thoughts and decisions — until you let go or satisfy the urge. Of course, letting go gets harder each second you’re wrapped up in the idea. That’s why ditching the first thought is so powerful, and meditation helps with that.

5. You’ll let go of your urges more naturally

Science says meditation builds discipline and boosts willpower, and I won’t argue with that. So far for me, however, it has felt more like meditation makes it less necessary to summon these things in the first place. Letting go of the thoughts attached to my impulses feels like an act of compassion, not control.

This isn’t to say I don’t make any bad decisions anymore, just that when I manage not to, it comes more naturally. Before, I may have been self-aware, but would negotiate with myself and eventually give in to the desire anyway. Now, it’s utterly clear that going to bed if I’m tired is the right choice. I still don’t always make it, but it does get easier.

6. Good decisions become larger, bad ones smaller

Besides increasing your ability to make good decisions, meditation also seems to amplify them while dampening your bad ones.

This may be a placebo effect or wishful thinking on my part, but, over the past week, whenever I indulged in something, the indulgence was smaller. Instead of grabbing the whole bag of chips, I poured some in a bowl and ate just those. Instead of watching a movie because it was late, I slowly started on an important task but then did a solid two hours of work on it.

I’m assuming this is a side effect of the other benefits, but it still feels real.

7. You’ll have more energy

Whether meditation can replace sleep is under debate, but it can definitely support it. Since I meditate in the mornings, I might sometimes still be tired, but at the end of each session, I feel a surge of energy. For one, I’ve processed so many thoughts, I can’t wait to act on some of them or put new insights into action. I also frequently have ideas for my writing. But I’ve also just rested physically for an hour, so it makes sense that I now want to go, go, go.

Unlike energy from caffeine, however, which might be unleashed all at once (coffee) or gradually (green tea), I can control how I want to roll out this energy over the course of my day. Most days, I choose the green tea route and try to increase my pace gradually, but, sometimes, I also plunge right into a long, deep-work task, like writing an article.

In any case, more energy with more flexibility in how you spend it is a good thing.

Conclusion

At the end of my first week of meditating, I had a busy weekend. It was full of fun and events and meeting people, but on the drive home, I noticed I was getting anxious about all the work that was waiting for me. When I arrived, I meditated for 25 minutes. After that, it was easy to relax.

Processing my anxiety showed me that I needed some time to decompress by myself. So, instead of frantically trying to cram in two extra hours of work on a Sunday night, I decided to chill. This morning, I woke up rested. I meditated, worked out, showered, ate, and now, I’m happily writing this article. Then, it’s on to the next thing.

Meditation won’t solve all your problems, but it’ll solve the fact that you’re not dealing with your problems.

Don’t fool yourself. Your most important issues constantly get buried under a mountain of noise, emotions, and inner chatter. Meditation cleans out those things like a snow plow to make room for finding these issues and dealing with them. It’s a way of filtering your life and processing it at the same time. Learning how to do this filtering is easy. That part only takes two minutes. It’s the continued commitment to making time for this practice that’s hard.

Meditation isn’t about spirituality or wisdom or finding some elusive nirvana state. It’s about making peace in the here and now. Not finding peace. Making. Because that’s what we do with ourselves and others.

I hope you’ll give it an honest try.

We Used To Just Live Cover

We Used To Just Live

Nik

I remember simpler times.

I remember a time when I woke up every morning and didn’t immediately know what time it was. Sometimes, I looked at the clock on my nightstand. Sometimes, I didn’t. I just…woke up. That was my task for the first few minutes of the day. Wake up. Realize that it’s another day. Another day that would be good or bad, long or short, slow or fast, but another day that would be, above all, full of life. Not devices and tools and to-dos. Life.

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You’re Not Lazy, Bored, Or Unmotivated Cover

You’re Not Lazy, Bored, Or Unmotivated

Nik

I don’t know you, but I know this: You have internet access and enough time to spend some of it reading.

This is obvious to you and me, but this non-observation tells me two further, much more interesting things about you:

  1. You are in the top half of humanity’s wealth distribution. That’s right. You may not live in Singapore, Dubai, or even the US or Europe, but access to this all-powerful tool alone puts you in the top 50% — because the other half isn’t even online yet.
  2. You are fighting the modern human struggle. Since you’re here, reading, you’re not busy surviving. You’ve got the basics covered. Food. A roof over your head. It may not be great, not what you dream about at night, but, where you live, the basics of civilization are in place. You know you’ll be around tomorrow. You’re fighting to thrive, not survive.

In this fight, this lifelong battle to fulfill your potential and build a life that makes you happy while also giving you a sense of meaning, you’re not dealing with physical obstacles. You’re trying to defeat abstract enemies.

There’s no one blocking the road to riches. Anyone can get on there. There’s just the market, and, yes, it’s a tough place. But people pay for things every day. Good products, good services, good people win.

There’s no obscure cult guarding the secret to happiness. It’s all in your head. And your hands. Happiness is a consequence of the decisions you make and the people you choose to engage with. Your actions, your emotions, your choices are what you have to work on.

Even if you are facing challenges with physical constraints, like excelling at sports, overcoming a disability, or moving to a place with more economic opportunity, these real-world barriers aren’t what’ll stop you from living the life you want. It’s the hypothetical, made up, self-conjured concepts in your head that will ruin you.

Concepts like laziness, boredom, self-doubt, procrastination, and everything Steven Pressfield would subsume under the term ‘Resistance.’

I’m here to tell you: All these concepts are one and the same and there’s only one way to deal with them.

You’re not lazy. You’re not bored. You’re not unmotivated. What you are — what all of us are — is afraid. And the only thing we can do that really helps — the only line of motivation we’ll ever need, the only piece of self-help advice that actually works — is a three-word sentence Nike turned into the most successful marketing slogan of all time after slightly tweaking a serial killer’s last words in 1988: Just do it.

You’re Not Unmotivated

“I’m not motivated” is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. What does that even mean? Not motivated to do what? Work? In that case, aren’t you motivated to avoid it? You’re always motivated! Every action human beings ever take is driven by some kind of incentive.

It may not always be an obvious one, like money, but it’s always there. It could be a social incentive, some form of status among your peers, or an ethical incentive, the relief of feeling like you did the right thing, but behind every action lies a driving force, whether it’s happiness, or peace, or satisfying your conscience.

So if you work the counter at a sneaker store and hate every second of it, you’re not unmotivated to change. Heck, I bet you wish you could change much more so than the annoying corporate hack who’s on his third side hustle and pseudo-spiritual journey to inner peace already. But there’s something holding you back. For some reason, it feels like you can’t change no matter what you do. So you don’t even try. But that’s entirely different from not being motivated and it’s only a sign that it’s time to dig into this feeling.

You’re Not Bored

I talked to a girl on Tinder. She was a scrum master and physiologist. She was in business school, but, really, she wanted to study fashion and launch her own creative company. As soon as we touched upon her dream, the conversation tapered off.

Messages took days to come. She was “busy.” On vacation. Didn’t feel like small talk, but wasn’t interested in real talk either. Or getting coffee, for that matter. When I asked her why she even used the app, she spoke the most common lie in the world: “I’m bored.”

She wasn’t bored. Just like you aren’t bored. No one is ever bored anymore. Why should we be? There’s no reason to. We’re 100% connected, 100% of the time. You couldn’t even be bored if you chose to. And that’s the problem: We don’t even try to choose to be bored.

We just pretend we are so we can keep filling our days with meaningless little distractions, like empty conversations on Tinder. Not because we love our entertainment so much, but because we know what lies beneath the stillness: existential dread. Go through the door of boredom, and that’s what you’ll find. The great scientist and mathematician Blaise Pascal once said:

“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”

Zat Rana has a wonderful interpretation of what he means:

At its core, it’s not necessarily that we are addicted to a TV set because there is something uniquely satisfying about it, just like we are not addicted to most stimulants because the benefits outweigh the downsides. Rather, what we are really addicted to is a state of not-being-bored.

Almost anything else that controls our life in an unhealthy way finds its root in our realization that we dread the nothingness of nothing. We can’t imagine just being rather than doing. And therefore, we look for entertainment, we seek company, and if those fail, we chase even higher highs.

We ignore the fact that never facing this nothingness is the same as never facing ourselves. And never facing ourselves is why we feel lonely and anxious in spite of being so intimately connected to everything else around us.

So no. You’re not bored. You’re terrified of being alone with yourself in your own head.

You’re Not Lazy

Laziness is the scapegoat of everyone who’s trying to capitalize on your claim of “being bored.” “You’re not bored — you’re boring!” is what they’ll tell you. You need a hobby or a calling or a $250 fitness program with a personalized meal plan.

Of course, this too is nonsense. Laziness, like boredom, doesn’t exist. Psychology professor Devon Price explains:

If a person can’t get out of bed, something is making them exhausted. If a student isn’t writing papers, there’s some aspect of the assignment that they can’t do without help. If an employee misses deadlines constantly, something is making organization and deadline-meeting difficult. Even if a person is actively choosing to self-sabotage, there’s a reason for it — some fear they’re working through, some need not being met, a lack of self-esteem being expressed.

People do not choose to fail or disappoint. No one wants to feel incapable, apathetic, or ineffective. If you look at a person’s action (or inaction) and see only laziness, you are missing key details. There is always an explanation. There are always barriers. Just because you can’t see them or don’t view them as legitimate, doesn’t mean they’re not there. Look harder.

Once again, it’s not a lack of motivation, an inexplicable unwillingness to act that obstructs your path to success and happiness. It’s the invisible boundaries in your head that you’re tripping over — sometimes without ever moving at all.

Medicating the Symptoms of Our Only Disease

Laziness, boredom, procrastination, these are all excuses. Not as in “we suck because we succumb to these,” but as in, “we accept these as real problems when they’re just the symptoms.” Because that’s what they are. Surface-level phenomena that all lead back to the same root cause: fear.

My dad once told me this story: A colleague was driving to an appointment with a customer. As he was overtaking a truck, the truck moved into his lane. Seeing his car get crushed from the passenger side and compressing towards him, his animal instincts kicked in. Unleashing an ancient roar at the top of his lungs, he ripped out the gear lever of his automatic gearbox with one hand.

This is an automatic gearbox:

Image via Wikipedia

Clearly, we’re not talking about breaking off a knob on your radio. It’s a heavy piece of machinery, and the lever is properly fixated on it with multiple layers of further constraints built around it. That’s the power of fear. It can make you do unimaginable things.

Luckily, my dad’s co-worker survived the incident unscathed, but now imagine turning this same power not onto your physical environment, but against your own mind. That’s what you’re doing. That’s what you, and I, and everyone you know who’s struggling to realize their dreams is doing.

We’re taking this unbelievable source of raw power and, in lack of real-life threats to hurl it against, we turn it on ourselves. Of course, we don’t do it in outright, uncontrollable fits of rage — at least not most of us and not most of the time. We do it by self-medicating. By concocting and treating symptoms, like laziness, boredom, and other seemingly minor, but actually soul-crushing patterns.

John Gorman calls it “building around fear:”

Fear doesn’t manifest itself like you think, because often times we don’t give it the chance to. Fear isn’t always the sweaty palms that stop us cold in a job interview — fear is generally what prevents us from applying in the first place. It’s so subtly limiting that we often build around it without even noticing it’s there.

That’s why our long list of symptoms is so widely condoned and accepted. Society is playing a big, global, silently agreed upon game of “let’s hide the truth and move on with our day.” We want the cover-ups. And so in our day-to-day, it all looks the same; it all looks harmless.

The thing with fear is on a surface level it’s indistinguishable from laziness. 90% of the time it’s the former, and 90% of people will assume it’s the latter.

So instead of seeing everyone rip their gear levers out of their cars, we see them staring at their phones on the subway. We see them eating 4,000 calories in a single meal, playing 12 hours of video games in a day, or consuming weed, alcohol, and potentially worse drugs in the span of a few minutes. We see their outraged comments on social media, their finely curated highlight reels, their long or short list of small or intense vices, and we think, “Hey, these must be valid issues I have! After all, they have them too.”

No. The one true problem we all share is fear. We just choose to medicate it differently.

The Dog That Keeps on Chasing

Just like there is no reason to be bored anymore, there is no need to have any other problem in your life than fear. I mean, geez, that list is long. The number of things you can be afraid of is endless.

You’re afraid of dying early despite having no factual indication whatsoever that warrants believing you actually will. You read about plane crashes and armed robberies and natural disasters and newly discovered parasites and it all feels like it’s out to get you when, in fact, they’re all 0.01% incidents spun perfectly by the media to drill into your not-very-thick-skinned amygdala.

You’re afraid of being alone because well, existential dread, but also because it looks weird and gets weird looks, and if your parents haven’t asked why you’re still single yet, your friends most certainly have. You’re afraid of not meeting social expectations even though we all keep telling each other there are no more social expectations, afraid of talking the way you want to talk with your boss, your customer, and especially the dude you keep staring at at the café because for all you know, he’s your boss’s boss.

You’re afraid of writing chapter one of your book because who thinks that’ll ever work out, but you’re also afraid of wasting ten more hours watching Game of Thrones, especially now that you’ve already seen the whole thing twice. You’re afraid of never being rich, but not nearly as much as you’re afraid of losing whatever little you have, because how are you supposed to live without your IKEA living room table, your $500 iPad, or your custom-design wall decal of a world map highlighting all the places you’ve visited already?

This is just the tip of the iceberg. I could keep going all day. Fear of failure, fear of success, fear of looking stupid, fear of losing something or someone, fear of fear, fear of wasting time or not having enough, fear of not being good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, thin enough, or inadequate in any sense whatsoever — your mind is littered with fear.

There are real fears, fake fears, the kind of fears you can neatly convert into boredom or laziness and dismiss at the surface, and the kind that makes you freeze right down to your bones in front of your computer screen despite absolutely nothing happening at all.

Now, here’s the thing: In order to deal with all these fears, you could spend thousands of dollars to further support the billion-dollar self-help industry which lives off reaffirming all your irrational jitters and nods along fiercely whenever you talk yourself into yet another cover-up. You could buy a new book from a new guru each week, collect a stunning array of probably-placebo supplements on your shelf, and attend a new seminar with a new pyramid scheme that is totally going to work every six months. Or, you can wake the hell up.

Wake the hell up and realize: it’s all the same thing. It’s all. The same. Thing. Fear. There is nothing else and there never was. Never will be. It’s the same, godawful, rotten, dark creature that’s always plagued us, and it will continue to invent new tricks till kingdom come. But, at the end of the day, it’s all fear.

You have to find a way to live in spite of fear.

That dog is going to keep chasing you until you die. And some days, it will get to you. But it can never — never — stop you completely. You have to keep moving. Always. Forever. The day you run into the bright light at the end of the tunnel, I want you to look back and give the finger to that dog trailing behind. Smiling. “Screw you, I won this! I made it. And I did it my way.”

The Cure

Now, I’m not qualified to talk about fear any more than the guy at the corner store. I hold no degree in psychology, no certificate from some brain research institute, heck, I have zero formal training as a writer. But, like you, I have lived with fear my whole life. And, somehow, I’ve still arrived here. I have a job I love, lots of time, few complex structures in my life, and would describe myself as a happy, positive, optimistic person. I don’t know much and have my own issues to resolve, but I sure feel okay taking life one day at a time. And I think that’s what it’s about. Beat the dog. Again. And again. And again.

My theme for this year is ‘Focus.’ Across all areas of my life, I’m trying my best to drill down to what really matters. Projects. People. Parts of those projects and how I talk to those people. How I manage my time, my energy, my life.

The one thing that has helped me show up consistently in spite of fear, particularly with writing, but in other places too — and I have thought long and hard about this — is some version of Nike’s glib, cliché, annoyingly obvious slogan: Just Do It.

Because besides being glib, cliché, and annoyingly obvious, it’s also universally, inescapably true. “Just Do It” isn’t an elegant solution and certainly not a perfect one. It’s not dismissive or snobby but empowering and humble. It’s motivation. Inspiration. Action. Energy. And truth. And that’s why it’s the most brilliant piece of marketing of all time.

People don’t realize how deep this slogan is. I don’t think the creators did when they came up with it. They didn’t mean it to be. But it is. However, you can’t see that when you get hung up on its immediacy. “If it were that easy, don’t you think everybody would ‘just do it?’” No, no, no. You’ve got that all wrong. That’s not what it’s about. It’s about something a guy named Marcus Aurelius told himself 2,000 years ago:

“You must build up your life action by action, and be content if each one achieves its goal as far as possible — and no one can keep you from this.”

If all we did was focus on the task right in front of us, we’d accomplish 99% of our goals and then some.

Sure, we’d still have to pause and reflect on occasion, and not all goals would turn out to be worth chasing in the first place, but we’d just…get there. Don’t you get it? This is everything. All you need. The whole strategy. But it’s more than that still. It’s also a tactic. Because another consequence of a relentless bias towards action is that there’s no room for self-doubt. You don’t have time for big picture concerns when you’re doing. And I don’t mean running around all day like a rat in a maze. I mean steadily engaging and re-focusing on the task at hand. Even if it’s relaxing. Whatever the next small step is. Because the next small step is always doable.

Let’s talk a little more about what living “Just Do It” means.

“Just Do It” as a Strategy

A strategy is a long-term approach to getting what you want. A set of behaviors you’re committed to, a line of principles you’re unwilling to compromise.

Amazon’s strategy is to be the most convenient place on the internet to order stuff from. That’s “the way they do business.” Almost everything they do serves that strategy. The whole point of a strategy is that it can’t possibly work out tomorrow. It’s only efficient if you stick to it, and, because it’s a fundamental guideline in how you make decisions, it’s hard to change. If Amazon changes their strategy, all their hard work goes out the window. If they started being hell-bent on quality, they’d have to shrink their product range to the point of inconvenience. So they don’t. The strategy is set and maintaining it all these years has served them well.

Using “Just Do It” as the strategy, the operating system of your life, means committing to figuring it out on your own.

No more gimmicks. No more wholesale adoption of get-rich-quick schemes, diets with pointless rules (“never eat celery!”), and fake silver bullets you know can’t possibly keep the promises they make. You chase your goals based on what you believe in. If you think art should be free, then make art for free and get sponsors or donors. If you don’t believe in remote work, rent an office and hire locally. If you see the people in your country just not getting what you’re trying to do, move.

“Just Do It” is the best advice because it’s the only advice that works.

When I started writing, I gave lots of specific tips in my articles. “Here’s how to set goals, have a morning routine, be productive.” But specifics are full of hindsight bias. I’m only giving you the final 10% that worked and that worked for me in particular. The last iteration of all the cycles I’ve gone through. The messy 90% of the journey that led me there? I left those out completely. I might have tried 15 different things over the course of two years to finally nail my morning routine — but now I’ve turned that last, functioning process into a pattern and am telling you how to do just that step by step.

Am I even talking to the right person? Who is it for? Because if I’m talking to “me-from-two-years-ago,” then I’m talking to the wrong crowd. And if I do catch you at the point where you’ve covered the 90% of your own journey, well, then what do you need me for? My specific advice is only going to work for a tiny fraction of people who happen to be in the right place at the right time and for whom it will click immediately. Everyone else who still needs to go through the random 90% in their journey will be left out in the cold. Still feeling alone, still stuck with their fears. Except now, they’re disappointed too.

“Just Do It” may not be perfect, but at least it clears the air from the start: Yes, you are alone, but you also have everything you could ever need to figure things out. You will make many mistakes, and you’ll have to take responsibility for each and every one of the countless choices you’ll make on your own dime. But since no one on this planet can give you the perfect answers to the questions created by your unique, once-in-a-lifetime circumstances, choosing proudly and continuing to move forward is not just the best thing you can do, it’s also the right thing you should do.

That’s why I now keep saying things like “just start” and “get off your butt” and “go do things.” Because specifics won’t help. Fear or no fear, for each next challenge and next chapter, you’ll have to get through that messy, random part. You have to make your mistakes. Forget the advice. The empty promises of “proven plans you can follow.” There is no such thing. Summon your confidence. Be proud of who you are. Have faith in yourself. Pick your own battles and how you’ll try to win them. Commit to “Just Do It” as your strategy of getting everything you want out of life.

“Just Do It” as a Tactic

A tactic is a short- to medium-term course of action that serves as an attempt at living up to your strategy. “Given our strategy, this is the next thing we’re going to try.”

Going back to Amazon, Prime is a tactic. Launching a program that offers faster delivery, exclusive products, and extra discounts at a fixed price per year gave them the answer to the question: “Will people pay us to make ordering online even easier for them in a predictable, calculable way?” Based on the revenue they made from the new service, they concluded the answer was “yes.” Had it been “no,” then Amazon would’ve shelved Prime and that would’ve been the end of it. Compared to the commitment required by a strategy, a tactic is just a wet wipe. If it’s not enough, you toss it and pull out the next one. No hard feelings.

“Just Do It” as a tactic is refusing to let everyday hurdles get to you while relentlessly focusing on the next, smallest action you can control.

Your boss didn’t like the presentation? Fine, you do it over and show her again. You’ve run out of clients and your freelance business never really got off the ground? Fine, you shut it down and start from scratch. The girl behind your dream profile ghosted you for no apparent reason and made you feel miserable? Fine, you delete the app and try another way of meeting people.

All professional athletes ever do is to focus on the next play. How do we convert this move? How do we recover these inches? How can I get the ball out of the bunker? All year you worry about minutes, inches, seconds — and by the end of it, you’ve won the championship without ever thinking about it. Michael Jordan’s so-called “next play speed” was less than a second. He’d score, run back to defend, steal the inbound pass, lose the ball, then run down the opponent.

A “Just Do It” approach to managing your day-to-day brings down your next play speed, and you’ll be happier because of it.

The faster you can re-center after you complete something or get rattled, the better. Having a high next play speed also leads to improved happiness because it simply leaves you with little time to even worry about the picture. There’s no wiggle room to dance around your fears, but also not enough space to let them get to you. What’s the next play? What’s the next play? What’s the next play? That’s all you’re ever asking.

Again, this isn’t to say you should never rest or that you’ll never have moments where the dog creeps back around the corner and stares at you with unblinking eyes. It’s to say that, with this focus, it’ll happen far less often and you’ll feel more confident in handling it when it does. Once you’ve chosen a strategy, a set of long-term plays you want to make, forget the big picture. Keep your head down. What’s the next play? Figure it out. And then just do it.

Make a Promise to Yourself

I don’t know you, but I know this: You’re fighting the modern human struggle. You have been equipped with everything you need to accomplish everything you’ve ever dreamed of and a whole lot more. You’re not scraping around the bottom of human existence. You know you have it in you, and the only thing that can make it all come crashing down are the ghosts inside your mind.

Those ghosts are here to stay in all their nefarious, despicable, irrational forms, but you and I both know you can’t let them stop you. You won’t let them stop you. You’re going to use your gifts and use them to the best of your ability to fulfill your potential.

You’re not unmotivated. You’re not lazy. You’re not bored. In a world where you walk around without blinders on, these things don’t exist. You are afraid. Like me. Like your neighbor. Like all of us. We are all afraid. And yet, we are still here. So every day, choose to be here. To hold a flashlight in the face of your demons and say, “I’ve played your games before. I know who you are, and you all look the same to me.”

Nike’s simple, mainstream, maybe even trite but genius mantra is the perfect reminder of how simple and straightforward, yet how demanding and strenuous this lifelong battle is. “Just Do It” is the song we grew up on, the ad that made us smile and clench a fist in fierce resolution. It may be a corporate marketing ploy, but it’s also the spirit of human potential, of the original American Dream.

Using this motto as both your strategy for living your best life and the tactic to see it through will accelerate and clarify your personal growth in ways no self-improvement gimmick ever could. It’s a contract, a promise to yourself to live life on your own terms and not be swayed by the events in it or the tricks your mind plays on itself. It’s not a miracle drug and it won’t lead to a guaranteed happy ending, but I think it’s our best shot at looking back on the brief time we spend on this earth with pride instead of regret.

And if that’s not a cause worth fighting for, a promise worth keeping, then I don’t know what else to tell you. Except “Just Do It.”

All Suffering Is Desiring or Resisting Change Cover

All Suffering Is Desiring or Resisting Change

Nik

A man was gifted a plate by his wife. It had beautiful drawings. The man was an antique dealer. Every day at the market, he would eat lunch from his plate.

Soon, his wife passed away. The man was grieving, but he still ate from his favorite plate every day. One day, the plate fell down and broke into a thousand pieces. The man was devastated.

A fellow stall owner told him: “I know someone who can teach you how to fix it. But he lives far away.” The man went to seek the plate fixer. After one year of traveling, he found him. The plate fixer helped the man reassemble the pieces and the man returned home.

At first, he was happy. But the plate never felt quite the same. One day, it broke again and, again, the man was devastated.

Another stall owner told him: “I know someone who makes plates just like this one. But he lives far away.” The man went to seek the plate maker. After one year of traveling, he found him. The plate maker taught him how to make his own plate and, with it, the man went home.

At first, he was happy. But still, the plate never felt quite the same. One day, it broke again. Again, the man was devastated. But he was tired. He could not travel far anymore.

A fellow stall owner told him: “I know someone who sells plates just like this one. He has a new stall on the market.” Happy that he wouldn’t have to travel far, the man went and bought a plate just like his.

At first, he was happy. But that plate, too, never felt quite the same. One day, it broke again.

As the man looked at the broken pieces on the floor, a stranger passed by his stall. He said:

“You are lucky. It was just a plate.”

At that moment the man was enlightened.

The first of the Four Noble Truths in Buddhism is suffering. They call it ‘dukkha.’ It has many definitions, including pain, grief, sorrow, stress, unsatisfactoriness, and misery, but I think the simplest term that captures it in our modern times is ‘unhappiness.’

Our suffering isn’t physical, at least not most of the time. It’s emotional. One way or another, things don’t go how we want them to, and we face emotional pain because of it. This pain isn’t random. We inflict it upon ourselves. That’s the lesson of the above story.

All suffering is resisting or desiring change.

When change wants to affect us and we reject it, we suffer. When we wish for change and none occurs, we suffer.

Like the man in the story, we fight the current of events instead of floating in it, and each time it carries us away, we scream. We go on symbolic journeys to preserve what can’t be preserved — or to change what can’t be changed.

The man held on to his wife’s plate because it gave him a feeling of permanence in an impermanent world. He resisted change. When it broke, a change occurred without his consent, and he suffered from that too.

The great lengths he went to in order to fix and replace his plate are a series of escalating commitments in this fight. But each time he succeeded, he found permanence still wasn’t restored. Something always felt off. Only when he was too tired to continue fighting and a random stranger pointed out the vanity of his efforts could he see clearly: the only way is acceptance.

Everything in life is transient. Every human, every animal, every building, plant, and inanimate object. Every element, every atom, every speck of dust is a tiny traveler going a small distance in a long, universal journey that’s much larger than any of its individual parts.

Nothing lasts forever. Not just the material, the intangible too. Feelings change. Relationships end. Attitudes evolve. Our feelings, thoughts, opinions, they all meander through our lives and might end up opposite of where they began. Cities collapse. Conditions turn. People die.

All we have is impermanence and it’s depressing. We also rarely control when change occurs. We desperately want to, but all we can do is give our best and hope for the result we desire. As soon as we become attached, we’ve set the gears of suffering in motion. Instead, we should bend with the wind.

“Notice the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survive by bending with the wind.”

— Bruce Lee

The Buddhist life is a life of practicing acceptance. Acceptance is the only thing that works because change is the only constant of life. It comes when it comes, and you’ll meet it when it does. This applies to the trivial in life as much as it does to the substantial.

You slept poorly today? Okay, accept, move on. Your new job sucks? Okay, accept, move on. You missed the bus? Okay, accept, move on. Your grandfather died? Okay, accept, move on.

This isn’t to say you’ll always accept easily and move on quickly. It’s to say you can learn to always do both eventually. Accept life’s permanent impermanence and odd timing of uncomfortable change, and suffering disappears.

At the end of the day, remember you are lucky. For you’re still here, and it was just a plate.

The 22 Best Yoda Quotes Cover

How to Master the Art of the Perspective Shift

Nik

If you don’t know, Yoda is one of the strongest characters in one of the strongest stories of all time: Star Wars.

Yoda is a tiny, green creature of an unknown species, over 800 years old, and Grand Master of the Jedi Order. The best of the good guys, if you will. He has an incredible ability to wield the Force — the invisible power all Jedi rely on — and is a brilliant fighter with a lightsaber, their weapon of choice. He’s also the head teacher of all young Jedi and the first person everyone turns to when they need advice.

Despite his strength, Yoda’s true power lies in his wisdom. He speaks a little backwards and often in riddles, but every word he chooses is placed exactly where it’s meant to be. He says little, but what he says hits hard.

Yoda is not just a Jedi Master, he’s also a master of the perspective shift.

Most of the time, what he tells us completely flips the angle from which we were trying to approach a problem. Often, he shows us we’ve been focusing on the wrong problem altogether. This is incredibly valuable.

Perspective shifts elevate our thinking. They allow us to overcome seemingly insurmountable barriers, move a lot faster, and see the world more clearly. They also help us lift others by sharing what we’ve learned with them.

Since he’s a quiet character, there aren’t that many Yoda quotes to draw from, but I’ve assembled his best ones to show you how he architects perspective shifts. He frequently talks about teacher-student relationships, fighting, and what it means to be a good person. To give you enough context and get the most out of these quotes, I’ve structured them into one coherent narrative.

May they teach you to change your own mind and that of others.

When Luke Skywalker is first sent to Yoda’s planet to learn from him, he bumps right into the Master, not knowing who he is. He tells him he’s looking for someone, to which Yoda only says:

“Looking? Found someone you have, eh?”

Picasso supposedly said, “I don’t seek. I find.” In a 1923 book called The Arts, he gave an explanation of what he meant:

“I can hardly understand the importance given to the word research in connection with modern painting. In my opinion, to search means nothing in painting. To find is the thing. Nobody is interested in following a man who, with his eyes fixed on the ground, spends his life looking for the purse that fortune should put in his path. The one who finds something, no matter what it might be, even if his intention were not to search for it, at least arouses our curiosity, if not our admiration.”

In the same vein, Yoda trusts the Force to guide our path in life. You can call it God, the universe, karma, or whatever you like — the point is to have faith. Keep your eyes open, stay present, and look, rather than obsessing over an idea in your head.

The next thing Luke says is that he’s “looking for a great warrior.” Once again, Yoda flips the notion on its head immediately:

“Ohh. Great warrior. Wars not make one great.”

There’s a saying that is often credited to US president Herbert Hoover in various forms:

“Wars are always started by men too old to fight in them.”

It depends on the country, but many have a culture of decorating their war heroes. It serves us well to honor these men and women, but it makes it easy to forget that the most honorable thing would have been to never send them into battle in the first place.

As Grand Master of the Jedi Order, Yoda also holds a position similar to a general. Most of his power in that position is spent trying to maintain peace and avoid fighting, because he knows wars only create losers on both sides:

“No longer certain, that one ever does win a war, I am. For in fighting the battles, the bloodshed, already lost we have.”

In that same spirit, being a Jedi is much like learning Kung Fu, Yoda explains:

“A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack.”

I can’t think of a more humbling thing than to learn how to fight in hopes of never having to use it. Rigorous physical training has many benefits, like discipline, fitness, and patience. But in order to attain them, you don’t ever have to raise your fist against another human being. The training is enough.

Of course, sometimes, war is inevitable. In case of the Jedi, they are usually hopelessly outnumbered by the vast armies of the Galactic Empire. But again, Yoda knows there’s more to life than physical strength:

“Smaller in number are we, but larger in mind.”

There are countless examples from history of small groups outwitting large enemies. The 300 Spartans. The Trojan Horse. Hannibal’s crossing of the Alps. A great strategy can make up for a big lack in firepower.

This lesson also applies at an individual level, and it’s one of the first Yoda teaches Luke when he becomes his apprentice. He tells Luke to use the Force to telekinetically lift his spaceship from a swamp. When Luke fails, claiming it’s too big, Yoda retorts:

“Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm? Hmm. And well you should not. For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is.”

At first, Luke dismisses Yoda and walks away. But when he sees Yoda single-handedly lift the ship on his own and hover it to safety, he can barely trust his own eyes. He tells Yoda he can’t believe what he just did, to which Yoda says:

“That is why you fail.”

This is Yoda reiterating the very first thing he told Luke: it’s about believing before you can see. Not the other way around. This ties into what might be Yoda’s most famous quote of all:

“Try not. Do or do not. There is no try.”

Yoda combines immense faith with a strong sense of realism, of grounding. Those two might seem like opposites, but they’re not.

If you surrender to life and are fully in sync with what the universe wants to tell you, you’ll rarely attempt anything that’s not already meant to become a reality. This is why Yoda spends so much time thinking and meditating. He needs to listen; tune in to the Force. Once he emerges, the path of action is so clear to him, it might as well be done already. This is Yoda’s job much more so than charging headfirst into every battle:

“Secret, shall I tell you? Grand Master of Jedi Order am I. Won this job in a raffle I did, think you? ‘How did you know, how did you know, Master Yoda?’ Master Yoda knows these things. His job it is.”

This job of knowing is what unites all of Yoda’s roles. Be it as a politician, general, or teacher. It would take Luke many years to finally understand this. In a conversation decades later, after Luke has become a Jedi Master himself, Yoda still needs to remind him that passing on his knowledge is his job. One of the best ways to do so is through failure:

“Pass on what you have learned. Strength, mastery, hmm… but weakness, folly, failure, also. Yes, failure, most of all. The greatest teacher, failure is.”

There’s a quote by Tom Bodett about the difference between life and school:

“In school, you’re taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you’re given a test that teaches you a lesson.”

Great teachers know this, which is why they don’t lecture as much as they pose challenges to their students, then let them figure out the answers on their own. If they fail, they fail, but either way, they’ll truly learn something rather than just parrot the master’s words or follow instructions.

For example, when Yoda sends Luke into a dark cave to confront his fears, Luke asks him what he can expect in there. Yoda says:

“Only what you take with you.”

Luke is utterly confused and feels abandoned at first, but after he faces his demons, he realizes the only way for him to succeed was to rely on his own mind. Yoda couldn’t help him, just point the way. This theme ripples through every great teacher-student relationship until its very end:

“Luke, we are what they grow beyond. That is the true burden of all masters.”

Failure is not just the way great teachers teach — it’s the master’s own, ultimate goal. If their disciple surpasses them, it means they’ve raised them well. Besides the rigorous training, the number one way Master Yoda aims to accomplish this is through ethics. What he’s most concerned with, even more so than their skill level, is that his students become good people.

That’s why many of his lessons revolve around the subject of not succumbing to the dark side of the Force — the evil path some Jedi choose and thus become corrupted. These lessons always have a Buddhist flair to them:

“Attachment leads to jealousy. The shadow of greed, that is.”

In order to practice his combination of faith and presence and dedicate most of his time to thinking, Yoda lives a very minimalist life. He can’t afford to be distracted or pulled around by every impulse and desire rising in his heart. Therefore, letting go is the most important skill each Jedi must master:

“Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.”

Yoda knows fear is the true enemy of all Jedi. Fear is what pulls our minds to the past or the future. It is what creates attachment, and attachment leads to the emotions that, in turn, cause us to make dark choices.

“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”

The way we deal with our fears and return to the present is to face them and hold out as they try to penetrate our minds. We don’t fight them as much as we resist giving in to them. This is exactly what Yoda had Luke do in that cave:

“Named must your fear be, before banish it you can.”

Of course, this isn’t a one-time event. We must face many fears in our lifetimes and no one is immune to them. Not even Yoda. He, too, admits being afraid:

“Yes, afraid. Hmm, surprised are you? A challenge lifelong it is, not to bend fear into anger.”

In his famous inauguration speech, US president Franklin D. Roosevelt said:

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

This principle is a maxim of Yoda’s teachings, as he personally witnessed the terrible consequences of allowing fear to fill a Jedi’s heart.

Once upon a time, a young boy named Anakin was brought before the Jedi Council. He had great potential, but Yoda sensed much fear in him, and so he didn’t want the boy to be trained in the Jedi arts. Yet one of the other Council members said he would train the boy anyway, and Yoda let it pass. Over time, the boy’s fear of losing those he loved only grew. In Yoda’s words:

“When you look at the dark side, careful you must be. For the dark side looks back.”

Eventually, Anakin’s fear had such a strong grip on him that the only path he saw was that of the dark side of the Force. In the same way Anakin was pulled over one day at a time, so do our fear-induced choices cause a vicious cycle. We take a shortcut to get out of one jam which only leads us into a bigger one, which, of course, requires an even more extreme, even less ethical shortcut. Sooner or later, the person we once strived to be feels like our own worst enemy. Anakin literally became this enemy, and it is with great sorrow and anguish that Yoda reveals to Anakin’s former teacher:

“The boy you trained, gone he is. Consumed by Darth Vader.”

Of course, we’re not the only ones facing this danger. Others are affected by it too. And sometimes, we still chase after them. Still hoping, wishing we could get them back. But the person we once felt connected to is long gone.

This brings us back to the war the Jedi were about to lose. They didn’t see that one of the politicians among their own ranks had gone through a similar transformation, and when they relied on his help, they found out he double-crossed them. After retreating and meditating, Yoda once again emerges with a perspective shift that has the power to turn a hopeless situation around:

“Yet, open to us a path remains. That unknown to the Sith is. Through this path, victory we may yet find. Not victory in the Clone Wars, but victory for all time.”

By simply changing the timeline from “how can we win this war?” to “how can we achieve lasting peace for everyone?” Yoda has elevated everyone’s thinking. A more generally applicable version of this idea is this:

“If no mistake have you made, yet losing you are, a different game you should play.”

Focusing on a different aspect of the bigger picture is another very common move in both war and politics. A group on the defense might try to go around the enemy and attack their flank, and an old adage in strategic thinking is:

“When everybody’s playing checkers, play chess.”

But this extends to many more aspects of our lives than the conflict-driven ones. When you fail to get promoted time and again, maybe it’s time to look for a new job. When discussing a problem with your spouse doesn’t work, maybe it’s time to talk about how you talk to each other. And if writing two posts per week won’t cut it, you could try publishing daily or not at all for a while.

The point is — and this is the biggest lesson we can learn from Yoda’s way of thinking — there’s always something different you can do. Something else you haven’t tried. Learning how to shift your perspective is one thing, but, like Yoda’s reliance on the Force, it first requires having faith in new perspectives in the first place. That’s why I can’t think of a better line to end on, a quote that more encapsulates Yoda’s spirit than this:

“Many of the truths that we cling to depend on our point of view.”

Bullet Time: How To Live A Fully Engaged Life Cover

Bullet Time: How To Live A Fully Engaged Life

Nik

The Matrix revolutionized the film industry in many ways. One of them was the introduction of bullet time. It’s a visual effect that allows the viewer to transcend time and space.

Instead of seeing a scene from just one angle in one moment and another the next, you can now witness the same moment from multiple perspectives.

As a result, you can watch the hero not just dodge bullets, but dodge them in style and slow-motion.

At the time, this was a huge innovation. Now, the movie is 20 years old, and others have taken the concept a lot further, like Wonder Woman, Resident Evil, and X-Men. Today, the effect is standard practice in hundreds of movies, which makes it, well, just another visual effect.

At the same time, it’s still not your average action flick gimmick.

When you’re watching a movie, the moment bullet time triggers, you’re taken three levels deeper into the experience. Instantly. Time slows down. You look around. You get to see all aspects of a scene, not just the one the director deemed most relevant.

Suddenly, you’re more invested into everything that happens. Because you’re a bigger part of it. That’s why bullet time was such a brilliant invention and one of the reasons why the movie has become a piece of film history.

So how did they pull it off? How do you shoot a bullet time scene?

As the making of explains, the film crew built a special-purpose camera rig with over 120 cameras. They arranged them in a circle and built a system to trigger them at certain frame rates and in a certain sequence.

Each camera was height-adjustable, allowing the viewer’s perspective to follow a path of any shape. An s-curve. A stoop from above. A downward spiral. All in slow motion. Now that’s some commitment to the viewer.

Despite its action-packed disguise, however, The Matrix is a philosophical movie. At the end of the day, it explores fundamental issues of technology, culture, society, and religion. It’s not easy to digest. It takes a while to sink in. And every element of the film somehow connects to these themes.

Bullet time is no exception. There are two lessons from this cinematographic innovation that transcend great filmmaking and instead instruct us on — I think — how to live a great life.

1. If you want to live deeper, you have to slow down

Bullet time is the movie-equivalent of stopping your walk, looking around, and embracing the moment. Where are you right now? What is it like?

In order to experience something, you have to be there. Not just physically, but mentally too. You have to allow your senses to take in the scene. Not only parts of it. Everything.

Like the creation of a bullet time scene, that takes time. As John Gaeta, the Visual Effects Supervisor of the film, said: “It takes some pretty heavy thinking to get it together.” For some final results, they had to shoot the same scene dozens of times and then blend together individual cuts, as well as interpolate and digitally extend what you ultimately see on the screen.

Taking time to ‘be there’ in your life, to really experience what’s going on around you, is also a matter of effort and intent, but it yields the same result the effect does in the movie: you’re more invested in everything that happens.

The only way to be all-in on life is to savor every moment.

You can’t do that when you’re rushing through. You have to slow down. Thankfully, the film technique also provides instructions on how to do that.

2. The way you slow down is by observing

In physics, there is something called the quantum zeno effect. It says that if you continuously measure and observe a system of quantum particles, that system freezes in its state.

As the ancient philosopher Zeno, to whom the effect owes its name, poses in a paradox: If a flying arrow appears to be at rest in any particular instant of its flight, doesn’t that actually makes it motionless? It’s a fascinating question.

The real-life equivalent is staring at a stranger on the far side of the street until they stop and turn around — they felt you looking at them. Maybe you feel it’s hard to get work done or perform a certain task when someone’s watching you. That too is the quantum zeno effect. It’s not necessarily that a system can’t change while you’re watching it — it’s just harder for it to do so.

A corollary of all this is that the more time we spend seeing, noticing, examining the world and its events, the more alive we’ll feel.

The more we observe what goes on around us, the slower time passes.

With bullet time, it took 120 cameras taking thousands of pictures to film a scene that ultimately happened in seconds. Only by greatly increasing the number and perspectives of the things they captured could the producers make the scene feel slower to the viewer.

In our lives, intentional observation leads to a similar outcome: we get more out of our time.

The Matrix sends countless messages and will be the subject of analyses for decades to come. But its most universal one, transmitted both through its plot and the way the film itself came together, is that everything has something beneath its surface.

With bullet time, John Gaeta knew it would change how movies are made:

“It’s all baby steps towards something much larger that won’t be commonplace really for a few years, but there are people around the world scratching their heads about a new way to photograph things. It’ll be as revolutionary as when cameras came off sticks and went to a crane, when they came off cranes and went to steadicams. We’re talking about cameras that are now broken from the subject matter, that are virtual. So that’s the next phase.”

I don’t know what exactly lies beneath the surface of your life, but I know there’s an ocean of emotion, experience, and insight, waiting to be explored.

In order to do so, to find something, to reveal the truth, we must go deeper. Descending to these depths takes time and can only be accomplished through intent and careful observation. But if we take responsibility for those tasks, we can expect to live true to ourselves, to really enjoy our time, and to be fully engaged in life.

So go ahead. Hit the button. Trigger bullet time.

If you let us know what you find, you might even cause a revolution.

Your Gut Knows What You Need Cover

Your Gut Knows What You Need

Nik

“The man is obviously crazy. Are we just here to watch him die?”

That’s what his friends asked themselves. The man is Philippe Petit.

On August 7th, 1974, he and his crew raised a steel cable between the two towers of the World Trade Center and then…he walked on it. For 45 minutes, 1,300 feet in the air. It was extremely dangerous and highly illegal.

But today, he is a legend. An idol. An inspiration to millions.

Uncertainty sucks. Big time. We hate it. Hate it. But we also know it’s what stands between us and the things that make life worth living. That’s why we celebrate those who conquer it. Who persist in the face of uncertainty.

Philippe withstood an incomprehensible amount of uncertainty, compressed into 45 minutes of life or death. That’s why he’s a hero. But most of us aren’t meant for such crazy dares — and it’s a good thing we aren’t. Yet, the same principle applies.

What about his friends, for example? What about their uncertainty? For months, they helped him plan the coup, not knowing if he’d survive. That’s terrifying too, and equally worth commending.

The longer uncertainty is drawn out, the harder each next day becomes.

Maybe you’ve been waiting for important test results for months. Approaching the birth of a child, not knowing if it’ll go okay. Working towards an important deadline, unsure whether the judges will like the result.

When the mountain is high, every day is a new chance to let it get to you. You look up, see the peak and think, “My god, how am I supposed to move this?” Of course, our only job is to carry away small stones. But it’s easy to forget.

To focus on the smallness of the true task — the first date, the first case, the first page — it helps to trust your gut. But you have to take time to listen to it.

Let the clock run. Allow other matters to fly by. Direct your attention to what’s in front of you. And let your gut figure out the rest. If you feel tired, sleep. If a coffee sounds refreshing, go get one. And if you crave air, take a walk outside.

Sometimes, it takes a while to know what’s what. To tell what’s necessary from what’s ego and desire. So tune in to your gut. Don’t rush. Listen. Separate duty and surrender. Hack away the inessential. And keep doing it every day.

For each impulse, ask: “Will this help me return to the mountain? Is it the next step to carry away another stone? Or just a distraction? Am I shielding my eyes because I glanced at the peak?”

It is better to sit with these questions than to choose a path in haste. Wait. Let the answers trickle in. Don’t act before you feel strong enough to lift the weight. All of this is training. Learning to remain calm despite instability.

You won’t always nail this balancing act. Some days, you’ll fall. But you can get better. And before you know it, the mountain shrinks. A glacier turns into a peak. A pike becomes a hill. A hill turns into a plateau and, eventually, you’ll be walking through a valley, surrounded by creeks and meadows.

Sooner or later, the deadline comes, the test is returned, the man walks on the wire — and balance is restored. The uncertainty fades away.

Philippe Petit had an incredibly strong gut. Deep down, he always knew he had to walk up there. There was no alternative. So he learned to deal with the unease. Until it faded away.

Your gut may not point you to such lofty feats, but it still knows what you need. Whatever mountain you’ve set out to climb, it can help you reach the highest heights. But only if you take the time to let it speak.

Why Too Much Freedom Makes Us Unhappy Cover

Why Too Much Freedom Makes Us Unhappy

Nik

Back in the 90s, there were about 7,000 items in your average supermarket. That’s already a lot of stuff to choose from, but today, that number is as high as 50,000. That’s 50,000 choices, 50,000 yeses or nos — from one trip to the grocery store.

Given there are many more important things than doing our daily shopping, and almost each of them comes with a similarly outsized wealth of options, who wouldn’t feel stressed?

A nifty little concept to capture this anxiety we feel when we have too much freedom is FOMO — fear of missing out.

  • Can’t decide which stocks to buy? FOMO.
  • Wait till the last minute to pick the best event to go to? FOMO.
  • Have a hard time committing to a relationship? FOMO.

In The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz explains how too much choice leads to four conditions that reduce our happiness. And they’re all rooted in FOMO.

1. Analysis Paralysis

It’s easier to pick one out of two meals than one out of 50. With more options, we spend more time analyzing and tend to get stuck. Often, we’ll choose to do nothing at all for a long time, and dragging your heels never feels good.

2. Anticipated Regret

If there are millions of options, you should be able to find the perfect one, right? Wrong. Perfect almost never exists. But with so much choice, we think it has to, and therefore face immense pressure to get each choice right.

3. Postdecision Regret

This imagined perfect choice sticks with you long after you’ve decided. So no matter what you pick, if you had too many options at the time you made your call, you’ll be more likely to regret the choice later — and think it’s your fault.

4. Escalated Expectations

The more choice we have, the higher our expectations become. Objectively, we might be able to pick a pair of better-fitting jeans out of a selection of ten rather than just three. But subjectively, we can still feel worse, because our expectations have risen even more in comparison. With ten pairs available, better isn’t enough anymore. Again, they would have to be perfect.

Since it creates these four conditions and thus puts a lot of psychological pressure on us, FOMO is at the heart of modern-day unhappiness. With FOMO, even the tiniest, most irrelevant choice can balloon into a full-blown existential crisis. But instead of constantly solving these, we should fix the root cause. We should start fighting FOMO.

The first step of doing so is recognizing it as it happens. When you find yourself hesitating or taking unusually long to make a choice, sit with the discomfort for a second. Probe it with questions. Why is this so hard? What is stopping me from moving forward here? Is this an important issue? Or could I flip a coin and wouldn’t care much about the outcome?

The more you do this, the more “important” decisions you’ll expose as actually near-meaningless. And with each one you unmask, an idea becomes clearer and a new belief begins to form: FOMO makes absolutely no sense.

Not all of us remember simpler times pre-smartphones, pre-internet, even pre-computers. But, whether you’re lucky enough to do so or not, remember: we used to make do with what we had in almost all areas of life.

When I was a kid, I had to call my friend’s house to arrange a playdate. We set a time and then we showed up. And when we went home, we had to stop talking. We might not see each other again for a week. And everything, all of that, was perfectly okay. Today, the sheer image of all the uncertainty in this might feel depressing. Will he pick up the phone? Will she have time? What was he doing all of last week?

Back then, there was no internet to stay connected 24-7. But there was also no issue of who and what to stay connected with 24-7. There were also only ten pairs of shoes at the store, only three cars in your price range at the local dealer, and only two girls you liked in your local peer group. None of it meant the end of the world. In fact, as we now know, it made us happier.

So no. We don’t need to obsess over every detail of our lives. We don’t need to get every pizza topping right. Forget FOMO. Don’t let freedom hijack your brain. Don’t let it fool you into false importance. In the grand scheme of things, we’re still small. And in this smallness is where happiness lies.

Find JOMO. The joy of missing out. In a world that’s too full, letting go is reason to celebrate not cringe. Whenever you’re limited, be glad you have fewer options. Say thank you, pick something, and move on. And when you’re faced with a big selection, define some criteria. Find what meets your standards, and then don’t look back.

50,000 items at the supermarket. The world has become a big place. But that’s no reason to allow it to turn you into a nervous wreck. You can engage with all this choice, but you can also decide not to. You can shrink your option-circle. Make one choice to eliminate 1,000. Be small on purpose. And not buy into “more is always better.”

No matter how many items they stock, you can set your own boundaries. You’re in control. Use it. Exercise it. Discipline is happiness. Not just at the grocery store, but it sure is a great place to start.

Don't Forget to Breathe Cover

Don’t Forget to Breathe

Nik

You open your eyes and there it is. A spark. You can feel it. It’s tiny. But it’s enough. The beauty of new beginnings. You’re excited. You start. You roll. You make progress. You fuel the spark and the spark fuels you.

You’re motivated. You can’t sleep. You want to wake up and just go, go, go. You’re better. At work, at home, at the gym. It spreads. It’s contagious. You have energy. So. Much. Energy. Where does it come from?

Either way, it’s there. It needs go somewhere. You need more. Something else. Anything else. Another project. A new sport. A better job. Go, go, go!

But then, somewhere, something shifts. Where is it? Where is the spark? You wake up and…what? Why? How can this be? I don’t want to get up. No. Nooo. Just let me sleep. Come on. Just one extra hour.

But now, you can’t. Now, you have to get up. You have work to do. The gym is important. Your second project is slow. And a part of the first just broke. It needs fixing. Ugh. It’s too much. When are you supposed to do all of this?

A friend calls. She’s in town. Let’s get dinner? Another needs help. Hey, can you read my resumé? Slowly, anxiety creeps in. Everything is just another item on your to-do list. The list is long. Endless. It just spools off in your head. Over and over. Why does it never stop?

You can’t sleep. Your heart is pounding. You’ve had way too much coffee. You try anyway. Eight hours. Just this once. Pleaaase. You wake up after five. Argh. No time, no time. Gotta go. Gotta fix all of this.

Stop.

What happened? How did you go from “I can take on the world” to “I’m overwhelmed, alone, and no one understands me?” How did it fly by so fast?

Nothing. Nothing really happened.

You just forgot to slow down. You forgot to breathe.

Breathing. You’re doing it right now. But taking a breath? Please, do it right now. More breathing, more living. Deeper breathing, deeper living.

How thin our most important survival mechanism becomes. Often, we don’t even notice. We just sit there, looking at our screens. But a cascade of shallow gasps? Just enough air to keep functioning, yet not enough to properly process anything? That’s not breathing. And that’s not living.

But if anxiety takes over, that’s our next stop. And we always get there fast. Let’s hit the brakes. Let’s pause for a second.

In fact, let’s pause for several. Science makes a compelling case to do so. In The Willpower Instinct, psychologist Kelly McGonigal provides an alternative to our body’s ancient fight-or-flight response. She calls it pause-and-plan:

“The pause-and-plan response puts your body into a calmer state, but not too sedate. The goal is not to paralyze you in the face of internal conflict, but to give you freedom. By keeping you from immediately following your impulses, the pause-and-plan response gives you the time for more flexible, thoughtful action.”

But what does that response look like? How do you trigger it? Yup. You guessed it: Breathing.

“The pause-and-plan response drives you in the opposite direction of the fight-or-flight response. Instead of speeding up, your heart slows down, and your blood pressure stays normal. Instead of hyperventilating like a madman, you take a deep breath. Instead of tensing muscles to prime them for action, your body relaxes a little.”

A well-trained athlete has primed their body to exhibit this response. Faced with a challenge, an opponent, a hurdle, their default is to relax, then tackle the guy, jump off the board, or hit back the ball. The same goes for an expert or any seasoned mindfulness practitioner.

But even an amateur can learn. Practice the physical response, and the mind will follow. Breathing is our most fundamental pattern as human beings. It is also our first chance to disrupt a pattern, to escape anxiety’s grasp, to start with a clean slate and make a change.

Life is a cycle. It all comes and goes. Our state of busy, of energy, of motivation and anxiety. But at any point in this cycle, you can breathe.

More breathing, more living. Deeper breathing, deeper living.

Every problem has a solution. It’s never the same, but it always lies behind a single, deep breath.

Sometimes, it’s taking action. Sometimes, it’s acceptance. Sometimes, it’s thinking or waiting or courage or patience. But it’s always a solution we must take time to even see. A solution that needs room, that requires us to breathe.

Perseverance. That’s what it is. Perseverance, one cycle at a time.

Breathe.